Boston Organics Blog | Fresh. Organic. Delivered. (102)

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! For the last week of 2011, we’ve got Forono beets, a rainbow potato mix, Mung bean sprouts, Florida citrus, and much more. Also, it’s the last week that we have holiday add-ons available, so it’s time to stock up! Get the scoop in this week’s newsletter!

Topics: Newsletter

Interested in giving Boston Organics deliveries as a gift?

Topics: Holiday

We’ve got the Winter Solstice, Chanukah, and Christmas all happening this week ! The produce is just as festive, with rainbow carrots, a rainbow potato mix, and Clementine add-ons! Also, we have tasty recipes for Stuffed Cabbage, Carrot & Cumin Soup, Potato Latkes, and Apple Dumplings! Check out the newsletter!

Topics: Newsletter

It’s our first week of root veggies from Winter Moon Farm in Hadley, MA, with rainbow beets, carrots, and parsnips coming our way. Rainbow chard, sweet potatoes, and onions are also going out in boxes. Plus, check out our holiday schedule and a special note from Food For Free in this week’s newsletter!

Topics: Newsletter

Happy December! The fine folks at Dwight Miller and Son Orchards in Vermont are sending us Honeycrisp apples, which we think are some of the tastiest, sweetest, most crisp apples available. We’re also looking at delicious items such as green bell peppers, swiss chard, parsnips, and sunchokes. We’ve got organic garbanzo beans from Fiddler’s Green Farm as the featured add-on this week. In addition, find out about our giveaway for a Taza chocolate factory tour, and a special promotion from our neighbors at Avalon CrossFit. Check out this week’s newsletter!

Topics: Newsletter

Every week we put together a local box (which we call the “Dogma Box”) to help people eat food that’s both organic AND local! The Dogma Box includes produce that has been sourced as close to Boston as possible, and this week we’ve got some great items from Massachusetts and Vermont.

Topics: Local Dogma Box

We hope everyone had a delicious and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday! Just because the holiday is over, it doesn’t mean you have to stop eating well! We’ve got onions, broccoli sprouts, green bell peppers, potatoes, and more for you this week. Add-on grapes and pumpkins are done for the season, but we still have Missouri pecans and other seasonal add-ons. Also, get recipes for curried turnips, root veggie chowder, lemongrass soup, and apple, goat cheese, and pecan pizza! Check out this week’s newsletter!

Topics: Newsletter

We have a special thank you note from Boston Organics’ founder Jeff Barry, and we’re featuring our 5 favorite customer-submitted recipes from the Thanksgiving recipe contest! Check out this week’s newsletter!

Topics: Holiday, Newsletter

We recently took a trip down to Rochester, MA to visit our friends at Jonathan’s Sprouts and learn more about where their sprouts come from. Liz Reilley, Jonathan’s Director of Sales & Marketing, was kind enough to show us around their main sprout facility, which has been in the same large barn for over 30 years! We even got to sneak a few samples.

After putting on our hair nets and lab coats, Liz showed us their seed storage room and explained the importance of seed testing. Food safety is a top priority for Jonathan’s Sprouts, which is why they thoroughly sample and test all of their products from seed to sprout. Sprouts are grown from seed to sprout in only a week, and they can be grown year-round.

Our next stop was the sprout packing room, where we were surrounded by racks of beautiful alfalfa sprouts, sunflower sprouts, mung bean sprouts, and spicy radish sprouts. We were pleasantly surprised to find that instead of using a mechanized packing process, Jonathan’s employees weigh and pack each container of fresh sprouts by hand. They are able to package and distribute approximately 40 tons of sprouts each week!

Once packaged, the sprouts are distributed to supermarkets, specialty markets, wholesale distributors, and small grocery services like Boston Organics! Click here to read more about Jonathan’s Organic and why they believe in organic practices.

After our lovely visit with the Jonathan’s Sprouts crew, Liz took us to Buzzards Bay to see how cranberries are harvested and meet some of the cranberry growers that Jonathan’s works with each year. In the fall, Jonathan’s packages and distributes cranberries for local cranberry growers. Despite the short harvest season (October through December), cranberries are a major commercial crop in Massachusetts, and the cranberry harvest is the main source of income for many Massachusetts families.

Keith Mann, a fourth generation cranberry grower, showed us how cranberries are harvested at the bog. Cranberries grow on shallow vines, and growers flood the bogs with water in order to harvest the cranberries. Once the bog is flooded, the growers use a harvesting machine that quickly stirs up the water and loosens the cranberries from the vine. Cranberries have small air pockets in their center, which causes them to float to the top. This creates the scene that you see in Ocean Spray commercials. Check out this video of Keith explaining the harvesting process.

The floating berries are then corralled and put on a conveyor that takes them up to a truck. The cranberries are separated from the debris before being taken to a warehouse, where they’re cleaned, sorted, and packaged.

Keith explained that most cranberries are wet-picked because the wet picking process produces a higher yield and requires less time and labor. The wet-picked berries are typically used for juice, sauce, and other processed foods. Roughly 10 percent of cranberries are dry harvested and sold as fresh fruit.

As we approach the holiday that brings cranberries to the forefront of our plates, we’re thankful for the growers who work hard to get them to us. If you have any questions about cranberries, sprouts, or anything else we offer, send us an email and we’ll make sure your questions get answered!

Topics: Organic Farmers