Many people discovered their green thumbs last year, stuck at home during the pandemic with spare time to dedicate to new backyard gardens. As the season shifts into full spring, the time for planting is well underway. Newcomers are often anxious about what to pursue for their garden plots and windowsills this time of year, overwhelmed with options. What grows well around here? How do you keep your garden green?
Ask a professional.
Stephen Dienger is the farm manager at Our Harvest, a multi-stakeholder, worker-owned cooperative of farms that provide fresh, responsibly grown produce for the Cincinnati area. Dienger leads the daily activities on the farm and trains and supervises farm hands, on top of an assortment of other administrative duties necessary to keep a modern agricultural business in operation.
Our Harvest consists of two farms, Bahr Farm in College Hill and White Oak Farm in Morrow. These farms work under the belief Greater Cincinnatians should have easy access to healthy food grown by fairly-compensated workers. The food is most easily obtained through weekly harvest boxes, which follows a socioeconomic model known as community-supported agriculture, or a CSA. Think of it as a weekly subscription to your gardening neighbor’s crops.
If you sign up for Our Harvest’s weekly box, you can register to pick your food up in College Hill, Northside, Price Hill, Newport, Clifton or Avondale. Boxes come in different sizes, from the smallest, which offers four different types of produce weekly for $14, to eight different types for $22 and up to 12 different types of produce for $30. This time of year you can expect arugula, cilantro, kale, radish, turnips and more.
Need more than just produce every week? If vegetables aren’t the only items on your table, the harvest boxes include add-ons sourced from other local farms such as pork, chicken and eggs from TS Farms in New Vienna; cheeses from local cheesemakers at My Artisano Foods; coffee from Deeper Roots; jams, salsas, sauces and soups from the Organic Farm at Bear Creek — the list goes on, covering everything a bare pantry could want.
We asked Dienger more about the Our Harvest CSA, the impact of local food and gardening tips for beginners.
CityBeat: Would you talk on the importance of eating locally sourced food? How does it benefit people economically, health-wise, and beyond?
Stephen Dienger: For you personally, eating local means receiving produce soon after being picked at its peak ripeness and nutrition content. However, eating locally goes beyond fewer miles travelled for your food. It keeps your food dollars within our community. Like when you buy from Our Harvest, you are supporting 11 workers plus other farms and food producers we buy from who, in turn, spend our dollars in the community. Also, when you eat local you support farms who are preserving farmland that would otherwise be developed.
We need local food because we cannot rely on our vulnerable supply chain that could fail if there is a breakdown in just one step along this complicated process to get from some faceless farm around the world to your grocery store.
CB: Would you explain to a potential new customer how community-supported agriculture works and why it’s important?
SD: Our CSA model is like a food subscription. You receive a seasonal box of a variety of vegetables and some fruits every week for a designated period of time. Our model allows our customers to pay weekly, but some CSAs require the lump sum up front. Some CSAs offer different sized boxes and may include various other food items like meat or eggs.
Our Harvest CSA goes year-round because we have hoop houses, but we limit to just our small size (boxes) because we are limited to cold-hardy crops. We offer add-ons from us or other local producers such as meat, eggs, pasta, sauces and salsas, cheese, jam and more.
CB: What’s your advice to someone new to farming who might see this spring as the first season they put seeds in dirt? Any big you wish you would’ve known before you started?
SD I go in with a plan but know that I will inevitably stray from it because of factors out of my control, but sometimes in my control. Be comfortable with making mistakes, as many will be made. Take good notes of what you did and what you could do to improve. Ask advice from the old-timers who have “been there and done that.” They are ultimately your hard drive for the do’s and don’ts.
CB: What’s a fairly fool-proof edible spring crop? Something new folks can confidently grow without much need for special care or equipment.
SD: I love Napa cabbage (Chinese cabbage). This Asian green germinates fast, grows compactly, and makes a variety of great dishes. Keep it watered and weeded until the outer leaves fan out, called “lay-by,” when you can lay by and let it do the rest of the work. Cut the whole head once the inner leaves close in and firm up.
Want to learn more about Our Harvest and support local farmers through a CSA? Come to the farmers market in Northside where Our Harvest and a variety of other vendors sell their products every 4-6 p.m. every Wednesday. Northside Farmers Market, North Church, 4222 Hamilton Ave., northsidefm.org.
Learn more about Our Harvest and subscribe to their CSA at ourharvest.coop.
This article appears in Apr 1-30, 2021.