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CSA Shares
Order Online
About
Donate
We’re Hiring

Happy Friday all! ✨ Today, meet Chelsea Csuhran, the new Program Coordinator for City Fresh. 👋 Chelsea is Ohio born and raised and grew up in Bainbridge Township. She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Food Studies from Ohio University, and as a current Master of Public Health candidate at Michigan State University, Chelsea is passionate about equitable food access, improving community health outcomes, regenerative agriculture and creating sustainable food systems. In her spare time you can find her cooking, crafting, or meandering outdoors. 🌲 She dreams of homesteading and having a small farm one day. Chelsea is excited to be a part of the City Fresh team and ready to bring all the CSAs your way! 🧅🍠🧄

Don't forget to join us this Saturday, May 15th, from 9am-12pm at the @oberlinfarmersmarket to pick up a quart of some deliciously tender turnip greens, pea sprouts or maybe even a cherry tomato plant or two. Hope to see you out there! 🌱

The start of the season is just 5 weeks away! 👏 We have single and family produce share sizes available. Order week-to-week or all weeks in advance! Sign up anytime.

Visit cityfresh.org to order today and join our movement to change the world one vegetable at a time. 🍅🥦🥕

Attention, food justice warriors! Are you interested in joining the City Fresh team? We're currently looking to fill a Farmer Liaison position for the upcoming 2021 season. Head on over to the cityfresh.org website to find the full job description posted there. Forward any application materials or questions you may have to annakiss@cityfresh.org!

City Fresh Volunteers, We Need You!
City Fresh is looking for dedicated individuals to help distribute shares at our neighborhood Fresh Stops this season. As we continue to navigate through the challenges that COVID-19 has presented, we need volunteers more than ever. Many hands make light work and in this case, many hands make safer work! In order to minimize contact, we'll need staff and volunteers dedicated to singular tasks.

Volunteer jobs include:
- Set Up: Setting up the fresh stop for distribution
- Check in: Using our database to verify shareholder orders
- Distribution: Making sure shareholders get their share
- Traffic Flow Coordination: Helping shareholders keep proper social distance and ensuring safety protocols are followed
- Clean Up: Sanitizing and packing away any equipment

Even though we still need to take care when close to one another, we can continue to promote and protect a sense of camaraderie and community. It is within our grasp to feel personally enriched by helping one another. As we slowly begin to depart from the long season of separation, we can retain a sense of connectedness and meaning. Join us this summer! The season begins June 15th!

It's a chilly Saturday, but the cauliflower growing at the George Jones Memorial Farm are loving it. Mashed, roasted or raw - these versatile little veggies make a great addition to any meal. Get yours at the first outdoor market of the season next Saturday, May 15th, at the @oberlinfarmersmarket, located in front of the Oberlin Public Library from 9am-12pm. We'll see you there 🍅🫑🥬

Meet Pete Morris, the new full-time Farm Manager at the George Jones Memorial Farm and the Farmer Liaison for the City Fresh program since 2015. 👋 Pete is an Ohio native with a degree from Oberlin college. He’s a pro at flying drones and using them to shoot videography and used to do PR for the Army Reserves. He’s excited to get this season underway! Look for Pete’s “Lettuce Turnip the Beet” spotlight in our newsletter to showcase more “behind-the-scenes” look into how our programs partner together to bring the freshest local fruits and vegetables to your neighborhood. 🥬🥕🥦🍎

When life gives you cilantro - make salsa! The George Jones Memorial Farm grows some of the best cilantro around, but, if you're one of the ~10% of people with the gene (OR26A) that makes it taste like soap, hopefully you can hold out a bit longer and wait for the beautiful purple basil harvest we have in store for you coming in late June/early July. Do you have a particular herb that's your favorite to grow or use in the kitchen? Post it here!

This week is International Compost Awareness Week! If you didn’t see our recent post on vermicomposting, give it a glance. 🪱 Save your food scraps from your weekly share and compost in your backyard or start your own vermicomposting bin. Limited space? Sign up for one of @rustbeltriders composting services today. ♻️ Together we can build a more resilient climate for all and reap the benefits of the magical organic fertilizer that composting creates. 🌱 #icaw2021 #groweatcompostrepeat

A huge thank you is in order for all of the folks that came out to support the first fundraising plant sale at George Jones Memorial Farm this past Saturday! Meeting you all was a truly enjoyable experience. We hope you’ll stay in touch as we enter into Farmers Market season. You'll find us at the Oberlin Farmers market located at the Oberlin Public Library. We hope to have many more vegetable plant varieties as well as strawberries, spring onion, and asparagus available in the coming weeks. Catch us on Saturdays, beginning May 15th from 9am-12pm. We'll see you out there!

