Weekly Produce Offering – 8.9.12

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Greetings from your local urban farmer!   Here’s this week’s offering of our freshly harvested, organically-grown and produce.

This week we have:

1.    Ground Cherries (a sweet tomatillo) = $3 a pint

2.    Heirloom Tomatoes (“Black”, yellow, red, Brandywine, etc.) & regular tomatoes = $2 a pound

3.     Cherry tomatoes (mixed) = $4 a pint

4.     Scallions = $2 a bunch

5.     Herbs: Basil, Winter Savory, Rosemary and Rainbow Sage = $2 a bunch

6.    Sweet Peppers (green, red, purple, yellow) = $0.50  each

7.    Hot peppers (Jalapenos, Habaneros, etc) = $0.25 each

8.   Figs = $1 bag of 5

Please get your order in by Wednesday night, August 8 at 9 p.m.

You can pickup your produce on Thursday August 9 from 6 to 8 p.m.at my place.           

TO ORDER:   Email me at sprucehillfarmer[at]gmail[dot]com  with what you want, how much of it, and a way to contact you.

– Spruce Hill Farmer

Weekly Produce Offering – 8.2.12

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I hope you’re enjoying the respite from our hot weather!   Here’s this week’s offering of our freshly harvested, organically-grown and hyperlocal produce.  We have just a few things this week and limited quantities.

 This week we have:

1.    Ground Cherries (a sweet tomatillo) = $3 a pint

2.    Collards = $3 a bunch

3.     Cherry tomatoes (mixed) = $4 a pint

4.     Scallions = $2 a bunch

5.     Herbs: Basil, Winter Savory, Rosemary and Rainbow Sage = $2 a bunch

6.     Tomatoes – red hybrid and some Heirlooms = $2 a pound

7.    Hot peppers (Jalapenos, Habaneros, etc) = $1 a pound

8.   Sweet peppers (green, purple, yellow) = $1 a pound

Please get your order in by Wednesday night, August 1 at 9 p.m.

You can pickup your produce on Thursday August 2 from 6 to 8 p.m.at my place.           

TO ORDER:   Email me at sprucehillfarmer[at]gmail[dot]com  with what you want, how much of it, and a way to contact you.

– Spruce Hill Farmer

Weekly Produce Offering – 7.26.12

Hello Friends and Neighbors,

Here’s this week’s offering of our freshly harvested, organically-grown and hyperlocal produce.  We have just a few things this week and limited quantities.   Tomatoes are beginning to ripen so we’ll have some, but place your order to make sure they don’t run out.

This week we have:

1.    Baby carrots = $3 a bunch

2.    Collards = $2 a bunch

3.     Cherry tomatoes (mixed) =  $4 a pint

4.     Scallions = $2 a bunch

5.     Herbs: Sweet Basil, Winter Savory, Rosemary and Rainbow Sage = $2 a bunch

6.     Baby Beets = $3 a bunch

7.     Arugula = $4 a bag

8.     Tomatoes  (red) = $2 a pound

9. Ground cherries = $3 a pint

Please get your order in by Wednesday night, July 25 at 9 p.m.

You can pickup your produce on Thursday July 26from 6 to 8 p.m.at my place.           

TO ORDER:   Email me at sprucehillfarmer[at]gmail[dot]com  with what you want, how much of it, and a way to contact you.

– Spruce Hill Farmer

Weekly Produce Offering – 7.19.12

Hello Friends and Neighbors,

Here’s this week’s offering of our freshly harvested, organically-grown and hyperlocal produce.  We have just a few things this week and limited quantities.   Tomatoes are beginning to ripen so we’ll have some, but place your order to make sure they don’t run out.

 This week we have:

1.    Baby carrots = $3 a bunch

2.    Collards = $2 a bunch

3.     Cherry tomatoes (mixed) =  $4 a pint

4.     Scallions = $2 a bunch

5.     Herbs: Sweet Basil, Winter Savory, Rosemary and Rainbow Sage = $2 a bunch

6.     Beets = $3 a bunch

7.     Baby Arugula = $4 a bag

8.     Tomatoes  (red) = $2 a pound

 

Please get your order in by Wednesday night, July 18 at 9 p.m.

You can pickup your produce on Thursday July 19 from 6 to 8 p.m.at my place at 917 South 48^th St., corner of Windsor Ave.           

TO ORDER:   Email me at sprucehillfarmer[at]gmail[dot]com  with what you want, how much of it, and a way to contact you.

– Spruce Hill Farmer

At the Farm Stand

Every Wednesday, from 11am to 2pm, I participate in The Porch at 30th Street, a farmer’s market at 30th and Market Sts. My daughter Jessica and her friend Danielle use their intelligence and good looks to impress customers and help market our products.

