De Groentestek

De Groentestek is the Friday farm shop of Tuinderij De Stroom, a vegetable garden on the yard of Ekoboerderij De Lingehof at Hemmen, near Randwijk in the Betuwe, where three growers fill about 450 vegetable and fruit bags a week.

The garden grows several dozen crops, sown every three weeks from April so there is always something to harvest, with the last kale, leeks and lamb's lettuce picked in January; a small polytunnel adds leafy greens in spring and autumn and aubergines and cucumbers in summer. In winter and early spring some vegetables are bought in from other growers. The fruit is mostly bought in: apples and pears from Wageningen University's fruit research station next door, which their website describes as organic, from De Lindegaard in Beusichem, and citrus from elsewhere in Europe. Their website gives their SKAL certification number as 024103.

The shop on the Hemmensestraat is open on Friday from 13:30 to 17:00. Bags come in several sizes and are picked up from sheds at private homes on Thursday in Nijmegen, Lent, Oosterhout and Wageningen, on Friday in Arnhem, and in Elst, Zetten, Heteren, Herveld and Valburg; a four-week trial comes first, and you can stop at any time.

Two fields take turns carrying grain every other year, and the soil is fed with organic manure and green manures.