Personal experience: how to fill the fridge with organic matter and not go broke

Фото: Depositphotos

One of the main problems of adaptation for our people in America is... food. There is everything here that the soul desires, but at that very moment when the soul desires sunny tomatoes, crispy cucumbers from the garden, it turns out that everything is not easy here with vegetables and fruits. There seems to be everything on the shelves, from simple green apples to exotic “papayas and passion fruits.” They look beautiful - one to one - but without smell or taste.
“Well, where do you get natural cucumbers?” I ask my friend when she treats me to a real salad, like from childhood. I want them to smell like home too. I want organic things - fragrant tomatoes and crispy juicy peppers, and not to go broke when you buy all this. The Nazgul smiles slyly and promises to arrange a surprise.

She brought me to a real field, where people take great pleasure in harvesting other people's crops. How funny it is! Twenty minutes drive from the city and you find yourself in vegetarian paradise. There is everything here: tomatoes, peppers, green beans, several types of cucumbers, corn, eggplants, zucchini and even watermelons, melons and pumpkin. But all this goodness, please, collect it yourself. This place is called a farm store.

Our Davis Ranch, near Sacramento, is one of hundreds of thousands of such farms. Just enter the words U-PICK farms into the search engine and you will find out where a similar farm is located in your area.

There are routes for organic lovers in California, in FloridaIn New JerseyIn New York.

The system is simple: first, farm workers weigh the car on scales before driving and then after harvesting. This way the weight and price of vegetables and fruits is calculated. For 25 cents a pound, you can get enough to fit in your machine.
We must go to the farm in the morning: the earlier I arrived, the better I picked the vegetables. I came to pick up vegetables for the week ahead, and many come to make supplies for several families or ... to resell organic matter at the farmers market at exorbitant prices.

“Galya asked me to bring more tomatoes,” I hear from a woman who is nearby collecting tomatoes in a bucket. “Just choose ones that are not very soft, so that they can still stand in the store...” I ask them why they need so many tomatoes. “Have you ever wondered why Russian stores have such good vegetables and fruits?” Nadezhda answers. – I’ll tell you a secret: we rent them there, and then you buy them. There they will ask you for at least 2 bucks a pound for these tomatoes.”
Good business. Our man, accustomed to the land, to his country-houses, gardens, and in America will not disappear. On the field, every second person speaks Russian, Ukrainian, Moldovan. Americans also have, but, as a rule, they travel here with their children as if they were on a tour.

Our man, accustomed to the land, to his country-houses, gardens, and in America will not disappear. Photo by the author.

“Look, Nancy, this is how tomatoes grow,” dad says to his child. “Let’s go, let’s collect it and make a salad at home...” A five-year-old girl examines a freshly picked tomato. He throws it in his mother’s bag and listens to his parents’ stories about why these vegetables first turn green and then turn red. And all this in the fresh air. As for me, it’s a wonderful, low-budget and, most importantly, healthy option for active recreation.

“I don’t work here just to get paid,” says farm worker Paul Sombrano. – First of all, it is a joy for me, because work gives me a lot of pleasure. I communicate with people and spend the whole day outdoors. It's great!".
He said that on average 300 cars come here every weekend. “Health-conscious people come here because we grow vegetables without chemicals,” Pall says. — And for watering vegetables we use clean and fresh water from our own wells, without chemicals or bleach. You definitely won’t find fresher vegetables!” Indeed, the cucumbers here are just like home – crispy and very tasty. However, like all the vegetables that you picked yourself.

Farm worker Poll Sombrano says that working on the farm is a joy to him. Photo by the author.

Here, like many farms, there is a “market for the lazy.” The same vegetables, fruits, apples, but already collected and packaged in boxes. And the prices are steep compared to those on the field. The watermelon you took from the field will cost 25 cents per pound, and the one you brought to the market at the entrance will cost a dollar per pound. And if more than half of the plantations are our people, then in this market only Americans are among the buyers. They don’t like to waste time on harvesting, and they don’t have a trained eye - they can’t immediately determine which zucchini to pick and which one still needs to grow.

If you want to remember your childhood in your grandmother’s tree or just fill your refrigerator with organic matter without going broke, go to, for example, broker, which brings together the farm, and look for what is now ripe and where you can go on the next weekend. In California, we have just the season of apples, pumpkins, nuts and pomegranates.

See also:

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