Each week, our distribution gets better and better! We’re becoming more efficient at preparing and running the farm stand as the summer rolls along. Even the weather has been nothing short of perfect these past two weeks! I’ve enjoyed so much being at the farm stand Thursday nights and seeing how excited people get over some of the produce we provide. The most rewarding thing is when you see familiar faces and hear how people have tried and loved vegetables that they had never even heard of before!
This week Alison and Stephen from the Easton Hospital came and handed out samples of kale chips and beet salad, as well as the recipes to make them at home. Alison was able to talk to people about the nutrition values of the food. Everyone loved it! So many people turned down kale when they first got to it, but when they tried the chips, they realized that they actually liked it. We’ve never run out of kale faster! It was amazing to see how open people were to trying the samples and how quickly their attitudes about the vegetables changed. I’m looking forward to our next visit from the Easton Hospital in August!
Last Thursday night, we had our first distribution at the South 10th and Pine Street community garden! It was great to finally be able to share our vegetables with the West Ward Neighborhood. At the beginning of the week, Andrew, Alexa and I were convinced that all we would have at the stand would be zucchini and summer squash since we already had over fifty pounds from the Urban Farm, but Thursday morning we realized there were plenty of other vegetables ready to be harvested! At the stand we had swiss chard, beets, kohlrabi, yellow onions, green onions, sugar snap peas, snow peas and shell peas, radishes, kale, and squash from the Urban Farm, collard greens and purslane from Yvonne’s garden on Walnut Street, and beans and green onions from our own garden at Lafarm. In total, we had over 285 pounds of produce!
Thursday even though it rained the entire time we were there. We recognized a few faces from attending the Kellyn Foundation’s cooking demonstrations at Summer nights where we handed out flyers about the stand. Everyone was thrilled to receive so many of the vegetables and most were even willing to try new things! Not many people had heard of kohlrabi before, but when we told them we had a recipe that incorporated it, they wanted to try it. I enjoyed handing out the vegetables and being able to tell each person a little bit about what they were getting. It was wonderful to see how much people appreciated getting the vegetables and seemed to me like they really valued the food that they were receiving. I’m hoping that we can learn from this distribution and make some improvements for next week. I’m interested to see if many people come back again, and if we have new faces. Also, I’m curious to see if more people come if it doesn’t rain and if they hang around the garden or still leave right after getting their veggies. Looking forward to next Thursday night!!
