The 12th annual Garden Expo will be held at Fairfield Ludlowe High School in Fairfield, Connecticut on March 20-21, 2010. The celebrated show features over 70 home and garden related exhibitors selected by invitation only for their superior interest, quality, and appeal.  The Garden Expo appeals to the gardener and the non-gardener alike.  The variety of our exhibitors’ wares includes art, crafts and products for the home and garden. There’s something for everyone: the old, the young, and the young at heart.

The Garden Expo is presented annually by the Garden Expo Committee for the benefit of River-Lab, a program of the Mill River Wetland Committee, a unique hands-on program of environmental study.

Rumor has it the SUPER NEW mobile, wood-fired brick oven is coming to cook up some farm-fresh lunch for hungry visitors. I’m putting in my order now for whole wheat pizza with winter spinach and goat cheese! We can find him in the parking lot next to the kettle corn truck.

Admission:

Adult $6
Children $4
Sr. Citizen $5

Location:

Fairfield Ludlowe High School CONVENIENT LOCATION!
785 Unquowa Road
Fairfield, CT 06824
Free Parking
Map with directions
Launch Yahoo! Maps

Drawing:

There will be a drawing for a door prize each day. Last year’s door prizes were valued at $250 each.
Garden Expo Photos

The Mill River Wetland Committe, Inc. (MRWC) is an award winning non-profit organization founded in 1967 to strengthen environmental education through the study of the river basin system. Funds raised from THE GARDEN EXPO are used toward the operating budget of the organization and to fund curriculum development projects.

For more information, please contact us at 203-913-0172 or gardenexpoct@aol.com .

There are numerous advantages to planting gardens in raised beds. Sal Gibertie, owner of Gilbertie’s Herb Gardens in Westport and one of the most knowledgeable gardeners anywhere, will enumerate them and provide expert how-to advice on Tuesday, February 9th from 7pm-9pm at Ambler Farm in Wilton. Sal will also bring copies of his new book, Small Space High Yield Gardening, to sell and sign.

Ages: Adults

Fee: $5 per person, FREE for members

Registration: Walk-ins welcome. Advance registration click here.

CT NOFA’s 28th Annual Winter Conference

Celebrate Local Organic Farming, Gardening, Landscaping and Sustainable Lifestyles

Co-sponsored with Manchester Community College’s Team Green

Saturday, March 6, 2010
Manchester Community College
Manchester, CT
8:30 am to 4:45 pm

Join us in celebration of local organic farming, gardening, landscaping and sustainable lifestyles. This event will feature 30 plus workshops, a vendor and exhibit area, keynote speech, delicious potluck lunch, children’s program, and a series of hands-on cooking demonstrations.

KEYNOTE~ REGISTRATION~ WORKSHOPS~ SPONSORS~VENDORS

Keynote

Featuring Michael Shuman, author of The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition. Author and entrepreneur, Mr. Schuman has written nearly one hundred articles for such periodicals as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Parade, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. His books and articles have explored people, practices, and policies in the fields of technology, national security, citizen diplomacy, municipal foreign policy, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and business development. To view Michael’s blog, click here.

Michael co-authored a recent report, “Community Food Enterprise: Local Success in a Global Marketplace,” spotlighting 24 ventures around the world that are pioneering models for local food.

Registration

	Before 2/19	After 2/19
NOFA Members:	$40	$45
Non-Members:	$50	$55
Students/Seniors:	$25	$30

Volunteer for 2 hours and receive $10 off the registration price!

Children 12 and under are free.
Free daycare will be available for children ages 3 to 12 with preregistration only.

Online registration is now available. Details>

For a printer-friendly form to mail in, click here.

Workshops

PERMACULTURE DESIGN FOR PRODUCTIVE CONSERVATION:  GROW FOOD, REBUILD THE ENVIRONMENT - Keith Zaltzberg, Regenerative Design Group www.regenerativedesigngroup.com

GROWING CUT FLOWERS - Alan Gorkin, Growing sustainable cut flower crops for to increase market diversity.

