Biologische tuinderij De Stroom

Tuinderij De Stroom is a market garden in Hemmen, near Randwijk in the Betuwe, where three growers pack about 450 vegetable and fruit bags a week and run a Friday farm sale.

The vegetables grow on two fields that carry grain every other year, and on the three-hectare field fruiting, leaf, root and cabbage crops follow one another in rotation. The soil is fed with organic manure and green manures, and new sowings go in every three weeks from April, so the harvest runs until the last kale, leeks and lamb's lettuce in January. In winter and early spring some produce is bought in from other growers and the trade. Their website gives a SKAL number, and the organic certificate we found at this address is held by Ekoboerderij de Lingehof, on whose yard they grow.

The weekly bag (Hemmense groentetas) is collected from pickup points in Lent, Nijmegen and Oosterhout on Thursdays from 12:00, in Wageningen on Thursdays from 15:30, in Arnhem on Fridays from 12:00, and in Elst, Zetten, Heteren, Herveld and Valburg on Fridays. At the farm sale, De Groentestek, open Fridays from 13:30 to 17:00, the season's vegetables are sold loose with bread from Streekbakker Jorrit, cheese from Herveld and apple juice from their own high-stem orchards, and orders can be placed ahead by email.

The apples and pears in the fruit bags come mainly from next door, Wageningen University's fruit research station.