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Salad Days and Webster Organic Farms (CSA) |
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I get the bulk of my summer produce from two women farmer friends who call their business "Salad Days." They grow their wonderful vegetables outside Milaca, Minnesota at Webster Organic Farms and bring the produce to the Twin Cities once a week. Our arrangement is part of what is called Community Supported Agriculture. Perhaps because I'm an old Kansas farm kid, I think CSA is the greatest idea to come along in some time. |
| CSA is a nation-wide movement to bring delicious and nutritious food from small farms to customers in the city through a regular "subscription" service. Because subscribers pay in advance, we reap the rewards of bountiful harvests and suffer the slings and arrows of inclement weather, pests etc. In short, CSA unites consumers with the reality of farm and food production. In addition to receiving absolutely tasty food, subscribers get some education and a chance to participate in changing farming practices that ultimately will benefit the land. |  |
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I like to think of CSA as a great way to remove from family farmers the hot and oppressive yoke of having to staff highway produce booths. If the farmers know that they have a market for their goods because subscribers have paid in advance, they need not sit at a roadside stand watching cars fly by and stirring up dust. Instead, they can be in the fields doing what they love to do or can visit with their subscribers at vegetable pick up sites. But there are lots of other benefits, too,not the least of which is creating a sense of community between urban and rural people. |
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Here's how it works: Once a week from May to September, I (and their other subscribers) meet with Nett Hart and Tamarack at Blue Moon Coffee House on Lake Street in Minneapolis to pick up our produce, get recipes and information about organic farming practices, learn about heirloom seeds and the wide variety of salad produce we'll be eating that week. We also do a fair amount of visiting, laughing and drinking coffee. Even the kids are treated respectfully!! |
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If you are interested in reading more about Community Supported Agriculture, follow the links listed below. If you would like to talk to Nett or Tam about becoming a subscriber, call or write: Salad
Days Or you could just stop by Blue Moon Coffee House on Thursday afternoons from 4:00-6:00 p.m.to talk with Nett or Tam directly. Bon apetite. |
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A Beginning List of Resources:
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