MAKING FOOLPROOF COUNTRY WINE - Jack Kittredge, Many Hands Organic Farm.  www.mhof.net

BUILDING A CSA - Dina Brewster, The Hickories Farm www.thehickories.org

HOW WE GROW GARLIC AT WAYNE’S ORGANIC GARDEN - Wayne Hansen, Wayne’s Organic Garden www.waynesorganicgarden.com

FIRST LESSONS IN BEEKEEPING - C. Marina Marchese, Red Bee Apiary   www.redbee.com

THE AMATEUR ARTISAN BAKER - Jiff Martin, Serious & not-so-serious home bakers learn new techniques and share old favorites.  Taste tests & take home live starter.

WORM COMPOSTING - Nick Mancini,   www.OrganicGardeningSimplified.com

SEEDY BUSINESS:  THE HISTORY, POLITICS, & FUTURE OF SEEDS - Ken Greene,  Hudson Valley Seed Library  www.seedlibrary.org

RAW MILK AND FOOD RIGHTS - David E. Gumpert, www.davidgumpert.com

“LIKE A GOOD NEIGHBOR, YOUR AGRICULTURE COMMISION IS THERE” - John Weedon,  How to start a commission w/no money down.  What a Town Agriculture Commission can do to help farmers.  How to work effectively with a commission.

THREATS TO THE HEALTH OF HONEY BEES AND WILD BEES - Dr Kimberly Stoner, Vegetable Entomologist at the CT Agriculture Experiment Station, New Haven.  www.ct.gov/caes

FARM TAXES SHOULDN’T BE TAXING - Ron Capozzi, “Class will be limited to those who think they can spend their money wiser than the government.”

GETTING INTO RAW FOODS - Rawdawg Rory  www.rawdawgrory.com

RAISING DAIRY GOATS & MAKING CHEESE - Paul Trubey, Beltane Farm.  www.beltanefarm.com

NATURAL NIBBLES, AN INTRODUCTION TO WILD PLANT FORAGING - Bryan Connolly, Massachusetts State Botanist, PhD student - Native Plant Horticulture.

WEED ECOLOGY & ORGANIC WEED CONTROL - Robert Durgy, Farm Manager CT Agricultural Experiment Station, Griswold Research Center.

THE 10 LEAST WANTED: VEGETABLE INSECTS PESTS & WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM - Robert Durgy, Farm Manager CT Agricultural Experiment Station, Griswold Research Center.

EXTENDING THE GROWING SEASON AND COLDWEATHER CROPS - Bettylou Sandy, Bettylou’s Gardening.  Learn tricks to extend the growing season at both ends. Harvest April thru November.

THE FUTURE OF COMMUNITY FOOD SECURITY - Michel Nischan, Wholesome Wave Foundation www.wholesomewave.org

HOOP TUNNELS,  LOW & HIGH - Bryan O’Hara, Tobacco Road Farm.  Use, construction, costs, and appropriate crops for the extended season production of vegetable crops.

BACKYARD BARNYARD - Peter & Judith Rothenberg, Northfordy Farm.  Sustainable farm animal husbandry.

GREENHOUSE/NURSERY ENERGY CONSERVATION - IDEAS THAT SAVE MONEY - John W. Bartok Jr. Extension Agricultural Engineer - Emeritus Univ of CT  Materials, tools, and techniques for reducing fuel  & electricity  use in small to medium size propagation & production structures.  Basics of wood, corn, waste oil, geothermal & solar systems.

REFORM OF THE “SUPPLY CHAIN”: INSTITUTIONAL FOOD SERVICE - Marydale DeBor, Plow to Plate/New Milford Hospital  www.plowtoplate.org

HILLS AND VALLEYS - RAISED BED GARDENING - James Roby, Roby’s Organic Farm.  Raised bed, ridge till and trench planting methods.  Managing walkways, mulching, and cultivation.

SO  YOU WANT TO START A  FARMERS MARKET? - Winter Caplanson    www.CoventryFarmersMarket.com Basics of starting a market; defining a niche for your farmers market, state requirements, location, management, vendor recruitment, rules/regulation & marketing.

EXPERT PANEL DISCUSSIONS:

BACK (AND FORTH) TO OUR ” ROOTS” - Dr. Lisa Gengo, PA, ND, CNS, Chef  John Turenne, President & Founder of Sustainable Food Systems  &  Farmer Wayne Hansen  discuss & demonstrate uses and nutritional benefits of familiar and the less-well known winter vegetables.

