1: Vote for Your Favorite Farmers Market, A Farming Vacation this Summer, Garden Diplomacy and more

Forward Donate Subscribe www.farmland.org

Welcome to the June edition of Farm Fresh News. In this issue, forget about getting out the camping equipment this summer, reach for a hoe instead; as summer heats up, so does the gardening competition for the White House; show your farmers market some love; take a trip to Capay Valley, Calfornia; and more!

Don’t Just Go Camping this Summer: Go Farming!

For a peaceful, quiet vacation and the chance to milk a few cows and collect your own fresh eggs for breakfast, plan this year’s vacation around a stay at a working farm. Room fees are usually quite economical, from $50 to $125 per day (including lots of fun freebies like hay jumping), and many of the farm accomodations are family run operations that specialize in providing "family farm vacations."

Garden Diplomacy

One of Michelle Obama’s legacies may turn out to be of the “garden” variety. Hilary Benn, the U.K. Environment Minister, recently agreed to recommend that Prime Minister Gordon Brown grow a garden at 10 Downing Street to “rival the White House.” Kitchen Gardens International is employing some more “garden diplomacy,” asking each of America's 50 states to declare the 4th of July "Food Independence Day.”

Love Your Farmers Market? Vote!

America’s Favorite Farmers Markets contest is finally here. Have you voted for your favorite? This summer we’re rallying farm and food supporters in all 50 states to send a message that we value our farmers markets because they help keep farmers on the land. Without local farms there would be no local food and no local farmers markets. Make sure the farmers at your local farmers market know that you support them. Vote in America’s Favorite Farmers Markets contest.

Join Us as We Visit a Farm in California!

In the heart of the Capay Valley in California, there is a farmer who offers everything you might want to see on a farm: flowering hedgerows abuzz with pollinators, chickens running across a green pasture,and groups of school kids getting their hands in the soil. At Fully Belly Farms, farmer Paul Muller and his partners feed hundreds of families from 200 acres. The bounty of his farm, tended by 45 full time employees that work year-round, provides food through a CSA that delivers to several drop points in the region as well as through several farmers markets. Check out this video to see his amazing operation in action.

Local Flavor-Filled Recipe

This recipe comes from the stars of our California farm video—Full Belly Farm. Full Belly products are marketed both wholesale and retail. They sell to restaurants, at farmers markets and through a Community Supported Agriculture project, or CSA. Both the CSA and the farmers markets forge a direct connection between the farm and the people who buy and eat its produce. Learn more on their website!

Asparagus New Potato Soup

1 bunch of asparagus
6 cups of vegetable stock, light chicken stock or water
Fresh thyme and bay
Two onions
1 pound new potatoes
Olive oil
1 cup cream

Snap off any rooty ends of the asparagus and simmer it in the stock with the thyme and bay. In a deep soup pot, stew the onions and potatoes in the olive oil and a little water. When the vegetables are very soft, strain the stock into the pot and bring it to a simmer.

Chop the asparagus roughly, reserving the tips to garnish the finished soup. Add the rest of the asparagus to the soup pot. Let the soup simmer for about 5 minutes until the asparagus is just tender. Do not overcook or you will loose freshness and color. Puree the soup and pass it through a sieve into a bowl. The soup should be dense but smooth. To get the right consistency, thin with additional water or stock. Finally, add the cream.

Cut the reserved asparagus tips in half lengthwise and parboil for 1 to 2 minutes. Serve the soup garnished with the asparagus tips. It can be served chilled or heated.