bounty
From the Farm to Your Dinner Table
includes home-brewed beer with its organic veggies. All of the Gorge CSA farms bring you local, fresh food, some of which you can’t even get at the grocery store. So if you lack a green thumb or the land to grow your own food, joining a
Joining one of the many CSA farms in the Gorge makes eating locally and supporting farmers easy—and tasty
CSA is your ticket to connecting with local
by ruth berkowitz // photos by jennifer jones
charges members $495 payable in April. Mem-
farms and eating well. As a traditional CSA farm, Wildwood Farm bers then receive 18 weekly installments of
Wildwood Farm
supported agriculture. CSA farms have been
fresh vegetables from the end of May until
The thick smell of dirt permeates the air of the
sprouting in the Gorge, of late. They come in
mid-September. The farm’s 35-member CSA is
greenhouse and I can’t wait to taste the arugula
various forms and sizes ranging from the tradi-
so popular that it has a waiting list. Brown says
and spinach growing here at Wildwood Farm in
tional model where members pay at the begin-
it’s a challenge to stay that size but he doesn’t
Hood River. Paul Brown, a sailing captain who
ning of the growing season for a portion of the
want to grow because it would require hir-
traded the ocean for the soil, urges me to pick
farm’s future bounty, to the cooperative pro-
ing help. Currently, Brown and his wife, Laurel
what I want. I bend down and gently grab a
gram which provides goods from many farms
Bourret, manage the farm by themselves. This
few leaves. The arugula tastes fresh and spicy,
and allows members to customize their share.
is their third year as a CSA farm.
better than any arugula I have ever eaten. “You
There are meat and poultry CSAs providing
Belonging to a conventional CSA farm
can’t buy that at the store,” Brown says proudly.
everything from grass-fed beef to fresh duck.
means sharing the risk of farming, as was the
But you can get it as a member of Wild-
There’s a CSA that grows veggies aquaponically
case last summer when Wildwood’s potato
wood Farm’s CSA, which stands for community
with the help of fish. There’s even a CSA that
crop suffered from flea beetles. “Although they
72 the gorge magazine // Summer 2013