Cleveland Heights City Fresh harvests local fruits, veggies, and community

Last year's manager, Tracie Zamiska, and her mother, Karen, tending tables in September 2010

The all-volunteer crew of the Coventry Fresh Stop is gearing up to begin distributing farm fresh fruits and vegetables on the lawn next to the Coventry Village Library on June 14. Part of the City Fresh Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) network that delivers food from local farms to sites across Cuyahoga, Lorain and Summit counties, the Coventry Fresh Stop will operate on Tuesday evenings from June 14 until Oct. 25, with food demonstrations on the third Tuesday of the month. City Fresh is a project of the nonprofit New Agrarian Center, based in Oberlin, Ohio.

This will be Fresh Stop’s fourth year at the Coventry library location. In past summers, the pop-up market set up tables near the large mulberry tree each week and piled them high with fruits and vegetables less than 24 hours out of the ground. A little before 5 p.m., a line would start to form—college students and retirees from nearby apartments, joggers with dogs, families with kids—and soon customers would move along the tables collecting lettuce, squash, onions, peaches, herbs and more, chatting about recipes with volunteers.

It is a summertime ritual for many. “I really got drawn into it because of my kids,” said Anna Kiss Mauser-Martinez, manager of this year’s Coventry Fresh Stop. “We would come to pick up our share and my kids would play with other kids, climb the tree, while I would talk to people about bok choy. Pretty soon I started volunteering, and after a year or two, I became the assistant manager. I look forward to it when the snow’s on the ground.”

Volunteer Bethany Dare was also a customer before becoming involved with the Fresh Stop. “We’d been getting our vegetables almost exclusively at the farmers' market or directly from some Amish near Middlefield for at least a solid year when we started actively looking into CSAs with a pick-up near Cleveland Heights,” she said. “We got a sign-up sheet from a coworker at the beginning of last summer and sent in our check within a couple days, without a second thought, because we could try a week at a time and could still purchase shares after the start of the season. Within a week or two I was helping with distribution. We were hooked.”

Unlike other CSAs, City Fresh sells shares week by week. Members can buy only for the weeks they need produce. Shares must be ordered and paid for in advance, but they can be stopped and started, or even doubled for company, at any point in the 20-week growing season. They are available in both family (three or four people) and single (one or two people) sizes. 

City Fresh is also unique in its commitment to providing affordable fresh food to low-income members. Those who qualify can purchase weekly shares at a reduced price. City Fresh accepts cash, check and Ohio Directions cards.

The produce is grown on 30 small family farms—including four urban farms—within 70 miles of Cleveland. Unfortunately, the 2011 season is starting slowly because of unusually high rainfall. Originally slated to begin June 7, the first distribution day had to be pushed back because farmers knew they wouldn’t have enough produce ready to pick.

Over the course of the summer, shares get gradually bigger with the harvest. The produce contains familiar favorites, but farmers also include some exotic vegetables. Learning how to prepare Japanese eggplant and kohlrabi is part of what customers enjoy.

“It makes dinner planning so much easier,” said volunteer Yevgenia Probst. “Whatever we get is what we eat.”

For order forms and more information on the Coventry Fresh Stop, visit its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/City-Fresh-Cleveland-Heights/100406746378 or visit www.cityfresh.org.

Toni Thayer

Toni Thayer is a 16-year Cleveland Heights resident, City Fresh volunteer and avid veggie adventurer.

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Volume 4, Issue 6, Posted 12:28 PM, 06.01.2011