Though our produce changes every week, we have previously offered baby arugula, kale (Red Russian or curly), bok choy, collard greens, scallions, radishes, beets, and romaine/butter head lettuce

Come by on July 11th to  see what our harvest will offer and while you’re here, don’t forget to check out the other vendors at the Porch.

(From left to right) Danielle and Jessica doing a great job selling at the Porch.

Weekly Produce Offering – 7.12.12

Hello Friends and Neighbors,

I hope you had a great 4th of July weekend.  I’m back from a week off up in New England and looking forward to getting back to the urban farm.  Tomatoes are still in the early stages, along with ground cherries and a variety of peppers.  We’ll probably have them for you next week.

Meanwhile, here’s this week’s offering of our freshly harvested, organically-grown and hyperlocal produce.

As you know, I’m recovering from ground hog damage to our salad greens, so they are still sparse.  Hopefully things will begin to pick up in the next week or two.  Of course the hot weather doesn’t help much, since lettuces and greens prefer cooler weather!  So we have just a few things this week and limited quantities:

 This week we have:

1.    Baby carrots = $3 a bunch

2.    Collards = $2 a bunch

3.     Kale (Red Russian or curly) = $3 a bunch

4.     Scallions = $2 a bunch

5.     Herbs: Basil, Winter Savory, Rosemary and Rainbow Sage = $2 a bunch

6.    Beets (red or golden) = $3 a bunch

7.    Arugula = $4 a bag

Please get your order in by Wednesday night, July 11 at 9 p.m.

You can pickup your produce on Thursday July 12 from 6 to 8 p.m.at my place at 917 South 48^th St., corner of Windsor Ave.           

TO ORDER:   Email me at sprucehillfarmer[at]gmail[dot]com  with what you want, how much of it, and a way to contact you.

– Spruce Hill Farmer

Rainbow Chard Ravioli

We get a lot of requests on how to cook some of our produce, so here’s a picture of ravioli with a rainbow chard filling.

Hand made ravioli, filled with our very own rainbow chard.

We had tons of rainbow chard left over one week and so we made rainbow chard ravioli. You can make this type of filling for lasagna or any other type of filled or layered pasta. Radish greens, arugula, spinach, or many other greens can be substituted for the swiss chard.  The recipe for the filling is as follows

1 cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
1 egg yolk (optional)
4-5 cloves of garlic
about 1/2 lb of rainbow chard
1-2 tbs olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Chop the rainbow chard, keeping the pieces manageable. Set aside the stalks, you can stir-fry them up as a side dish. Toss the olive oil and garlic in a large frying pan over medium heat. Once the garlic becomes soft and lightly browned, remove it and roughly chop it. Place the garlic and rainbow chard back into the oil coated pan, adding additional oil if necessary. Make sure the leaves get pretty evenly coated and cover, leaving over medium heat. While the chard is cooking, mix the ricotta, parmesan and egg yolk in a medium bowl until incorporated. Stir the rainbow chard and take off of heat when the leaves have almost cooked though and they are condensed and dark green, about six minutes. Let the leaves, garlic, and oil cool for a couple minutes before adding them, a spoonful at a time, to the cheese mixture. Salt and pepper to taste.
ENJOY!

We served these ravioli with seared salmon steaks, boiled beets (also from the farm), which we sliced and sauteed, and extra swiss chard and stalks sauteed with salad turnips (again from the farm). It served as a wonderful anniversary dinner 🙂

In West Philadelphia, born and raised!

For all of you who find it difficult to believe that we have a farm in West Philly, here’s a picture of our raised plots. As always, our produce is organically grown to ensure the freshest food that the city of Brotherly Love has to offer.

 

 

On the Farm

I’m your Spruce Hill Farmer, Gerry (pronounced gare-ee) Lee, holding some of our freshly harvested carrots, and radishes.

Hello world!

We’re Spruce Hill Farms, a growing urban farming operation based in West Philadelphia.
We produce organic and hyper-local greens, veggies, and fruits as part of Philadelphia Grower’s Alliance, a program dedicated to promoting healthy and fresh food choices in urban areas.

We are now in our second year and hope this blog will provide insight into our process as well as our commitment to quality.  Witness our trials and triumphs, read our recipes and suggestions, and see what produce we have available for sale each week.

We may post some old pictures to show you how things got started, but as we get into the swing of things this blog will become an up to date reflection of how our urban farm is doing.

– Spruce Hill Farmer

sprucehillfarmer@gmail.com