Herb’n Gardener
Farm Location:
Southwest corner of 17th & Belleview, Kansas City, Missouri
Contact Information:
Lew Edmister
Mailing address: 921B W. 17th Street, Kansas City, MO 64108
Phone: 816-842-4432
E-mail
CSA Distribution Info:
Share Structure:
SUMMER CSA: 15 weeks
Number of shares offered for 2012 season: 10
Please contact Lew for share price information. Bread shares can be had alone or in combination with veggies.
50% deposit is due at sign-up to hold your share. Payment plans are available on an individual basis; contact Lew for details.
What can shareholders expect in their share?
Greens are Lew’s specialty, from custom salad mixes to braising or stir-fry bunches. Lew tries to complete a salad with turnip, radishes, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, garlic and green onion. Yum! He grows six types of kale, many mini-broccoli varieties, Swiss chard, lots of Asian greens in tasty bunches — and Lew seems to be the go-to guy for arugula in its many forms. CSA members will get enough basil and arugula for a winter’s worth of pesto. There may even be a bunch of knockout cut flowers in your share!
CSA members get quite a few items which Lew doesn’t try to grow for market, so he considers his CSA members special. CSA members also have preferred access to sourdough breads baked in Lew’s hand-built wood-fired, earthen oven.
What makes Herb’n Gardener a unique CSA:
Lew’s urban “farm” is comprised of two seperate large city lots in the Westside neighborhood of KCMO which were previously abandonded and allowed to seriously degrade. The overall combined size of the space is just over a quarter acre, which is terribly small in “farm” terms, but Lew has developed a somewhat unique way to hyper-produce organic veggies and herbs in this small space. Through a great deal of work and patience, he has improved the soil greatly, by using only natural fertilizers, soil amendments, companion and interplanting practice and natural pest controls.
During 2010, Lew built a large, wood-fired clay bread oven for baking rustic sourdough breads to sell through his CSA and at farmers’ markets. The bread is an integral portion of Lew’s 2012 CSA program, but may be purchased in a bread-only CSA.
All growers tend to have items they prefer to grow or grow well. Lew has a knack for green stuff, meaning salad greens, braising greens, kales, collards, and a huge variety of herbs (both culinary and medicinal). There are also lots of heirloom tomatoes, french filet beans, pole beans, scallions, shallots, bulb fennel, and probably some very sexy and oddly arty melons. CSA members will also benefit from the ears of heirloom white corn, on which the cucumbers and beans climb on their way to maturity. When Lew isn’t able to be grow in enough quantity to take to market, the harvest will be held exclusively for CSA members.
No labor will be required of Lew’s CSA members this year, but volunteer help will be greatly appreciated during planting time. If you happen to have a weird relative who doesn’t want a CSA share but likes to wallow in the dirt, have them give Lew a call!
Herb’n Gardener is also a member of the Kansas City Food Circle.