Ah, Swallowtail, how I love thee :)

This year I participated in Swallowtail Farm's Spring Festival as a volunteer for the farm and a volunteer for Citizens Co-op.  Despite some pretty serious wind and rain, it turned out to be a really wonderful day full of meeting new people and sharing new experiences!  I was fortunate enough to help out with the farm-to-table dinner this year, which was amazing.  Due to the weather, the Nesbits were gracious enough to host the dinner for 65 at their home.  The dinner was cooked by chefs from some favorite local restaurants, Leonardo's 706 (shittake stuffed cabbage), The Top (red and golden beet salad with goat cheese), The Jones (pork or veggie tamales), and Volta (beet-fennel-strawberry-vanilla-cream tartlets).  All in all, it was pretty incredible.  After the dinner, the festivities continued well into the night.  I left close to 11pm.

I've got some lovely pictures of some fantastic produce from the farm if you want to see 'em. :)

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Saturday Swallowtail Farm had a tour and lunch on the farm.  It was really interesting to see the farm and hear all the details about how they do everything.  A detailed post will come later, but I just wanted to quickly post a few pics from the day.  These have not been processed at all, so you may also see the final versions at some point. :)

For Thanksgiving last week, Citizens Co-op set up a special online ordering system so you could get fresh food for the holiday.  I ordered two packs of local tempeh from Jose's tempeh and a bag of produce from Swallowtail Farms.  Both have been excellent so far!  The tempeh was cooked in onion and spices and has a very autumnal taste to it.  The produce came in a wonderful bag.  There were all kinds of goodies in there: turnips, sweet potatoes, salad greens, kale, arugula, fresh rosemary, purple bok choi, and so on.  I used the turnips, sweet potatoes, and some of the rosemary in a lovely roasted root vegetable dish with some beets, onions, and carrots.  I cooked down the greens for a veg version of southern greens, and I'm going to attack those salad greens for lunch today.

Swallowtail does run a CSA, so if you are interested in joining, please check them out at swallowtailcsa.com.  CSA stands for community supported agriculture.  If you join a CSA, you pay a flat fee directly to a farm, and they provide you with a box of a variety of fresh produce every week.  Joining a CSA is a great way to support local foods and farmers, as well as a sure way to always have healthy, fresh produce on hand.

For more information on Citizens Co-op, you can visit their website at citizensco-op.com.

Well, I guess it's been a while.  Things have been busy at Prioria, and I've been putting in 9, 10, 11 hour days almost every work day for three or four weeks in a row now, so a lot has fallen behind in my non-Prioria life :)

At long last, here are a couple shots from the Farm Bike Tour organized by Citizens Co-op here in Gainesville.  We paid a small fee and then had a guided bike tour of something like 10 local farms of a variety of types.  There was the ethnobotany grad student garden at UF (my favorite of the day), some community gardens, an enormous patch of land that used to be primarily blueberry fields now trying to clear out some of the overgrowth, a small commune-style garden (my second favorite - they had an accordion player!), a couple of home gardens (one with chickens!) and a garden maintained by the students of a local middle school.

The total ride was about 14.5 miles and took all afternoon.  Fortunately, most of the places we stopped had some refreshments for us, including such wonderful treats as minty fresh lemonade and fresh sugar snap peas.  At each garden, someone explained goals, methods, and plants to us and gave us the opportunity to ask questions. The day ended with a celebration at what is soon to be the home of the newly-established Citizens Co-op.  Fortunately, it is within walking distance of my home and work, so I'm thrilled to have it downtown.

All in all, it was a lovely afternoon.  We even got some free shirts for doing the bike ride, and Bo seems to be wearing his quite a bit these days (which is fine, I think it looks great on him!).

It's May and therefore time for the second annual Eat Local Challenge!  Check out Hogtown Homegrown for more info!!!