Eating With Origins Farm

Today we're excited to announce the start to a new partnership we're launching this summer with Origins Farm. We've teamed up to bring you a series of summer recipes that use key ingredients from their farm produce — which you've gotten a tasty glimpse of in a few of our Weekend Basics roundups from our trips to the South of the James Farmer's Market:

For those unfamiliar, Origins Farm is a small, family-run farm in Hanover, Virginia — owned and operated by husband and wife Alistar Harris & Rebecca Ponder. How cute and fun are these two?

Image from Origin's Farm

Just one of the many reasons we're so excited about Origin's Farm is how they grow in a self-described artisanal method and hand-harvest their 6 acres of farm land daily with a small team. They grow more than 50 varieties of vegetables and are committed to keeping things natural by working with Certified Naturally Grown, a farmer-run program, never using synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides. Who does not love that!

Everything that arrives at the market has been hand-harvested and always looks so fresh and bountiful.

Tim and I are still newcomers to the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) concept, but have been learning more as we go and are excited to be a part of this season's Origin's Farm CSA program. Their program is unique in that you carry a debit card of sorts with a flexible spending limit and get to pick and choose what you like at each week's market depending on your tastes and needs. The program runs from May through October and once your CSA credit is fully spent, you receive a discount on produce thereafter. For those not interested in the CSA aspect, Origin's Farm can be found at markets throughout Richmond, including South of the James, St. Stephens and Byrd House where they offer produce for sale to both CSA and non-members.

Unfortunately, the 2013 season CSA shares have all been sold out but you can learn more about their popular program here and email the farm to be added to their waiting list if it's something that interests you!

This past weekend we left the market with a tote-bag full of squashes, beets, fresh greens and kohlrabi:

Just looks at all those bright and fresh colors!

First up, look out for the stuffed pattypan squash recipe we made with the Origins Farm fresh squash we picked up with other produce at the Farmer's market in our next post.

Learn more about the daily happenings and what's growing on the farm by keeping up with the Origin's Farm blog, Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram accounts (their Instagram is killer). You can also sign up for the newsletter to stay on top of what to look forward to at each week's markets.

As Origins Farm says it best — Grow Different