Additional details and workshops still to come.

Sponsors

Gold Level Sponsors - Stonyfield Fam and Whole Foods Market

Silver Level Sponsors - Farmer’s Cow and Global Environmental Services

Supporting Sponsors - Sunlight Solar Energy, Farm Credit East, New England Seed and Steven A. Rose Agency

Vendor - Exhibitors

If you’d like to reserve a space, please call the office at 203-888-5146.

___________________________________________________________

POTLUCK DETAILS

Please bring a dish to share with everyone-it need not be local food or even organic-do what you can. A family-sized serving is fine, along with the recipe or ingredient listing. Drinks are always welcome if you are unable to cook.

Our impressive staff of kitchen volunteers will be on hand to pull it all together for us and make sure hot dishes are hot and salads are dressed.

To help us conserve, please bring your own place setting, napkin, and utensils. Questions? Call 203-888-5146.

_____________________________________

Charlie is a fourth grader at King’s Highway Elementary School in Westport who has a deep passion for the farming life. It’s immediately obvious that Charlie would rather be farming than anything else, so when his teacher offered him the opportunity to do an independent study project, he jumped at the chance to share his knowledge and passion with his classmates.

Working with his teacher, Mrs. Malizia, he spent the last six weeks preparing a multimedia presentation for his class about local farms and their importance to our community. Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the class presentation. Charlie very confidently stood in front of his class and gave them an eloquent primer on local farms. “Do you know where your food comes from?” he asked the children sitting on the floor around him. He then presented the basic facts about what a farm is, how varied they are in size and nature, defined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and talked about the history of farming in the area. Corn and apples figure prominently in the area’s agricultural past (and present), but I really enjoyed learning that onions were grown in Westport during the Civil War to combat scurvy in the army ranks and “young boys our age would miss their spring and early fall school terms to harvest the onions.”

Charlie has a soft spot for Patti Popp, owner of Sport Hill Farm in Easton and host to almost 200 children in a summer farm camp run through The Unquowa School. During his “Meet the Farmer” segment, Charlie described Patti as “a hard working organic farmer who sometimes works from 7 am to 9 pm in the busy season on her four-and-a-half acre farm.” Highlighting the special relationship Patti has with her CSA families, Charlie pointed out that “once a week people come to pick up their shares that she picks that morning. Sometimes crops don’t do well, like broccoli this year, but there was arugula, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, bok choy, peppers, garlic and Swiss chard.”

“Farms are important to our way of life and we don’t want to lose them. If we can eat what is in season, it will save a lot of energy and fuel. One way to eat locally is to visit the farmers’ markets” recommended Charlie. “More and more kids are eating closer to home” from local farms and community, school and backyards gardens. “If we had a school garden like Staples and Greens Farms Academy, we could use it for science and maybe use the food in our cafeteria” Charlie suggested. One classmate added “cafeteria food isn’t healthy; I don’t like it” and received a roar of consent from the other children.

“It is important for kids to visit farms because you could like farms and not even know it” pointed out Charlie.  His best recommendation for   learning about farms and farming is to attend a farm camp. And he should know, he’s been attending them for years. “When I was 8, I went to Shelburne Farms in Vermont to their summer farm camp. It was a thousand acre farm, one of the largest farms I’ve been to. We helped collect eggs, feed pigs, help garden and visit the dairy.” At The Unquowa School’s Summer Farm Camp kids plant, harvest and really get their hands dirty at Patti’s Sport Hill Farm in Easton. They also get to eat what they’ve harvested after cooking it back at the school with Chef Peter Gorman. Charlie’s been attending the camp for two years now and said “It’s fun to get in the dirt and help.”

After the talk, it was all hands as the children peppered him with questions. “What is your favorite farm animal?” to which he responded “chickens, because they give you eggs every day.” “What do you like to do most on the farm?” elicited  “I like planting, harvesting and working with the animals. Harvesting cauliflower was really hard because we had to twist and turn them to get the heads out of the ground.” “Will you grow up to be a farmer?” really required no response but it was wonderful to hear him say that yes, he would, and he’d be just like Patti raising vegetables and taking care of animals.

