When people talk about reasons to buy local fruits and veggies, they often bring up flavor. A tomato from the grocery store doesn’t taste anything like a tomato fresh from the garden. But Francie Randolph of Sustainable Cape says there’s a big health difference, too.

For the past two weeks on the Local Food Report, I’ve been airing pieces from an interview I did this winter with apple expert John Bunker. The Maine gardeners I grew up with spoke of Bunker’s apple knowledge with awe and reverence, and when I finally met him, I understood why. Bunker—founder of the mail order nursery Fedco Trees—grows an estimated 450 varieties of apples on his farm outside Augusta, Maine. When I asked him if he had any favorites, he named two—and added in a little history. Here are Bunker’s favorites, in his own words.

Meet John Bunker — a farmer in his 70s who arguably knows more about apple varieties than almost anyone alive in New England today. I’ve always wanted to meet him. Growing up in Maine, I’d hear about people driving up to John’s farm outside of Augusta, bringing him apples from old trees on their property, and hoping he could help them figure out what variety they were — and how to reproduce them, since apples don’t grow true from seed.

To keep many of our keystone nut trees dominant on the landscape, we need to burn the woods periodically. The same prescribed or “cultural” fires that make our sandy pine and oak forests less likely to succumb to catastrophic burns also help species like oaks, hickories, and hazels thrive. These trees are “fire-adapted”: they share traits including thick bark, the ability to resprout vigorously from deep roots, resistance to rotting after fire scarring, and seeds that germinate well in fire-created seedbeds.

Foraging for hazelnuts is really more appropriate in late summer/early fall, so around September, but this time of year their catkins— the male flowering component of the plant that produces all the pollen—are really obvious and dangling from the branches, and with no leaves on any of the trees or shrubs this is the time of year you can actually see them.

Barnstable County has one of the highest child food insecurity rates in Massachusetts. Today, Tammy Leone is Executive Director of Cape Kid Meals and says it’s grown quite a bit since Pastor Johnson first reached out to the elementary schools in his community of Dennis.

Barnstable County has one of the highest child food insecurity rates in Massachusetts. Today, Tammy Leone is Executive Director of Cape Kid Meals and says it’s grown quite a bit since Pastor Johnson first reached out to the elementary schools in his community of Dennis.

That’s the goal of the recently formed South Coast Food Policy Council — to get every part of the regional food system functioning and communicating. In the immediate future, Liz says, the most likely change is that Massachusetts residents will see big cuts to services like the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, which helps feed more than 12 percent of Mass residents or almost a million people. And to address this the council is dusting off pandemic-era approaches to making food assistance more local.

It’s creamy as in instead of being made with water and sugar, it’s made with sugar and heavy cream. When he first saw this new-to-him version of the famous Italian after-dinner drink, Lou wasn’t sure what to make of it, put it in the freezer, and for months, completely forgot about it.

It’s creamy as in instead of being made with water and sugar, it’s made with sugar and heavy cream. When he first saw this new-to-him version of the famous Italian after-dinner drink, Lou wasn’t sure what to make of it, put it in the freezer, and for months, completely forgot about it.

Today the oysters in Barnstable Harbor are farmed by aquaculture growers. Like all farmers, oyster growers have to buy seed each season. And Greta Nelson says that when their oyster seeds arrive from the hatchery, they’re tiny, so small that they can’t just be put out on the flats — they grow them in bags made of fine mesh.

The way that we generally prune blueberries is they're shrubs that often produce new shoots out of the ground. And it's really important to for almost all shrubs that produce shoots out of the ground to maintain youthfulness in the shrub.

Shadbush berries are delicious—kind of like a cross between a beach plum and a blueberry, with small nutty seeds. Most of the time we just eat shadberries—they're so good, and also they don't keep that well—but in the rain this weekend I decided to experiment.

I reached out to friends all over the Cape about what they're foraging. Together, we compiled a list of what's out there this time of year. The idea is to help you keep yourself healthy and fed during these difficult times. The links are either to old blog posts on these wild edibles, or other websites that have good identification guides.

The great thing about sourdough is that all you need is flour, water, and salt. That's it!

Most people have no idea migratory beekeepers even exist—they do their work at night, moving bees while they're all back in the hive and unloading into orchards and fields in the dark—let alone how important they are to our huge, industrial food system.