riverbend farm

My kitchen counter, covered with this week's farmshare bountyWhat am I going to do with all of this stuff? It's taking over my kitchen! My fridge is still nearly full from last week's Harmony Valley vegetables! My fruit share includes an entire bag full of apricots! I've been eating salad greens and sautee mix non-stop for weeks! I don't know if I can eat another basil vinaigrette. And now that there are tomatoes - blessed, delicious tomatoes - it occurs to me that nobody else in my family will touch them.

Image Credit: Mette Nielsen

"Take these," Greg Reynolds says, handing me a handful of rubber bands and a clipper. 

"Ah, uh, mmm…," I stammer.

"They’re for the arugula," he offers. Pull 'em out and clip 'em just below the crown. Then rubber band 'em two times around." Maybe Greg doesn’t realize who he’s talking to, or maybe, more likely, he's having fun at my expense.

I recently had a chance to help the great team at Riverbend Farm in Delano, MN pick and pack their weekly CSA/farmshare harvest (they produce 80 shares each week). Riverbend is a terrific, well-respected farm, which provides foods to many local Twin Cities restaurants, including the Birchwood Cafe, Common Roots, Corner Table, and many others. Here are the photos I took, along with a few notes from the day.

With apologies to Pete Townsend, I was very happy to check in on the onions we planted in May with the Birchwood Cafe and Common Roots at Riverbend Farm recently. Greg Reynolds told me that the hoe had just come through, and things were looking good. I agree.

A 90 second video from our day planting onions with folks from the Birchwood Cafe and Common Roots Cafe at Riverbend Farm. It’s a short, worthwhile watch that gives you a sense of the equipment out there (not all of it still in use) and what Greg Reynolds is all about. Riverbend supplies organic produce to many restaurants in the Twin Cities.

Okay, okay - it's organic food labeling that we need help with - not the food itself. The food itself? I'll let the excellent book Real Food by Nina Planck describe it:

Organic means food was produced without synthetic fertilizer, antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, genetically engineered ingredients, and irradiation.

Of all the foods I've experienced in my quest to eat local Minnesota foods this summer, none has surprised me more than the radish. Oh, I've eaten loads of overwintered parsnips, and was surprised by how sweet they were. I've enjoyed the salty twig taste of fried burdock. I've fallen in love with ramps over and over again - for all 3 weeks we could get them - and when they stopped coming back I felt a pang in my heart, as though jilted by a former lover.

This 90 second video features Danny Schwartzman from Common Roots and Greg Reynolds from Riverbend Farm discussing where the food produced on the farm goes, and a bit about CSA programs, and who certifies food organic in Minnesota. Filmed on May 24, 2009 at Riverbend Farm.

Organic certification is a substitute for knowing who's growing your food and how they're growing it.

- Greg Reynolds, May 24, 2009