Mrs. Malizia manned the laptop to run a slide show on the classroom SmartBoard of  Charlie visiting his favorite farms . When he got to the photo of broccoli and cauliflower, one child responded “Nice!” and the photo of hot peppers elicited a “Oh those are good!” from another. It’s obvious that these children know what real food is and like it! One little girl said her mother is an organic gardener and they even have chickens.

The last portion of Q&A was directed at Charlie’s special guest, organic farmer Patti Popp. “Do you really have a farm?” one girl asked almost incredulously. “Yes I do but we had to clear a lot of land to plant the farm” responded Patti. “When did you start?” another wanted to know. “It took many years to clear the land so we are now in our fourth year of farming” explained Patti. In response to  “What is your favorite vegetable to grow?” Patti said with great certainty “tomatoes and spaghetti squash - both to grow and eat!” Chickens are her favorite farm animal and she raises Rhode Island Red hens to provide her customers with farm fresh eggs.

Patti talked about the  summer farm campers’ experiences, ranging from  learning that farm chores need to be done “even when it’s hot, rainy and sticky”, to playing zucchini baseball, to cooking and eating the foods they’ve picked. “Fresh picked food tastes different; don’t say you don’t like something until you’ve tasted it” she suggested. Mrs. Malizia summed up pretty much everyone’s thoughts when she said “I want my son to go to your camp as soon as he’s not one!”

After the presentation Mrs. Malizia pulled out the latest issue of Time for Kids magazine entitled “From Farm to You: A Fresh Look at Lunch” and shared that she had used it in class and felt it enabled the kids to better relate to Charlie’s message. It’s not often that a student takes her up on an offer to do an independent project, but it seemed she genuinely enjoyed meeting once a week with Charlie to help him manage the project, sometimes working over lunch with him. He told me that with help from his parents, he researched the history of Westport farms at the library and obtained information about the Westport Community Garden on Hyde Lane from Westport Now, a new resource for him. Welcome to new media Farmer Boy.

A member of my CSA sent around a recipe for Tuscan kale chips that had run in Bon Appetit magazine and recommended making them for an unusual yet crispy and satifsying alternative to the usual sauteed or braised kale. I took a quick look at the recipe, and upon discovering that it was by Dan Barber, the chef at Blue Hill, I knew it had to be special. He’s all about fresh, local foods that are minimally manipulated yet incredibly delicious. And I had just been to a tour of Stone Barns and gotten a taste of his food at lunch. The lure was irresistible.

The one crop, other than lettuce, that did well in my backyard garden this summer was Lacinato kale, the very kind the recipe called for. Having lost my entire crop to the bunnies last year, I had my husband build a special wire cage to sit on top of the raised bed to keep them out! So I headed in the backyard, harvested some of my Tuscan Kale (aka dinosaur or black kale), and got to work. Technically, this is the easiest recipe to make, yet it yields an end product that belies its simplicity.

The roasted whole kale leaves, dressed with olive oil and salt, are a beauty to behold, fun to eat, and taste like nothing you’ve had before. The work is in the prep - removing the leaves from them stem. Get your largest kitchen knife and sharpen or hone it before running it down each side of the center rib to remove the leaves.

My only advice on the roasting is that the recipe calls for a 30 minute cooking time and I consistenly cook them for only 20 in a convection oven. So set your timer for 20 minutes and if they feel light and crispy and you can smell them, they’re done. The leaves will turn amber and taste bitter if overcooked.

After they cook, pick one up with your fingers, crunch off a piece and enjoy the burst of nutty, salty flavor. Serve them with dinner, snack on them, or pack them in a lunch box. I promise you’ll enjoy them and make them again and again. Maybe you’ll even grow some kale next year! It’s the crop that keeps on giving since you can harvest the leaves from the bottom up and continue to harvest as new leaves emerge from the top.

Interesting variations I haven’t tried yet include sprinkling the kale chips with Parmesan cheese as they finish cooking and dressing them with sesame oil and soy sauce for an Asian rendition. Here’s a link to the original recipe. Store at room temperature and I don’t recommend reheating; they’re too easy to ruin.

by Eileen Weber

Wyatt Whiteman is a farmer. He grows an organic garden. He has his own beehive. He raises chickens. And rabbits. And ducks. And horses. And even a tiny Dexter cow named Bridey. And he does all of this on one acre of land in the middle of Fairfield.

