FARM FRESH IN FREELAND--

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by Lisa Duff , Oak Spring Farm

VISIT HERE

20633 Mt Zion Rd, Freeland, MD 21053

Remember what the produce aisle looked like when you were a kid? Maybe I’m dating myself but growing up in Central New York you couldn’t buy strawberries, tomatoes or watermelon in January. Most people ate canned veggies (homemade or store bought) in the winter and farm fresh in the summer.

The anticipation of the first sun ripened summer fruits was almost as good as the taste itself. Everybody had a garden or shopped at the local farm stand. Sweet corn & tomatoes were highly anticipated. A sun ripened farm fresh tomato and freshly picked sweet corn is worlds apart from the stuff at the grocery store.

Today the amount of produce in the grocery store year round is astounding. You can buy tomatoes, zucchini, blueberries and watermelon nearly every week of the year.

But I don’t.

I wait.

I want it to taste like it did when I was a kid. I want the flavors to burst. I want a mouth party every time I eat.

When I eat off season produce, factory farmed meat or bland, ‘cheap’ food I don’t get a mouth party.

Farm fresh is worth the wait. For me it’s worth the extra effort, cost and trouble. Just like cooking at home. Nobody makes a better salad than me. Except you, at your house, with your favorite ingredients and favorite dressing. Maybe. I make a damn good salad. Just ask anybody whose had lunch with me lol.

Farm Fresh vs. Grocery Store

  1. Local farms love to grow varieties you can’t get at the grocery store but they might have a shorter shelf life. They DO have lots of FLAVOR, more nutrition and Prana (life force energy, it’s real folks)!
  2. Grocery Store produce can withstand some knocks and drops. It’s true. As a rule it’s picked long before it’s ripe, coated with wax or chemicals and gassed to keep longer, look ‘fresher’ and transport better.
  3. Farm Fresh has a small carbon footprint and less or no middleman vs. Grocery store produce from California or Mexico via planes, trains & 18 wheelers clogging up the highway system!
  4. Farm Fresh produce is mostly picked by fairly compensated willing workers who believe in and support the local food movement vs. Grocery store produce often grown and harvested by workers in underpaid, unfair, unclean (often illegal) working conditions.
  5. Farm Fresh produce is significantly more nutritious, grown in fortified soils stewarded carefully by a farmer who’s asset is her limited land vs huge amount of acreage controlled by corporate demands of profit over people.

The list can go on but here’s some food for thought. We’re in this together.

Come see us at the Hereford Farmer’s Market! We’re there every Saturday from 9-12pm with all your farm fresh goodness! We will have the first of the strawberries, cucumbers from the high tunnel, lots of freshly harvested salad mixes, spinach, box choi, cilantro, parsley, sweet crunchy young spring carrots, beautiful beets, radishes, hakurei turnips, garlic scallions, our rainbow non GMO pastured eggs and SO much more!

Here’s my favorite Strawberry season salad

Toss together in a big salad bowl:

OSF mix, fresh sliced strawberries, crumbled goat cheese, toasted pecans, dried cherries and homemade strawberry balsamic vinaigrette!

In a 1/2 pint mason jar add 1/2 olive oil, 1/3 balsamic vinegar, 1 Tbls strawberry jam and a pinch of salt. Shake really well.

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