Farm Share Fair

Sun Moon Farm at the Farm Share Fair

Last week we attended the 3rd annual Farm Share Fair at the Cambridge College in Boston. The idea of the fair is to invite local farmers and producers to show off what their CSA share consists of.  For those not familiar, a CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and the way it typically works is you purchase a share a the onset of the growing season and as vegetables come into season, the farmer puts together a melange of produce and you pick up your share weekly or biweekly at the farm. 

There are so many different types of CSA's. Some shares are vegetables only, while others can be more of a meat, or grain based share. Some CSA's have add in's for staples like beans, breads, even lacto-fermented vegetables! While Hosta Hill doesn't have a CSA type share option (though we were asked and have had the idea!) our products we were welcomed among the farmers along with other producers like EH Chocolatier, Del Sur Natural Empenadas, Boston Organics, Mei Mei, and Solar City to name a few.

This is the season to sign up for a CSA if you want one! Do you get a CSA share or do you prefer to shop at the farmers market-or both? These days we have so many options for locally grown vegetables and other locally produced foods it amazes me.

Some local CSA's that might still be accepting members are Abode Farm (New Lebanon, NY) Red Fire Farm (Granby, MA) Pioneer Valley Heritage Grain CSA (Amherst, MA) to name a few...

ThinkFOOD Conference at Bard College

Looking for something interesting to do this weekend? Bard College at Simon's Rock is putting on its 3rd annual ThinkFOOD Conference April 9th from 10:00am to 3:00pm in the Kellogg Music Center. This years theme is Berkshire Foodways, and will look inward at Berkshire County to define the "what, how and where" of food in our region

We are excited to be part of a panel titled "Grown/Made in the Berkshires" and we'll debate "what is Berkshire food?" Panelists include Alana Chernila (author of The Homemade Pantry, The Homemade Kitchen, and her blog, Eating from the Ground Up), Richard Bourdon (owner of Berkshire Mountain Bakery, and featured in Michael Pollan's documentary series, Cooked.) And yours truly, Maddie Elling (co-creator and maker at Hosta Hill)

The day will also include a locally sourced lunch, and poster presentation from Bard college students in the "Foodways" course and a second panel, "Feeding the Berkshires" which will answer the question: "What networks have been established to distribute food produced in the Berkshires" 

The event will surely inspire reflection upon the food scene of the Berkshires. Help us spread the word and we hope to see you there!

Valley Veg Fest!

This weekend we'll be at the Valley Veg Fest. Now in its 3rd year this event will feature passionate speakers, veg friendly food vendors, products and non-profits dedicated to healthy living, animal rights and environmental advocacy. 

We'll be there in good company with other fellow farmers and food producers like Kitchen Garden Farm, Artisan Beverage Coop, Red Fire Farm, and Fungi Ally to name a few. 

Whether your a vegan or carnivore there will be something interesting or tasty for everyone, come out and support your local makers!

The event is Saturday April 2nd, from 10am-4pm at the J.F.K. Middle School in Northampton, Ma. ValleyVeg.org

In-store demos!

in the next few weeks we will be out and about demo-ing at stores in the Berkshires, Boston, and even over the boarder in New York state. Demos are a fun way for us to get out and meet our customers that we might not come across at markets. This gives them the chance to try a Hosta Hill product they might be curious about. See below for a schedule of dates for the coming weeks!

This upcoming Friday, March 25th we'll be in Boston at Cambridge Naturals from 12-3:30pm and then we'll head up the street to Pemberton Farms, 5-7pm. 

On March 31st we'll be at BOTH Guidos stores in the Berkshires for their Thank you thursday (TuT) event; tastings and deep discounts! We'll be in the great Barrington store from 10-2pm and then Pittsfield, 2-5pm. Our ferments will be on sale just that one day, so make sure to stop in and stock up!

April 16th we'll be headed over the boarder to the Chatham Real Food Coop for a tasting of all our ferments, 11-2pm.

Is there a store in your area that you'd like to see us do a tasting at? Let us know!

Seeding onions!

Last week we got to work in our unheated hoop house, seeding onions! This means planting onions seeds into trays of soil. From here they will grow and mature in mini onion plants and be ready to plant out by mid April. The seeds we planted are called Pontiac, they are a nice long term storage onion which we can store through the winter for extended season processing.

The other variety of onion we will be planting out is called Ailsa Craig. This is a popular fresh eating onion, that we'll use throughout the summer for our ferments. This year we are not going to be growing this variety by seed but instead buying in "sets" which we'll receive in April as mini onion plants ready to go into the ground. The idea with buying the sets is we may have larger summer onions, ealrier. Which will come in handy for our summer vegetable ferment processing!

onion sets, ready to go into the ground!