To say that Wyatt Whiteman is a little unorthodox is like saying Mt. Everest is a foothill. But Whiteman doesn’t seem to care that he might be a little off the beaten track. What he does care about is the land, particularly the land he grew up on.

His house dates back to 1760. In fact, he inherited it from his family and has lived there all his life. Previous generations lived off of what was once three acres of farmland. “Imagine what this was like even one generation ago, living off the land with an outhouse in back,” said Whiteman.

Now at only a third of that size, Whiteman sells his produce on a little stand at the edge of his property. He’s known around town for the gigantic carved pumpkins he displays on his front stoop for Halloween. Last summer, he sold enough tomatoes to buy wood pellets to heat his home. This past summer, he even started a CSA with his neighborhood.

“The beauty of it was it encouraged my kids to try new things like white eggplant,” said Valerie Wilke, a neighbor and member of Whiteman’s CSA called Mama’s Manna. “We’re just really happy there’s a local grower you can talk to. He’s really responsive.”

That’s because, to Whiteman, fresh food is better than store bought any day. “Did you hear that crunch?” he said as he bit into a green pepper off the vine. He said the same thing digging half-long carrots out of the ground. “There’s something different about it. Take a whiff. You’re not going to smell anything like that in the supermarket.”

Sure enough, the carrots had a deeper smell of carrot. The celery was a darker green and gave off the same scent it would sweating in an iron skillet as the base for a stew. The peppers had a crispness you don’t see in the flabby piles at the supermarket.

Whiteman will tell you that anyone can survive on what they raise in their own backyard. Dressed in colonial garb, Whiteman also has a 40-minute video illustrating how to cook chicken on a string, among other dishes, over an open fireplace. He has taught classes through Fairfield’s Continuing Education Program as well as how to cook a whole chicken dinner at Debra Tyler’s Local Farm in Cornwall.

Tyler shares Whiteman’s view on a simpler life. She considers it a “sound health care plan” knowing that her work feeds her friends and family.

“There is something deeply satisfying about growing, harvesting, and/or preparing our own food,” said Tyler in a recent e-mail. “It creates a sense of connectedness to the land and to our innate creative abilities. It also requires one to slow down and pay attention to the task at hand. Our technology has upped our expectations as to what we can do in a day so much that our lives are incredibly fast paced.”

Whiteman prides himself for living off the land and not using electricity whenever possible. To some, that might sound idyllic; to others, not so much. Whiteman often doesn’t have enough money to fund his great ideas about simpler life. His house is crowded and cluttered. “Sorry for the mess,” he explains, “but this isn’t Martha Stewart’s place.”

But he doesn’t care how pretty things look. “Farming is hard work,” he says. “But to a lot of people it’s just the flavor of the month. They don’t want a zucchini because maybe it’s a little dirty or has a worm on it.”

Whiteman talked about a woman who stopped by his farm stand. She was having company and wanted perfectly shaped red tomatoes. What Whiteman had was a bunch of heirloom tomatoes, not the “vine-ripened” kind that are picked green and made red by ethylene gas.

While his fruits and vegetables may not be perfect, they’re organic, local, and fresh tasting. They don’t carry harmful pesticides and they weren’t artificially grown in a distant hemisphere. His produce, much like himself, is a throwback to a simpler time: An era in which nothing was wasted and everything was recycled because it had to be.

Whiteman may not necessarily be an everyman or have a common philosophy. He does, however, make a really good point. You can survive on what you grow in your own back yard. And frankly, you should.

The summer fruit and produce is gone it’s true, but it has been replaced by fall’s bounty. Cooler temperatures invite us to turn on the oven to roast some vegetables and bake some apples. Have you taken the Eat Local Challenge yet? It’s simply and invitation for you to find fun and delicious ways to add more local foods to your family’s weekly menu.  Read on for a few FRESH ideas.

1) Pick from your own backyard garden. Do you have some broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale or lettuces still growing? Add them to any meal to make it a CT Grown feast.