Let's Talk About Ugly Produce!
Funky looking produce happens! It's not uncommon that you may find some mutant looking vegetable friends peeking out of your City Fresh share each week. These lopsided, three-legged, and contorted looking veggies are nothing to fear. They are perfectly edible, in their unique shape, and jam packed with all the same vitamins, nutrients, and deliciousness that any ordinary looking vegetable could provide. Cut them, cube them, dice them, or slice them just the way you normally would. If they happen to have bruises or other areas that might look questionable, don't hesitate to cut those parts away! There's no need to toss out these oddballs, they enjoy some love too. And if you ever receive any items in your share that are of concern in shape or quality, please inform us right away.

A Little Dirt Don't Hurt
Sometimes you may find dirt or small creatures on the produce in your share that have hitched a ride from the farm. Don’t worry! With a scrub brush, water, and some elbow grease you can clean your veggies right up. You can also take whatever critters you brought home with you back outside and allow them to continue to live their best life. Did you know that dirt helps keep your produce fresh prior to use? Exposure to oxygen will cause produce to brown and decompose, which is why we bring your produce to you almost as soon as it’s harvested, so all your veggies remain bright and vibrant.

Stop out at George Jones Farm for our plant sale fundraiser! Saturday, May 1, 10-3. 44333 St. Rt. 511, Oberlin

Plant sale is tomorrow! Saturday May 1, 2021 10-3pm. Join us at George Jones Farm for
veggie starts, seeds, pre-fab raised beds, vermicomposting starts, and more!
44333 St. Rt. 511, Oberlin, OH

Composting is a great way to recycle your veggie scraps and vermicomposting is an easy and fun way to get started. Food waste contributes to an excessive amount of methane gasses released into the atmosphere from our landfills. By instead adding your food scraps to a worm bin, you'll be able to reduce your individual impact while also creating some really nice fertilizer for your garden. Our farm manager, Pete Morris, raises red wigglers - the fastest of all composting worms - to improve soil health around the George Jones Memorial Farm. Pick some up at the plant sale this Saturday to make your garden really come to life! May 1, 10-3, 44333 St Rt 511, Oberlin. Cash or credit.

Come to the George Jones Farm Plant Sale fundraiser this Saturday!
Veggie starts, seeds, pre-fab raised beds, and more!
44333 St. Rt. 511, Oberlin, OH

Look at them 'maters! On a warm spring day, these lovelies are enjoying some fresh air outside of the hoop house so we don't burn them out. And I know what you're thinking…"Aren't those a bit crowded?" But the beauty in tomatoes is their adventitious roots. After thinning down to 1 plant/cell, we can stick the trimmed tomatoes into new soil up to their first set of leaves. Each little hair off the stem will become a new root system and ensure that these will thrive deep into the summer season. Come check 'em out (literally) at the first fundraising plant sale at George Jones Memorial Farm located at 44333 OH-511, Oberlin, OH 44074, this Saturday, May 1st from 10am-3pm!

Committing to seasonal eating with Community Supported Agriculture contributes to meaningful environmental change in a multitude of ways: reducing transportation and cooling, sustainable farming practices, agroecology, soil health preservation, and most of all, eating more veggies because plants produce less waste and less carbon output than animal consumption. CSA helps you eat more vegetables by virtue of having more vegetables. Subscribe to low impact produce all season long! Order today at cityfresh.org.

Planted just after St. Patrick's Day, these peas are rocking and rolling despite the crazy weather. We've planted out 8 rows for the purpose of growing full sized peas at George Jones Memorial Farm, and we've also upcycled some broken wheelbarrows that were on site to use as makeshift raised beds for the extra seeds that we'll be selling as delicious pea sprouts. Do you have any upcycled/creative ag projects that you've done in the past or started this year that you'd like to share? Post 'em here! #AgEngineersInnovate

Did you join a CSA for 🌎 Day? Eat more local, sustainably grown plants and help build environmental resilience by supporting small farms and local business. Trim down your carbon footprint. Build community. Order at cityfresh.org today! 🌱

Holy CRP! It’s already Earth Day 🙂 For those that don’t know, CRPs are Conservation Reserve Programs, and the George Jones Memorial Farm is host to an 18.2 acre CRP project designed as a “carbon sink.” The idea behind this is that the untouched flora in the protected area on property absorbs carbon dioxide (through processes like photosynthesis) and retains it within the plants and soil, thus keeping it out of our atmosphere and reducing the measurable amount of greenhouse gasses affecting our climate today. Visit the George Jones Memorial Farm this summer and see what other environmental projects we have going on!

Bok choy, pak choi, pok choi - this type of Chinese cabbage is having a heyday. A staple in Asian dishes, bok choy is great for stir fry and soups. It’s full of antioxidants like vitamins C and E and the covid-fighting flavonoid quercetin. What’s your favorite bok choi dish?

