Our children’s school curriculum includes a lot of historical fiction. They have been reading recently a number of books that take place in the 1700’s and 1800’s. The kids have excitedly announced numerous times that the characters in these books describe how much they look forward to the return of GREENS to eat in the springtime! It has been fun to reflect on how different life was for children in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and how year-round, grocery store vegetables were not an option.
We harvest and eat our greens all winter, but the diversity of vegetables is less than during the warm months, and we still crave Spring greens and other vegetables. These books have been a fabulous way for our children (and our whole family) to feel a connection with families of the past who were also connected to the natural eating cycles of our climate.
Various cultures around the earth have used the practice of fermenting/preserving greens to stretch out the supply through the winter months. Making SauerKraut and Kimchi are some ways of doing this. (Certainly many fruits and vegetables are canned, including some greens, but fermentation allows the CRUNCH to stay in some greens.) Shipping vegetables around the globe has replaced food preservation for most of our country’s culture.
But for those eating all or mostly local food, the options during these winter months are less than during the warm months! We are lucky to have hoophouses to grow in and thus we have had Greens each week of the winter, but they are in smaller quantity and available through fewer channels. Our 100 farm shareholders (CSA Members that get weekly boxes of 7-9 different vegetables) receive this goodness May through November because we don’t have sufficient quantity or diversity of vegetables in the winter months.
So the spring-time craving of vegetables is real! For most of the earth, for most of history, humans have looked forward to eating fresh, organic greens in the Springtime – wild or cultivated. Join us in celebrating the return of these greens, remembering our connections to our Ancestors who also cherished this important source of nutrients, and eating tremendously good food.
If you haven’t signed up yet, please Join our CSA so you can be sure to get a bountiful and delicious share of our weekly vegetables this season. Your body craves it!
We’ll see you Saturday at Farmers Market @ St. Stephens in the West End of Richmond where we will have…
Kale / Microgreens / Miner’s Lettuce / Pea Shoots / Salad / Spinach…and our Organic Hearth Baked Bread (Sunny Greens, Whole Rye, Raisin, & Seed loaves for this weekend) and Tomato Chutney.
{Our farmstand is open Thurs & Friday with most of the above items…see here for updated inventory}
Enjoy!
– Janet & Dan, & the whole Broadfork crew