2) Go foraging for free food! Does your neighbor have an apple tree in their backyard that’s full of ripe fruit? Offer to help them pick it in exchange for a share.

3) Shop at a local farmers’ market or farm stand and stock up for the week. Fairfield’s Greenfield Hill and Brick Walk farmers’ markets run on Saturdays and offer a wide variety of CT Grown produce, fruit and artisan made foods. The Double L Farm Stand in Southport offers an eclectic mix of produce and fruit. Visit the Fairfield Green Food Guide’s Buying Guide for hours and locations of all Fairfield County farmers’ markets.

4) Shop at a farm and vote local with your dollars. Sport Hill Farm in Easton sells their organic produce, eggs, Wave Hill bread and honey at the farm on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10-6 through the first frost (closed 10/24 for a private party). Sherwood Farm on Sport Hill Road in Easton offers a wide variety of just-picked produce from their fields and fruit from CT orchards at their four-season farm stand that’s open seven days a week through the first frost. Free-range eggs will remain available through the winter. Visit the Fairfield Green Food Guide’s Buying Guide for farms in your area.

5) Visit a farm to pick-your-own. It’s apple picking season and Beardsley’s Cider Mill and Orchard in Shelton is a great place to pick-your-own because they grown over 25 types of apples, some of which are heirloom varieties. Their farm- made fruit and pumpkin pies, cheesecake, cider donuts, cookies and cider are available for purchase in the store. Bring cash or a check for the pick-your-own apples.

6) Buy from a local specialty or independent grocer that makes it a point to carry locally grown and produced food. Palmer’s Market in Darien, Fairfield Cheese Company and The Pantry in Fairfield, and Walter Stewart’s Market in New Canaan carry local fruits, vegetables, breads, cheeses, honey, artisanal and prepared foods.

7) Dine at a restaurant that sources local and organic ingredients. Health in a Hurry in Fairfield, The Dressing Room and the newly minted Le Farm in Westport, Bloodroot in Bridgeport, Cobbs Mill Inn in Weston, David’s Catering and Napa & Co. in Stamford, and Woodway Country Club in Darien all cook with the seasons using fresh, local ingredients.

8) Buy CT Grown foods online for home delivery. Order online from CT Farm Fresh Express by noon Tuesday for a Friday home delivery. You pick what and how much CT-grown food you want from their online store and they deliver it to your door. No minimums, no membership fees and no ongoing commitment. Leave a cooler with ice packs on your doorstep if you won’t be home to receive the delivery.

9) Join a winter CSA (Community Supported Agriculture program). Gazy Brothers Farm is offering a 6-week winter CSA, which is a share in the farm’s late fall and early winter harvest, and is available for pick up at the Greenfield Hill farmers’ market on Saturdays as well as other Fairfield County farmers’ markets where they are a vendor.

10)   Buy some Connecticut wine directly from a winery or wine shop that carries local wine like Harry’s Wine & Liquor in Fairfield. Some standouts from the Connecticut Wine Festival were Sharpe Hill Vineyard’s Ballet of Angels, the award-winning wines of Hopkins Vineyards, Miranda Vineyard’s Seyval Blanc and Woodridge White, Land of Nod’s Bianca, Taylor Brooke’s Traminette and Connecticut Valley Winery’s Chianti and port-style Black Bear.

Pequot Library, Southport, presents Composting 101 for Kids & Families on Saturday, October 3 from 2-4. Learn as you build a composting bin for the Library as part of their “Green Initiative”. Master Gardener and educator Nick Mancini, aka The Soil Guy, will teach the what, how and why of composting and organic gardening. Call 203-259-0346 ext. 18 to register.

When you think of a farm stand, you think of peaches, corn, tomatoes, peppers and all the other high demand crops grown in the area. Would you also think of Asian Pears grown locally and organically? Would you think of organic Black Mission figs from Michael’s grandmother’s trees in Cheshire, lovingly and carefully picked and brought to the stand for you to drool over? Would you think of asking if they would cut you some fresh Swiss chard or dandelion greens or pick you a few Nasturtium for a salad from their garden out back? Well then you haven’t been to the Double L.

