Weaver's Orchard is located in southern Berks County. It's a fourth generation family orchard and farm going back to 1931. Edgar Weaver (third generation) drove me around a portion of the 107 acres of orchard when I visited earlier this week. Ed recently served as the president of the State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania, an education and advocacy organization for the fruit industry in PA.

A Talk with Reynaldo
By Hannah Westheimer, Local Farm & Food Artisan Researcher
On Monday evening Mary Ann and I traveled two hours from Philadelphia into beautiful Lebanon County farmland to visit Landisdale Farm and to hear –in Spanish—the story of Reynaldo, a man from Peru who helps Dan and Rachel Landis work their farm.

Reynaldo is part of a program called MESA (Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture) that sponsors international farmers to come to the US for training in sustainable and organic agriculture. In exchange, Reynaldo is expected to use his new knowledge for a project to benefit his home village in Chinchero, Peru. He’s looking forward to introducing new varieties of vegetables and organic methods of growing them. Currently, only potatoes and quinoa are grown (with the use of chemicals) there. Reynaldo was excited to learn about what HLF does, as he also wants to open a vegetable market and have classes to teach his villagers how to prepare the vegetables he plans to grow.

After conquering numerous obstacles—hurricanes, flooding, calendar mix-ups—Hannah and I finally made it to this much-anticipated meeting at Rachel and Dan Landis’s farm in Elizabethtown. Hannah, a fluent Spanish speaker, interviewed Reynaldo Levita who comes from Peru and helps Dan and Rachel farm their 200 or so acres. I’ve recently become concerned and interested in how our supplying farmers make decisions about their help, and this was our first face to face meeting with a person from a different country who does farm work on one of “our” farms. Hannah was a natural at interviewing in Spanish. She has written up Reynaldo’s story which you can find on the HLF website.

Often when you the term "busy bee," it conjures up a person buzzing around, getting things done, not so much a winged creature flying from flower to flower. But when it come to raw honey, the term takes on a whole new meaning. In fact, it takes both busy humans and busy bees to get this sweet and sticky product from flower, to hive, to jar. This week we are lucky to have raw honey from not one, but TWO local beekeepers.

First, there's the very local honey that many of you have come to know and love from from Pam's beekeeping husband, Steve. Labeled and sold as Vortex House Honey (named after their family residence in W. Philly), the supply is limited and disappears quickly . Customers swear that this honey is the best and that it helps with their seasonal allergies because it's made by bees that gather nectar from a wide variety of local flowers

Freshly pressed video from yesterday's farm visit to Dutch Meadow Organic Dairy in Paradise, PA. Farmer Aaron Stoltzfus and his family graze 50 Dutch Belted cows on the lush green pastures featured in this clip. From this ideal forage the herd produces healthy, farm fresh that's bottled on the farm into returnable glass containers.

A behind the scenes video of how your local, organic groceries from Harvest Local Foods get from local farmers to your fridge!

Farmer Phil Horst-Landis, an owner of Sweet Stem Farm, in Lancaster County, shares with us how his sheep "do happy."

This is a list of many of the local farmers we partner with throughout the year.

From fresh baked breads, creamed honey and hummus, to local fruit jam, salsa and pickles the food artisans we partner with take pride in crafting the best products, locally.