Eleven adults and seven children were treated to the Stutzman famous homemade doughnuts newly made with coconut oil. What a treat! Wow! Seriously good! I could write about the doughnuts all day, but I don’t think that’s what Andy was looking for. We also toured the farm, saw what was working and what wasn’t, and picked strawberries from Andy’s two greenhouses, which extend his growing season considerably. Besides the strawberries themselves, the best thing about this experience was the actual picking. Andy and his family have rigged up a series of shelves that the strawberries grow on. You don’t have to bend down to pick them. They’re all right at your fingertips. I could get used to u–pick like this!
A highlight of any trip to the Stutzman farm is seeing how the Amish go about farming using horse-drawn cultivators and tillers. Andy Jr. even gave all the kids bareback rides on the pony.
While reclining in the electric-free comfort of the Stutzman home, we all had a chance to eat more doughnuts and hear about some of the philosophy behind Down on the Farm and CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture). Here are some highlights:
· Farming is all about the soil. Andy is working to rejuvenate a depleted soil by putting nutrients back in the soil in organic ways (resting fields, cover crops, compost, etc.).
· Better soil means produce full of great nutrients. Produce full of great nutrients not only tastes better and is better for you, but it lasts longer too. Andy is currently working on getting the right mix of nutrients so that his heirloom tomatoes last longer and his strawberries have even more sugar content. Yum!
· Andy recommended the book, From Asparagus to Zucchini, written by a Wisconsin CSA, which has tons of great recipes in it for CSA produce. (On a side note: I would highly recommend the cookbook, Simply In Season.) This book is also full of great CSA facts including its birth in Europe in the 1960s and its adoption in the USA in 1984.
· As a group we encouraged one another to bring copies of recipes that we use with our CSA boxes to the Farmers Market so that Andy can pass them on to other CSA members. Or consider visiting the new “fans of” blog and submitting a recipe here.
· Andy also introduced the very popular idea of a farm workday or a help-crew. There will be a sign-up sheet at the farmers market if you’d like to be added to a list for possible workdays.
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