Produce and Farming

If you’ve been following along you’d know Andrew and I eat organic and clean our home using organic homemade products. Along with anything else to keep unwanted, unnecessary chemicals out. We’ve been going strong for about a year now and its been one of the greatest decisions we’ve made.

Our eating and grocery shopping habits went from night to day in just a short period of time. We stopped eating all fast food, we then started reading labels in the grocery store and purchasing grass-feed beef and free range chicken. Over the past 9 months we both have become more knowledgeable in exactly what we’re feeding our bodies.

This summer we started looking outside the grocery store, by starting our own organic garden. Its been difficult due to our lack of space. Majority of our plants are in containers and get limited sunlight a day.

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This tomato plant has been our shining star, we started him from seed and he now tops 5 feet tall! Our lemon tree is also thriving along with a bell pepper or two. Before summer is over I’d like to get an herb garden started.

Soon our tomatoes, lemons and herbs will find their way into my kitchen. But its not enough to keep me out of the produce section at the grocery store.

Andrew and I started asking ourselves, how organic is our produce from the grocery store? I don’t know the farmer, plus and many fruits and vegetables are from other countries. We started talking about other options, such as farmers markets and local farmers that practice growing organic fruits and vegetables.

We stumbled upon a farmer named “Organic Jack”, who has a farm less than 30 minutes from our home. Not only is he local but his team efforts with another farmer have the ability to keep their customers away from the super market. If you’ve been to your local grocery store lately and looked at their organic section I’m sure you wouldn’t find a wide selection of organic produce.

Andrew talked to organic Jack over the phone and a few days later we were scheduled for a tour of his farm. Long story short, we signed up with him to have our produce delivered every two weeks.

food basket

Monday we received our first produce box of goodies along with an order form for the next box in two weeks.

Last night I made a spinach salad, the same spinach salad I’ve been eating for the past 3 months but last night it was completely different. A whole new taste. That’s how I knew organic produce from the grocery store and organic produce from my farmer are absolutely different.

vegetables

fruit and vegetables

Its nice to know you’ve shook the hand of your farmer! Next we’d like to find ourselves a local butcher.

Have you stared a garden this summer?

2 comments:

Deanna (Silly Goose Farm) said...

This is a great post! Yes, we have a garden on our property (I'll be posting about it soon), and I keep a container herb garden as well. I just posted about how to really get the best bang for your buck (and space) here, if you'd like: http://thesillygoosefarm.blogspot.com/2011/06/container-herb-garden.html

I hope you will check it out (and share it, if you like it!). We have a local butcher, and we get most of our milk from the dairy next door to us. It is a great feeling.

Take care, and keep on keeping on with that great lifestyle!

~Deanna

ADa @ New York said...

We have tomatoe plant that we planted about 2 months ago .. it is about 5 feet tall, but NO tomatoes yet .. I love tomatoes so I excitedly star at it everyday hoping :) I'm looking fwd to eating produce from my own garden. I planted some herbs, but i forgot to label them, now I have no idea what's growing until they mature :O Have a beautiful day!!!!