If you want some of those figs, pears or apples go posthaste to 3611 Post Road, Southport before they’re all gone. When they have somethings super special like these beauties, customers tend to go a little nuts and buy them out. I couldn’t resist the perfect petite Northford strawberries yesterday and they turned into a luxury snack for my son who agreed “best strawberries ever mom”. Look for the white tent. The stand is open Tuesday-Friday from 10 to 7, Saturday from 10 to 6, and Sunday from 10:30 to 5.

Lloyd and Michael know the provenance of every item they sell and it behooves us to visit regularly. Today they have organic Asian pears, Macouns and Fuji apples from Fairfield and organic Black Mission figs from Cheshire.  So here comes the disconnect - there are no farmed orchards in Fairfield so where the heck are the apples coming from? Private farms (read large backyard gardens).

There are families in Fairfield who grow  a wide variety of abundant crops without pesticides and fertilizers on their property and have for years supplied the Double L with its local and eclectic mix of fruits and vegetables that its devotees regularly look forward to. Next week local (backyard garden) rainbow carrots, organic sweet potatoes, broccoli and spinach are coming in. The baseball field turned farm in Weston will also be supplying them with Yukons and Red potatoes in addition to the squash they’ve been harvesting.

According to Lloyd, these are the Top 10 Things Heard Yesterday at the Double L:

10. Yes we have Honey Crisps and Macouns.
9. Will you cut me some Swiss Chard?
8. Those are local Asian Pears.
7. Is the corn sweet?
6. We’ll be here as long as you keep coming.
5. Are those Nancy Grant’s string beans?
4. What do you have that’s organic?
3. We just picked the eggplant out back.
2. Watch out for the telephone pole.
1. Is that the same peach?

The butter and sugar corn will continue to come in from Cheshire until the first hard frost. Enormous Cheshire peaches, local (backyard) herbs, brussels sprouts, hot peppers, French green beans (haricots verts), and apples from Wallingford are regularly at the farm stand. The Double L will stay open as long as you keep coming! How’s that for being different? Just dress warmly knowing that you’ll be shopping under an outdoor tent and bring cash and reusable shopping bags please. If you ask nicely they might even pick you a few squash blossoms for stuffing.

I had a few requests during the event for a list of panelists and exhibitors at the FRESH screening at Pequot Library on Wednesday, August 12 so here they are. These respected members of the  local-sustainable food movement took the time to serve as panelists and/or exhibitors, and also helped spread the word to their contacts, members and customers, resulting in a sold out audience of 200! Check out the pics below to see what a great time everyone had.

Panelists:

Moderated by Analiese Paik, Founder Fairfield GreenFood Guide

1. Bill Duesing, Executive Director of CT NOFA
2. Sue Cadwell, Chef/Owner Health in a Hurry
3. Deb Marsden, Founder CT Farm Fresh Express (CTFFE)
4. Environmentalist Janak Desai and Ken Kleban of Kleban Properties, co-founders of Fairfield’s Farmer’s Market at the Brick Walk
5. Annelise McCay, Founder Sherman School garden, and Amie G. Hall, Holistic Health Counselor and Cooking Coach, Founder Fairfield Ludlowe and Fairfield Woods Middle School square food gardens

A special thank you to Amie G. Hall for finding videographer Janet Luongo, literally at the 11th hour, to tape the event for publication on YouTube and screening on public access television. Janet, thank you so much for enabling us to share this event with so many more people.

A huge thanks to our host Pequot Library. The auditorium and Community Reading Room are such beautiful and spacious rooms that we were all quite comfortable despite our numbers. One of our guests was a blogger from Brooklyn and he posted about the  fine venue and their rather forward thinking leadership.

Exhibitors:

1. Pequot Library
2. Fairfield Green Food Guide
3. CT NOFA
4. CT Farm Fresh Express
5. Health in a Hurry
6. Fairfield Farmers’ Market at The Brick Walk
7. Fairfield Edible School Gardens
8. CT Farmland Trust (at CT NOFA table)
9. Bluebelle Muffins, Jerri Graham
10. Organic Gardening Simplified, Nick Mancini
11. The Double L Farmstand, Lloyd Allen
12. Aspetuck Land Trust, David Brant and John Hamlin
13. Sport Hill Farm, Patti Popp
14. Fairfield Earth Day Committee & Clean Energy Commission, Larry