Have you heard about George Jones Memorial Farm? It’s the home of the New Agrarian Center and partner program of City Fresh. We are a 70-acre wetland, nature preserve and agricultural facility located in Oberlin/New Russia Township. You may have tasted some of the delicious herbs and vegetables that come from our farm or possibly walked the trails on property to escape the hustle and bustle of your busy day, and the plan for 2021 is to keep the momentum going. It’s been a wild ride since the pandemic started, but it’s fueled the fire around here to continue providing the best experience possible to our veggie-loving community. Keep an eye out for more updates here!

Building Community One Vegetable at a Time

Community is the heart of Community Supported Agriculture. At City Fresh, our neighborhood pickup sites - known as Fresh Stops - are run by folks from those neighborhoods. Folks with a vested interest in where their food comes from. Folks with a commitment to eating well. Folks with a love of cooperation and collaboration. Our volunteers and community partners are out there week after week, all season long, helping shareholders like you pick up the freshest of local veggies.

If ever there's a question about some strange new plant shape, our volunteers are on the front lines ready to talk about what they know and don't know. Swapping recipes is one of the most immediate ways we share food cultures and build community. It's so exciting to get a bag of seasonal produce home to explore new tastes and textures on offer each week, but the knowledge each of us bring to the bag can be limited. We can read reviews on All Recipes all day long, but nothing conveys understanding quite like five people standing around in the park debating whether kohlrabi is more like apple, potato, broccoli, or jícama. Our volunteers are integral to the City Fresh experience.

Join our volunteers this season to help create a more just and equitable food system. Send us your email address in a message to join the team! Shares start June 15th! Order today at cityfresh.org

Meet Kristen! Kristen is a board member for the New Agrarian Center (home of City Fresh). She loves City Fresh for its support of small farmers, accessible fresh stops, and affordable shares. Kristen likes that weekly shares challenge her to be creative in the kitchen. Join Kristen and our hundreds of shareholders this season by ordering your June share at cityfresh.org!

When fall rolls around, baskets of abundant local veggies aren’t very novel or exciting. They’re common. Practically boring. Another bunch of greens? More root vegetables? But in spring, when the leaves are just getting fuzzy on the trees, giant turnips and parsnips and romanesco are most thrilling. Just look at them there! Think of all the meals yet to make this season! It’s gonna be so great! Aaahahahhhhhhhh! Order today. cityfresh.org

When fall rolls around, baskets of abundant local veggies aren’t very novel or exciting. They’re common. Practically boring. Another bunch of greens? More root vegetables? But in spring, when the leaves are just getting fuzzy on the trees, giant turnips and parsnips and romanesco are most thrilling. Just look at them there! Think of all the meals yet to make this season! It’s gonna be so great! Aaahahahhhhhhhh! Order today. cityfresh.org

Supporting Small Farms

The small family farm has become nearly a myth in America. Industrial farming has virtually erased the institutional wisdom small farmers have cultivated over centuries. Ohio has more than 75,000 farms, but mostly produces commodity crops like corn and soybean. We’re the nation’s 3rd largest producer of tomatoes, but also home to the world’s largest ketchup plant. The bulk of what is grown here isn’t the whole fruits and vegetables we see in our grocery’s produce aisles.

If we don’t protect the skills of small farmers growing a larger variety of fruits and vegetables, we lose them. The infrastructures and knowledge they bring to farming disappear. The full spectrum of skills needed to adapt to changing climate and to ensure food sovereignty are essential and cannot be lost.

Joining a CSA like City Fresh is just one way to create community resilience and promote food security. City Fresh has been working with Amish farmers in Ashland and Lorain counties for decades. We have a core group of about 6 farmers who grow almost all the vegetables you see each week of the season.

Jerry Yoder is a most trusted small farmer, honing his skills over the last ten or so years. Each week that our Farm Liaison, Pete, visits Jerry to place our order, he has to skirt around the grumpy guinea fowl crowding the driveway before finding Jerry working the fields, or tending the animals. Jerry grows green beans, carrots, raspberries, potatoes, cabbage, garlic, onions, zucchini, Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, sweet corn - the list goes on and on. According to the USDA, 62% of all farmland in Ohio is dedicated to only two crops: corn and soybeans. The variety he grows and his ability to focus simultaneously on so many different crops is what makes Jerry an indispensable part of our food future.

Your support of our mission through buying shares, encouraging others to join us, volunteering, and monetary donations are fundamental to creating food security and a just food economy here in Northeast Ohio. We are so excited to get this season started with you in June! Join us in supporting small farms and creating a healthy, vibrant food system.

