Your link to a pic more gross than a Bar Refaeli geek kiss.
Plus, in food news, it seems that worry about GMO is so 2012 (almost as old as worry about pesticides).
Your new agri cause of concern, outrage, & activism shall be:
NANOMATERIALS. It seems these “substances broken down by technology into molecule-size particles, are starting to enter the food chain through well-known food products and their packaging,”See the NYT article here. Thanks to Mike at localfoodsouthflorida.org for sharing the link.
The risk of nanomaterials in your share this week is low.
Local Food – Challenges
The risk having a light share this week was high. The week started out looking very bleak. All of our partner farms were reporting that meaningful harvests were unlikely. Cyndy was in a funk.
Fortunately, by Thursday, enough items became ready for harvest and you will see that you have plenty in your share.
So why the scarcity at the peak of season?
The answer is weather and timing. You may have noticed it hasn’t rained recently. And if you think that having half the lights in the Superdome go out is a problem, imagine that half the sunshine in Palm Beach county was effectively blocked by cloud cover over much of the past weeks. Sunshine and water… Some bugs probably ate your food as well.
So farms had harvested in abundance over the past weeks in anticipation of younger crops coming mature now. Only they haven’t. See Kim Erickson’s report below.
You probably know that your Farm Share food comes from farms as small as Aaldmon (1 acre) and as large as the multi-field Alderman farm, but they all had the same issues.
Scarcity of food is a reality that all humankind (and all animals- except cats) have endured until only the past two generations here in the western world. We would expect local food to be scarce in the off season (summer for us). So if you find you have extra food during any week, we urge you to preserve it somehow – freeze it, roast it and freeze it, pickle it, what ever.
Working with more than one farm has allowed us to offer diversity of food and helped us overcome this week’s scarcity.
But we need more local farms, especially if more people insist on eating from the local food shed.
Local Food – Victories
Speaking of needing more farms…you may already know, but the project we backed to bring farming back to Oakland Park was approved this week by the forward-thinking (and smart and attractive and possessing above average intelligence) commissioners of the city. Seriously, they all voted in favor and we are grateful for their support.
And in the process, they liberated all the bees in Oakland Park. It seems that OP bees have been living an underground railroad existence since being summarily banned many years ago. As Jon Albee pointed out, you can’t have a farm without bees, so bee emancipation was also enacted!
As outgoing OP mayor Anne Sallee stated on our FB page: “It turns out that honeybees and humans share many similarities: we socialize, dance, eat honey, touch, feel, mimic one another, sleep, enjoy caffeine and nicotine, and we vote.”
Be free bees.
Local Food – Summary
The Oakland Park farm will be cool and we look forward to being part of that community, but our members are from all over the county and we are dedicated to making local food a reality for more people, so we are working on more projects. Our mini farm planned for Old Pompano is still in the works and other opportunities will be presenting themselves.
More and more people are starting to grow for themselves with systems ranging from hydroponic towers to Earthbox to raised beds. So well count each new home farmer as a victory as well.
Farm Update:
Last week Kim Erickson exposed how she gets the awesome broccoli we’ve been enjoying.
This week she supplies the repulsive photo you’ve been searching for since the headline. (Repulsive to farmers and people who depend on their food) The photo shows how dry is the ground.
Kim Reports:
We got a light sprinkling of much needed rain on Friday. Dad was out roto-tilling in the drizzle and kicking up a dust storm.
Unfortunately, we have a mystery break somewhere in our main irrigation system so a lot of our watering is being done by hand right now.
Still things are growing slow. Glad to finally be getting lots of sun. Now if we can balance that with a few showers the plants would be delighted. If you haven’t figured it out yet, farmers are never happy with the weather.
Thanks Kim.
See the photos of your food in the ground at Erickson Farm here.
See the photos from Aaldmon Farm here.
Important Facts of The Week
(you can use to impress your minions).
Average distance the food in your Farm Share traveled this week: 37.83 miles. Avg. distance of the farms: 26.9 miles.
Sapote and Sapodilla are in season and delicious.
Carambolas will be around until a freeze occurs - they’ve been great, right?
Great cherry tomatoes of several varieties from West Glades Middle school are on the Market table.
Nice eggplant.
Awesome green onions this week from Boynton Beach.
Grow your own grass.
Freedom had Abe Lincoln & the OP bees have Jon Albee.
And Jon has put together a soil formulation that makes your wheat grass seeds explode in brilliant and nutritious green blades. You can (and should) get your own kit. Each kit has three trays so you can have grass growin’ for the next several weeks. Plus, he’s paired it with the Lexan manual juicer for an additional discount.Come in and get yours at the patio market.
Farm List
- 4 Ripe sapodilla
- 1 cub almond milk
- 1 heaping teaspoon raw cacao powder
- 2 cups ice (approx.)
- Blend all an serve – how easy it that? I also stirred in cacao nibs after blended. An $8.00 dessert at any fine restaurant.