One of the things we’ve missed being away from Morris is our weekly (in the summer) box of organic veggies from Easy Bean Farm. There are a lot more organics at the big grocery stores here than in Morris, but the Aldi across the road is pretty low-end and doesn’t have much of a fruit/veg selection, regardless of its organic status.
Happily, then, we attended a Green Fair at the Colchester Arts Centre last weekend where we met some fine folks from River Nene Organic Farm. It took me several questions to sort out a few things that were really different than back home, including:
- They’re still delivering, and in fact deliver year round. (Most CSA’s in Minnesota would have packed it in by now and won’t start delivering again until May/June.) The local veggies in the winter will, not surprisingly, lean towards to the root variety, but they’re still harvesting things like the cabbage family (brassicas) all winter.
- You don’t have to subscribe or make a long-term commitment. Back home CSAs tend to be run on a subscription/Co-op model. Here, though, they post what the boxes will contain on Friday, and we have until Tuesday evening to decide what we want, if anything. Very cool.
- They do home delivery (dead convenient since we don’t have a car).
Once I’d manage to dust off and re-arrange my pre- and mis-conceptions, it was clearly looking very spiffy and we signed up for a mini vegbox, which arrived Thursday evening.
This photo has samples of everything in the box (leeks, a swede, onions, potatoes, and mushrooms) except the carrots, which I didn’t feel like unwrapping and pose in the box.
As a result of all this organic goodness, WeatherGirl’s back in soup production mode, and yesterday made a nice thick soup out of the swede and a delicious leek and potato soup. And Sub-Evil Boy even spiffed up one of his frozen pizzas with some nice organic mushrooms. Nmmmmm…
