Harvesting at Northern Harvest Farm ,from their Facebook with permission.   

April is now here, though it still looks a lot like winter around here. Don’t worry the snow will be melting soon and in about a month it will look like a whole different world out there with the ground being highly visible. This is great news for dogs who love walking on grass and for people interested in some high-quality vegetables coming from a piece of land nearby.

Readers of the Reader this is your advance notice to secure a CSA summer share of vegetables before they sell out sometime in May.

This is usually how it works. Rick Dalen of Northern Harvest Farm did tell me that right now you can get in on a summer weekly or every other week a giant box of vegetables delivered to a location near you.

“We do have quite a few shares available,” Rick said.

Just in case you aren’t familiar with CSAs, let me quickly review the concept. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It is a way for local organic farms to be successful by having local customers assume some of the risk and uncertainty of growing crops, which can often quickly ruin a small operator.

So, basically you purchase ahead of time shares of the harvest and the amount of food in your box depends somewhat on nature, which your ancestors always had to think about. Rick said there are more area CSAs than ever. He is happy about this even if it takes him slightly longer to fill up his shares. If you do call him at  218-384-9779 after the shares are filled, he will be happy to tell you about any other CSA farms in the area which are still offering shares.

Like we mentioned, he has two different types of summer shares which run from mid-June to mid-October. He also has recently added a winter share for root vegetables. This features things like onions, potatoes and carrots. These types of vegetables can be kept in kind of a dormant state until reader-to-eat and don’t have to be shipped across the country or grown in a greenhouse like tomatoes.

Maybe embrace the concept of eating certain things depending on the seasons like our ancestors did. The winter share, which runs once-a-month and twice-a-month during the winter, is actually a little more convenient than the summer shares. Rick has recently put in a system where you can go on the computer and adjust the mix in your basket ahead of time.

“It is a little different thing. The winter share is customizable so people can get a different mix of what they want,” Rick said.

Looking at all these fresh vegetables on their website now might get you to sign up. Once summer comes you might wonder how you are going to eat all these vegetables. This is a bit of a challenge but even if you don’t use it all up it is OK.

“I like to tell people that even if you don’t use all of it you shouldn’t feel bad,” Rick said. “Because you are getting a good deal and there is way less waste than In commercial ops there is culling every step of the way.”

This might also be a way for you to reach out and give some vegetables to friends. It is also time to think about making smoothies as an easier way to quickly ingest the needed calories especially if like me you don’t want to spend hours making and consuming your food.

Even if you aren’t a big health-food person, you should feel better eating all this high-quality food. You are also helping local farmers to survive instead of having to eat vegetables that have been shipped hundreds of miles to make it to your salad.