Next best thing to the Farmer’s Market
T. S. Eliott was wrong. April is not the cruelest month. Somewhere in late January we run out of potatoes, carrots, cabbages, and squash at our house.
Sure, we can coast for a several weeks on our stash of frozen broccoli, green beans, corn, and cauliflower, and jars of canned apple sauce and tomato sauce. Yet, inevitably before May, we will find ourselves in the produce aisles of the local grocery stores and this is always disappointing.
But this year, things are looking up. Thanks to unheated high tunnel polybarns, cold frames, greenhouses, and refrigerator and freezer storage, several area farmers are offering produce, cheese, meats, and poultry direct for in town pickup.
In mid-January, Greg Runyon of Claybank Farm of Olney delivered produce to a central pickup site in Urbana for his die-hard farmers market customers. Among the offerings for pre-order were savoy cabbage, spinach, green onions, celery, carrots, potatoes, oyster mushrooms, and fresh herbs, including rosemary. If you are interested in ordering produce for the February pickup, call (618) 927-3872.
Last Saturday marked the first week of winter orders for Blue Moon Farm and Prairie Fruits, which featured spinach, carrots, kale, fingerling potatoes, cilantro, and turnips, as well as cheeses like chevre and sheep's milk mouton frais. If the weather cooperates, the farms hope to offer produce and cheese every two weeks. Use Blue Moon's email form to request to receive email about the upcoming order. In the email, you'll find a link to a survey order form on the SurveyMonkey website. Make sure your order is completed by noon the Thursday prior to pickup. Then, pickup your produce and cheese on Saturday between 9 a.m. and noon at the indoor eating area outside of Common Ground Food Coop in Lincoln Square Village (around the corner and up the hallway from Cardinal Fitness) in Urbana. The farmers ask that print your order to help expedite pickup.
Moore Family Farm is now in its sixth year of delivering meat, poultry, and eggs to Champaign-Urbana for winter/spring pickup. Pickups are the second Saturday of the month: February 13, March 13, and April 10 for 2010. Orders must be received no later than the Wednesday before pickup. As with Claybank, Blue Moon, and Prairie Fruits, the Moores bring only what has been pre-ordered. The farm is newly restocked on pork. Chicken and duck also are plentiful. However beef is limited and lamb brats are the only lamb available. You can also preorder pastured eggs for winter delivery. Call the farm at (815) 432-6238 to place your order. If you reach the answering machine, the Moores will call you to confirm your order and provide the central delivery location.
If you are up for traveling a few miles out of town, you can pre-order produce and flours for farm pickup at Tomahnous Farm near Mahomet. The farm currently has chard, vitamin green, mint, parsley, chives, thyme, sage, hardneck garlic, cippolini onions, and fingerling, red, and russet potatoes, as well as whole wheat all purpose and pastry flours. The offerings are updated regularly on the farm's website. To order call, (217) 586-5632.
Speaking of ordering, now also is the time to order a community supported agriculture share from local CSA programs. For those in and near C-U, both Tomahnous Farm and Prairieland CSA still have a few shares available. For those south of C-U, Claybank Farm also has shares available.
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Another source is Stan Schutte and Triple S Farm. Stan takes orders for pork, beef, chicken and eggs and delivers once a month to Urbana. His email to get on his order list is stan@triplesfarms.com
You can look for other local purveyors by zip code and commodity at www.illinoisfarmdirect.org
Stan does do a great job. However, I have some concerns about the practices of some of the farms on Farm Direct.
Is there a master list of all the local growers/producers? How would the outsider (me) determine, or rate said growers/producers?
If this has been covered in length before, I apologize. I’ve recently come back home, after being in Iowa, where I fell faithfully in love with locally grow produce and meats. I’m excited to transfer this to the CU area.
Thanks in advance for any help!
The listings from the former Fruited Plain coop include some of the best local producers based upon member opinions of quality and production practices when purchasing and visiting these farms. These listings will be moving to the Common Ground site at some point. For now they are here: http://www.fruitedplain.org/information/localfood/
The most comprehensive listing is at Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org). These listings are farmer provided/managed so they are the most accurate in terms of what farmers are currently producing and where they are distributing.
