Dear Farmers To You community,
If you are like me, and other farmers and gardeners in New England, you are starting to feel ridiculously excited about radishes. On the other hand, we understand if you don’t have the same exuberance for radishes as you do for tomatoes, cucumbers or broccoli.
Subsistence farmers (and those that only eat locally and with the seasons) are coming off a long winter of eating root crops and frozen or canned produce grown last year. It feels like a beacon of hope seeing the radish seedling sprout a few round, bright-green leaves. For chefs, cooking in season, it is a downright culinary breakthrough to nibble on a crunchy, sometimes spicy, pink radish!
Spring is such a welcome relief, an eternal sign of hope and rebirth. It would be nice to celebrate with fresh strawberries and cream. Unfortunately, in New England, berries don’t ripen until July. To add insult, many of our delicious storage crops have either run out or begun to sprout. There is just no holding back nature. When an onion decides it is spring, it will sprout – even in a dark, cool drawer.
As you may have noticed, our selection of vegetables, greens, and eggs are in short supply right now. Eating seasonally has its challenges and we often call that early spring! We understand your frustration with the limited supply. We do not enjoy telling you that we have run out of something, or it is not quite ready.
It is a good thing that our team at Farmers To You knows a lot of competent farmers. Their ingenuity, and the use of greenhouses, get us in greens and veggies as early as possible. We can’t wait to share with you!
We invite you to join us in becoming acutely aware of the changes in the spring and summer harvests. You will notice the food in season tastes better. Soon you will observe that the leaves of your spinach get bigger, the amount of cream on the top of the cream top milk gets thicker, and the yokes of the eggs turn a brilliant orange. The abundance is on it’s way!
We hope you continue to find comfort in knowing the farmers who grow your food, how they grow it, the ingredients, and even who touched it before it reached your home (just the farmer and Farmers To You).
Thank you for your patience, and for the support of farmers and food producers. Thank you for being part of this bold commitment to build a safe, healthy, and close-to-home food system that we all call Farmers To You!
With gratitude,
Greg
Photo by Meghan Schiereck on Unsplash
