Palmyra Real Food Emporium

Tom Maurer has stocked up a bit more heavily than usual this weekend, in anticipation of the Fourth of July holiday and all those cookouts and family feasts. His weekly produce and meats collection odyssey began at 11:30 Thursday morning as he headed over in his Chevy van to Landisdale Farm operated by Daniel and Rachel Landis outside Jonestown. He picked up some grass-fed beef and wild-caught frozen Alaska salmon.

Then it was down to Gloria Gingrich’s Eli-Gingrich orchard in Bellegrove where he picked up green apples and the season’s first peaches. When he arrived, a crisis was underway. Gloria’s son had decided it was wise to spray the pear trees for insect control, but the spray hose broke. So that had to be dealt with. “His approach is to spray as little as possible,” Tom said sympathetically, “but then the hose broke.”

Next, down the Route 117 Mt. Gretna road and, from Colebrook, into the Mastersonville/Manheim area. Tom pulled into the driveway of the Hillside Gardens farm of John and Lizzie Glick. He left an order for a couple of different kinds of fresh corn, peppers, cumcumbers and lettuces which he’d be back to pick up in the afternoon. That’s how fresh his produce is, perhaps not yet picked when he arrives. “I’ve got to have corn for the Fourth of July holiday,” he told Lizzie Glick.

Heading further into Lancaster County, our conversation brought home how much Tom’s a steward of the land and a champion of agriculture, a countryman in every sense of the term. “Agriculture represents 70 percent of our new wealth, and it’s consumed almost at the time it’s produced,” he said at one point. “We have to keep replenishing that wealth.”

The next stop was at Sam Stoltzfus’ greenhouse farm in Gap at the eastern end of Lancaster County. Sam, a former plumber, has a state-of-the art hydroponics growing system. Water drips down floor-to-ceiling food-grade plastic tower gardens and moistens the roots of plants – in this case lettuce – growing horizontally from the towers. The trademarked system recycles 100 percent of the water. As a result, the plants “use only 5-10 percent of the water and nutrients commonly used in conventional and organic farming.” The Stoltzfus farm displays a “Future Growing LLC” sign indicating that it’s the Northeast Distribution and Training Center for the technology. Hydroponics assures that Tom will have fresh lettuce and other vegetables available this winter, because he intends to keep the Emporium open year-round. This trip, in addition to the lettuce, he picked up Swiss and Rainbow chard, basel and an assortment of Amish Paste, Brandywine and other tomatoes from Sam Stoltzfus.

Then it was over to Lancaster and Cheryl Young’s Expressly Local organic food shop at 213 W. King st. Tom and Cheryl have an informal exchange system going. Each has more convenient access than the other to given types of fruit and produce, so they have an exchange when Tom arrives. Tom dropped off tomatoes and green apples for Cheryl and picked up peaches, appricots, plums, beets and mushrooms from her. “I wanted more variety for salads and fruits for the holiday weekend,” Tom said as we headed back up to the Glick farm to pick up their freshly picked sweet corn and other produce.

Total distance covered: 125 miles. Tom does that weekly to keep the Emporium freshly stocked. Upon arrival back in Palmyra, everything goes into the Emporium’s cold room to be kept at peak freshness for the Friday and Saturday market days. The fresh produce jaunt took five-and-a-half hours including a brief lunch break.

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This entry was posted by Karen on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 1:27 am and is filed under Food Scene, Produce Offered. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.