I’ll again mention www.illinoisfarmdirect.org (full disclosure: I helped put together the original version). It’s operated by the U of I. Anna’s concerns about a couple of local producers are not shared by many. I think it is unfortunate that the entire farmdirect list is disparaged because of her issues with one or two producers, which farmdirect has not seen fit to exclude. You are advised to see for yourself.
My preference for Local Harvest over Farm Direct is that it doesn’t rely on once a year data updates. Just as importantly, its search function gives results based upon where farmers farms are located, but also the locations from which they sell.
To do otherwise penalizes farmers who sell in urban areas or whose farms are close by, but across a county or state line. This is especially unfortunate because fixing this problem takes adding just a single column to the database driving the site and adding an additional search parameter to the existing one in the code. At farmers’ requests, LH has had this for at least five years because LH founder Guillermo Payet asked and listened to what farmers wanted. I have lost track of how many times I have mentioned this problem and its solution to those running other sites. I have a problem with that.
I also have a problem with anyone who sells animals for activities like fighting. Judging by the reaction at dinner last night when a newly relocated couple asked me whether there were any farms to avoid, I’m pretty sure I’m not in the minority on this one.
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Looks like you are also all members of the killer sideburns club.
@Annie: Yeah, my bad. That was the best part! Drinking + memory exercises = fun @Rob: According to Ask the English Teacher, “My dictionary says ‘drunk’ is an archaic past tense of ‘drink.‘“ We’re all about the new grammar around here.
“more beer is drank” Awesome. Way to go “editors.“
You left out the best part—you have to REMEMBER your number after the beer chugging! Yeah, I’m a member.
Great article, man. Like you, I didn’t really know Daniel all that well, but I felt the impact of his death. I too was inspired by him and it pleases me to see that he continues to live on in the spirit of the community.
Thanks you guys…I love living in a community that can connect, share, and create through food. It’s inspiring…
<div> A beautiful recap of the evening and thank you for sharing why you find what the Fund is doing is inspiring. I haven’t been able to write too much about my feelings about the community’s loss of Dan yet either, but Dan has also inspired me…
Seth and Justine, thanks so much! Through your writing and your photos, everyone can get at least a taste of what was served up Sunday night. Dan would very much have liked that! As you say, our community is very much “fertile ground,“ and Dan had such…
That is perhaps the best article you have ever written… a love letter to Champaign-Urbana and the people who call it home.
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I read Timbo’s argument. I think the key word is “speculating.“
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Timbo makes a smart, sound argument. Reread it.
I joined on 09-09-09 after living here over a year, and having to listen to my dad tell me how his best friend is, like, #27 or something crazy like that, and how said friend never lived further than 50 feet from the Illini Inn while going…
And, I might add, no one is being prevented from using the Champaign library. They are just being asked to pay their fair share if they are going to use it as their primary library.
The equation is pretty simple here. If you want social services, then pay the taxes required to run those social services. These things only work if everyone puts in their fair share. As a heavy user of the Champaign Library, I say bravo to this new policy.
Curtis Orchard is always good for an hour or three, especially if you have rugrats.
What is the increased marginal cost of serving a resident of Savoy or Mahomet? I suspect negligible. What is the increased revenue to be realized by this new policy? I suspect very little. Aside from these financial aspects, what are the most probable results from this new…
Looks like you are also all members of the killer sideburns club.
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Nice article, love the Dead quote in the beginning. If they can get down here to Central FL I’ll definitely be heading out to the show. Some of my friends have finally stopped wincing when I say “jam band.“ I’ve now tried my best at more descriptive…
@Annie: Yeah, my bad. That was the best part! Drinking + memory exercises = fun @Rob: According to Ask the English Teacher, “My dictionary says ‘drunk’ is an archaic past tense of ‘drink.‘“ We’re all about the new grammar around here.
Katie, have the residents of Savoy and Tolono thought about having their taxes raised a little to help their public library expand? That’s a possibility for them. And then everybody wins.
good call on that Herring recording, Josh. Love that version of Exit Music….here’s a clip of the Cinco de Mayo show (from about six months prior). As I recall, this Shakedown went on for roughly a half hour, while getting into the Trampled Underfoot jam in the…
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I joined on 09-09-09 after living here over a year, and having to listen to my dad tell me how his best friend is, like, #27 or something crazy like that, and how said friend never lived further than 50 feet from the Illini Inn while going…