If you successfully got your head wrapped around the idea of a prescription for fruits and vegetables, you are ready to make the next analogous step. Stop by the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market in the Aroostook Centre Mall parking lot next Saturday morning and look at a container or bag from Hidden Meadow Farm.
Like the prescription bottle from the pharmacy, it has an information-dense label. It identifies the source of its contents, of course; Hidden Meadow Farm is found in Bridgewater, ME and is marketed in a number of different local venues including Shop n’ Save, the Riverside Public Market, and the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market, among others. The attractive, colorful label harkens to a bucolic country scene of mostly bygone (pre-factory-farm) days. The contents are identified and the weight and/or volume given. Suggestions for care (usually washing and refrigeration) are included. Very pharmacy-like so far, yes?
The only silly part of the label is the instruction to refrigerate the contents to preserve freshness. It is not a bad suggestion…it is just that the “patient” is going to be “vegging out” on these freshies so extensively, there is no chance that they will stick around long enough to exhibit anything less than the peak of freshness and flavor. A diverse selection planted at intervals through the entire growing season means that there is always variety for customers, as well as new favorites, all season long.
The Estes family continues to “push the envelope” with regard to the short, cool growing season that is Aroostook County. Hidden Meadow Farm successfully brings to market fruits and vegetables that have never before been attempted. Using high hoops, raised beds, and other season stretchers, your “prescription” can be filled with nearly-out-of-season treats all summer long. They have mixed greens in May when “naked farmers” still squint to spot tiny sprouts in their newly planted fields. By late June, spinach and salad greens vie for table space with green onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, hot peppers, and summer squash. Interval planting under cover continues the supply long after frost has cleared conventional fields. Root crops persuade avid fans to store away some of the farm’s bounty as “preventative medicine” when the snow flies.
Regular trips to the Farmers’ Market between May and October will allow you to consume your “prescription” of vegetables with a different, delicious combination every night with little duplication. Who says taking your medicine has to be boring?
The Presque Isle Farmers’ Market contact person Gail Maynard, who operates Orchard Hill Farm in Woodland with her husband, Stan. Their phone number is 498-8541 and their email is orchhill@gmail.com.
