Category Archives: local produce

Henrietta and Gracie

Not a new Jeopardy category (though they could be, I suppose), they’re a couple of gals we’d seen around town before but got to meet this morning. (DON’T FORGET TO CLICK THE PICTURES TO SEE THE ENTIRE PICTURE)

Back in November I made a post that said Campbell Chicks are the best. Today Springfield Al and I were introduced to them both. The one in the foreground is Gracie and the other one is Henrietta. Or is it the other way around? Dang.

Anyway, Al and I stopped by to introduce ourselves to the “chicken lady” (yes, I know – we’re very original in our naming conventions 😉 and to ask her if she’d like to participate in the Campbell Farmer approach to garden-sharing. Turns out she’d be thrilled to participate so we’ve added another contributing / exchanging person and their gardens. (She’s already got a nice garden going and is converting another unused area to garden as we speak.)

Thus far we’ve got “the usual” goodies: lettuces, onions, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, peas, beans, potatoes, herbs, watermelons, cantaloupes, fresh chicken eggs, jams, jellies and honey.

Seems like with very little effort, we’re picking up momentum. Stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to write when you get work.

CampbellFarmer.com home page photo / logo

Springfield Al and I were out yesterday and I shot this pic to crop and use as part of the homepage of CampbellFarmer.com.

Downtown Ted tells me the beginning of his winter vegetables will be ready soon to give me in exchange for the jar ‘o honey I gave him last week.

So far, I’ve got local sources for fresh laid eggs and winter veggies (beans, lettuces, etc). Our citrus is ready for harvesting now, so we’ve got fresh orange juice and citrus needed for the marmalades everyone likes so much. Oh, I know: I’ll check with that certain neighbor who loves to bake bread to see if she’ll swap some of our goodies for her bread. Mr. C has smooth-skinned avocados I need to pick for him today… he always offers some, so I’ll swap some pomegranate jelly for those, too.

Darn… if only there was a milk cow in the neighborhood, we’d be closing in on a pretty good local-food exchange.

That’s it for now. Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to write when you have work.

Are you a Campbell Farmer.com?

At about the same period of time we’ve gotten deeper in to home canning (50+ cases of jams / jellies / liqueurs), there has been an increasing awareness of the benefits of consumers growing / eating locally grown foods. Lots of “green” reasons (carbon footprint, likely more environmentally friendly), “tomatoes taste like the tomatoes we ate as kids”, and last, when done properly under good conditions, it seems to be more cost-effective.

As we were dealing with getting rid of our excess fruit production a few years ago we began exchanging more of our goodies with friends and neighbors. While they didn’t have any fruit we needed (we have a pretty good variety), we did like getting some of their excess vegetable production. We got beans, squash, a few tomatoes and this year, our first lettuce from Laurel.

When my eyes began to widen a bit more on the subject (homegrown veggies / fruit), I wondered out loud if there wasn’t some form of neighborhood / community exchange for the stuff we were all growing. (We’ve attended the Campbell Farmer’s Market since ’92 or ’93… don’t remember when it began – it was on Thursdays back then, iirc.) The idea won’t leave my head, so a couple of days ago, I registered the domain CampbellFarmer.com with the intent of establishing an exchange / board for local folks to get in touch and share with one another, completely non-commercial. My plans / schedule aren’t fully formed yet, so I’ll let you know when I have some things rolling along.

Thanks for visiting, be well and write when you get work.
hal