Veggies (and fruit) that look like aliens made them. 👽🛸👾 There’s bound to be some interesting stuff in your shares, but rest assured it’s definitely of this world! Patty pan squash are UFO-shaped and just like any other summer squash - perfect for sautéing or grilling. Kohlrabi look like they’ll hatch a xenomorph, but they’re just a brassica made for munching. Saturn peaches are named for their shape, but are an exceedingly sweet treat so no need to be afraid! Discover new vegetable universes this season by ordering your June shares today at cityfresh.org!

I know it feels like Summer, but we’re still weeks away from all the fresh local veggies you could want. Don’t plant your annuals and keep your houseplants in until after Mother’s Day. A bounty is coming soon but not just yet. If you’re itching to get your season started, place an order for your first shares now at cityfresh.org! 🥬🍓🥕

Veggies for Living Your Best Life

Eating more vegetables can reduce your risk of heart attack, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. 92% of City Fresh shareholders report eating more servings of produce through participating in our program. It turns out that one surefire way to make yourself eat vegetables is to buy them! Subscribing to a weekly share basket means there's fresh local bounty in your fridge every week, all season long. That results in more chances to make the most nutritious choices possible breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Participating in a CSA like City Fresh will introduce you to all sorts of fun new vegetables. Garlic scapes are not often found in stores. This is the main stem of the garlic flower, cut before blooming when it’s still supple to make sure the garlic bulb gets all the plant’s efforts. Garlic scapes are delicious in their own right, however. They can be sautéed like green beans or pulverized into a pesto or chopped and used in the place of garlic in other dishes. What’s your favorite approach? Join us by ordering your shares for June at cityfresh.org!

Fresh local veggies help build community resilience. What does that mean? Local agriculture is the last bastion against food scarcity and investing in the wisdom of small farmers means protecting our community food supply in the long haul. If we don’t use these infrastructures, they disappear. City Fresh shares protect local food supplies and do so in a way that equally distributes this essential resource. Pay farmers fairly. Eat food. Build community. 👩‍🌾🍓✊

Fresh local veggies help build community resilience. What does that mean? Local agriculture is the last bastion against food scarcity and investing in the wisdom of small farmers means protecting our community food supply in the long haul. If we don’t use these infrastructures, they disappear. City Fresh shares protect local food supplies and do so in a way that equally distributes this essential resource. Pay farmers fairly. Eat food. Build community. 👩‍🌾🍓✊

Fresh local veggies help build community resilience. What does that mean? Local agriculture is the last bastion against food scarcity and investing in the wisdom of small farmers means protecting our community food supply in the long haul. If we don’t use these infrastructures, they disappear. City Fresh shares protect local food supplies and do so in a way that equally distributes this essential resource. Pay farmers fairly. Eat food. Build community. 👩‍🌾🍓✊

One of the big barriers a lot of folks have to CSA shares is, well, all the vegetables. After a long day of work, cooking needn't be a huge chore. No one wants to find themselves saying, "but I just made dinner yesterday!" We're here to help you with tips and tricks like: Just Grill Everything. Prep Your Veggies for the Week. Sheet Pan Dinners are a Miracle. Salad for Dinner on Pick Up Night.

What tips and tricks do you recommend?

Meet Rebecca Petrilli, co-chair of our board of directors at New Agrarian Center, home of City Fresh. Rebecca is an attorney who works in the bar exam world helping students get ready for the test. She loves to read and learn and recently completed yoga teacher certification. Rebecca is passionate about uplifting communities and working to build a fairer world. She writes, “I believe in equitable access to nutritious food for all people. As a proud life-long Clevelander, I am thrilled to be part of an organization working to create a more just food system in Northeast Ohio.”

Join Rebecca in committing to fresh local veggies this season. Order your shares at cityfresh.org today!

Who doesn’t love a sweet lil parsnip? So elegant and curvy, yet ruddy and unpretentious. It’s a commonsensical folksy vegetable. A little sweet, a little plain. Do you mash them? Stew them? Roast? What’s your favorite way to prepare a parsnip?

Farmers are getting all the seeds in the ground to make sure your shares this year are delicious and delightful. Shares are full of the best variety our region has to offer, all the colors of the rainbow and so much more. These aren't just fresh local veggies we're growing. We're growing community. We're growing bonds between farmer and eater. We're growing knowledge about seasonal eating. We're growing carbon mitigation to combat climate crisis. We're growing solutions for income inequality through access to complex nutrition for all.

We hope you'll join us this season to help create a more just and equitable food system. Shares start June 14th! Order today at cityfresh.org

Meet a volunteer! Elizabeth has volunteered at the Oberlin Fresh stop for a year, helping folks during share distribution. She loves City Fresh’s mission to help small farmers get fresh local veggies in the hands of all the people to create a just food system. Her favorite vegetable is green beans! Meet volunteers like Elizabeth this season when you pick up or join us to lend a hand! Learn all about it at cityfresh.org

What’s the appropriate number of garlic cloves for a meal? 2? 4? 12? 🧄

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