Take A Load Off: Farm-to-Home Delivery
Featuring a nearly eight-pound cantaloupe and a dozen ears of corn
In This Issue
• Take a Load Off with Direct-from-Farm Delivery
• Windy City Harvest Application for Its 2022 Apprenticeship Program
• Today’s Chicago Region Farmers Markets
Take A Load Of With Direct-From-Farm Delivery
Last week, I celebrated National Farmers Market Week by bouncing all over town, visiting as many markets as I could. But I recognize this is not normal behavior. If you are not publishing a local food newsletter (please don’t, I do not need the competition), fitting one, maybe two markets a week into your busy schedules gets you a gold star.
And much as I love farmers markets, it is important to note that direct-from-farm home delivery has become much more widely available, especially since the pandemic disarranged our usual modes of purchasing food.
You can’t get more convenient than home delivery. Even with all my market runs, I utilize delivery myself, in part because having heavier items dropped off in our apartment lobby lightens the load I have to haul around the markets.
I’ve often mentioned that Tracey Vowell of Three Sisters Garden in Kankakee, Illinois is one of my favorite vendors. Tracey was long a fixture at Green City Market in Lincoln Park, then she pivoted quickly to home delivery in Chicago during the shutdowns in the early stages of the 2020 COVID crisis. It has worked out well enough for her to stick with the delivery only model, even though the markets are back to their normal schedules.
Today’s delivery underscores the load-lightening benefits of home delivery. I saved a couple of bucks by getting 12 ears of Tracey’s famous sweet corn, more than one would reasonably want to haul around at the market… even if one wasn’t also planning to buy a humongous cantaloupe. They grow ‘em big in Kankakee, and I am confident that this nearly 8-pound melonball will keep us well-fruited for a week.
(I also filled in some pantry gaps with a pint of cherry tomatoes, a pound of summer onions, some lovely mixed summer squash and mint.)
Even with markets in full swing, there are some that also aggregate orders for vendors and do home delivery. For example, Green City Market and the South Loop Farmers Market are delivering through the WhatsGood website and app.
We’ll be highlighting some more farm-to-home delivery options soon.
Windy City Harvest 2022 Apprenticeship App
Windy City Harvest — the Chicago Botanic Garden’s urban agriculture program — has opened its application for its 2022 Apprenticeship class. The program is a partnership with City Colleges of Chicago, and applicants must be eligible to enroll in the City Colleges. Applications must be received by October 4.
Students selected into the Apprentice program will receive a combination of classroom, lab and field experience at the Arturo Velasquez Institute greenhouse and at Windy City Harvest farm sites, complemented by a 12-week paid work experience at a Windy City Harvest farm or partnering urban farming operation.
Program graduates receive a Certificate in Sustainable Urban Agriculture from Chicago Botanic Garden, an Advanced Certificate in Sustainable Urban Horticulture from Richard J. Daley College, and a Certificate in Environment Literacy from Roots of Success.
Click the first button below for more information on the Windy City Harvest site, and the second button to learn more about all Windy City Harvest programs in an article Local Food Forum published on August 4.