| What's New at Erehwon Farm 12/01/2011 Erehwon Farm now acceptin applications for 2012 CSA 09/05/2011 Erehwon Farm now taking orders for 2011 fall CSA 07/01/2011 Erehwon Farm now taking orders for our 12 week late summer share 06/08/2011 Erehwon Farm announces Edible Farm Tours 05/01/2011 You're invited to our spring Open House May 21 03/18/2011 Erehwon Farm announces first ever spring CSA older news |
| CSA Highlights Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) -- Purchase a share of what we grow 20 weeks of fresh vegetables – naturally grown, no pesticides or herbicides Favorites of our subscribers: sugar snap peas, salad mix, spicy greens mix, spinach, Asian braising greens, heirloom tomatoes, tasty cucumbers, patty pan squash, sweet cherry tomatoes, garlic We pick in the morning – you eat tonight! Pick up at the farm or local drop-off point (We deliver weekly to Lombard, Wheaton, Bartlett, and Elgin.) Get CSA Details |
| Erehwon Farm from a mural by Joseph Gagnepain IV |
| Welcome to our web site! Here you can find information about our farm. You can look at some pictures of the farm or Bucky the farm dog. Learn more about CSA's, eating local, and a variety of other topics. Get lots of recipe ideas for cooking with veggies as well as nutritional and other information about veggies. Our farm is located in rural Kane County, Illinois, serving the Fox River Valley, including Elgin, St. Charles, Geneva, Batavia, Aurora, and Elburn. |
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| Top five reasons to eat local: 5. Locally grown produce is fresher. The food we eat travels an average of over 1,500 miles to get to the grocery store! This so-called "fresh food" has been in transit or cold-stored for days or weeks. Our veggies have just been picked. 4. Local food just plain tastes better. Flavor (as well as nutrition) diminishes with every day after harvest. Ever eaten a tomato within 24 hours of picking? Yum! 3. Eating local protects our health. Many foods are treated with chemicals to slow spoilage during the long trip to market. The shorter the distance from farm to table, the less chance there is for exposure to harmful substances. In addition, a growing number of people believe that locally grown food boosts your immune system and reduces allergies. 2. Buying local food keeps us in touch with the seasons. By eating with the seasons we eat foods when they are at their peak flavor, are in the most abundant supply, and the least expensive. We reconnect to the simple rhythms of nature. 1. Buying locally puts our dollars where they count. Because very little money is spent on transportation and storage, the local farmers get a greater percentage of the food dollar, allowing them to make a decent wage and encouraging the start of other local farms. |
| Volunteers help on the farm--weeding peas (top) and harvesting garlic (bottom) |
| Erehwon Farm Sustainability Statement Our aim at Erehwon Farm is to bring you the freshest, most natural, and most nutritious produce that we can. Although we are not certified organic, our growing practices are in line with the organic guidelines. We amend our soil with compost, fish oil, kelp, soy meal, and alfalfa meal. In addition we use cover crops to add nutrients to the soil over the winter and in land that is not being planted. We use floating row covers to help control pests and to reduce the frequency of watering seeds and young plants. Row covers also protect the crops from the wind, heavy rains, and bright sunlight. Areas between rows are mulched or mowed to control the weeds. We encourage volunteers—especially children—to come out and remove insect pests by hand. We are also striving to be more earth friendly by re-using, re-purposing, and re-cycling as much as we can. Our subscribers and customers often bring us their compostable yard and kitchen waste rather than putting these in the garbage, helping us and helping them to be more earth friendly. We use their old newspapers and cardboard for mulching. For refrigeration we use units that would have otherwise been thrown out. Two of them are old freezers that we have re-purposed with temperature controllers to hold produce at near-freezing temperatures. We are working to reduce the use of plastics and other fossil-fuel products. Those we do use, we recycle. We are endeavoring to incorporate some permaculture practices. This includes companion planting, using plants to deter pests, sheet mulching to control weeds, and planting perennial crops. We still have a lot to learn in this arena, but we continue to learn and grow every year. |
| Got nutrition? CSA Frequently Asked Questions |