Farm Tour and Potluck

What a nice day we had on Sunday here at Elm Street Gardens! Our Farm Box customers and other friends joined us for a garden tour followed by a potluck supper. I hope everyone enjoyed our afternoon as much as Robert and I did. Brad and Megan of Three Centuries Farm - also managers of the ESG operation - led the garden tour and our Fort Creek Farm partners, Bob and Susan Woodall helped me organize in the kitchen and set up the dining room for serving the meal.  Everyone pitched in and I think we all had a fine supper that included many ingredients from our three Farm Box farms.

While I’m thinking about the food, I must say that we enjoyed some really creative recipes.  Megan and our intern, Zack from North Carolina, had a cook-off using the same five ingredients from our garden. Zack’s creation was "Squarugula Pizza," an unusual potato pizza embellished with arugula (and this young man did not know what arugula was until he got to Elm Street Gardens two weeks ago).  Megan rallied with another version of this garden pizza.  They both disappeared rapidly so I guess they were both winners.  We also had some very tasty and healthy quinoa dishes from Merle Bentley and “Green Magic Beans Alfredo” from Fort Creek's Chris Jackson.  Susan of Fort Creek presented a real winner too with her “Mexican Fiesta Casserole” using their grass fed beef. I will try to get them all to share the recipes for their creations for our blog.  And there was much, much more, including a terrific zucchini casserole from Beth Webster and for dessert, watermelon and plenty of chocolate.

Brad explains the process of growing shiitake mushrooms 

in the shade house.

Visiting and relaxing on the porch after a hearty meal.

Brad talks about the process used to grow healthy plants.

Participants gather on the porch after the potluck supper.

Farm Box folks learn about growing in the hoophouses 

with the use of a drip irrigation system.

Thanks to Zack Koontz for taking most 

of these photos of the event.

We had visitors of all ages.  Children ate enthusiastically and ran and played around the yard with our dog, Rives who loves to play "fetch," and visiting dog, Millie.  And there was some good porch time for older members of the group.  I think we all enjoyed the nice conservations we had with new acquaintances and the pleasure of just getting to know folks better.  We want to do this again.

Suzy