Health store offers fresh produce, eggs
By Meredith Lawrence
For Sumner merchant Kim Ode, not only is it important to provide the community with health food and vitamin options, it’s important to continue to expand the range of options she offers.
Ode began to offer fresh, local produce two weeks ago in her store, Jubilee Naturals. The produce is grown by Kelda Miller of Sumner in her garden, Ode said.
“She is only 1.2 miles away; she brings it over on her bike,” Ode said.
Miller, who has turned most of her yard into a garden, has been growing organic produce for some time and recently decided to sell her excess produce.
“I was wanting to help Kim’s store to sell more local goods, and I think there’s more of a benefit to me selling my produce in her store than having me set up a farm stand in my front yard,” Miller said.
Getting the licensing and insurance to sell has not been easy, she said. Since she’s gone through the process herself, she hopes it will pave the way for others to begin to sell their excess produce as well.
Since she has a consulting and teaching business, it was easier for her to expand her already existing business permit, she said.
Miller, who grew up on South Hill, has been gardening for as long as she can remember, and, although she moved around and learned about various sustainable practices, she is excited to be gardening in the area again.
Miller delivers on Tuesdays and brings a salad mix and an assortment of bunched greens. The salad mix includes lettuce, which survived the snow storm, plus arugula, spinach, baby kale, fava bean leaves and violets, which contrast nicely with the spicy mustard greens.
“There’s no place I know of where you can buy salad like this,” Miller said.
The bunches of greens include turnip greens, kale, swiss chard and radish greens. Soon she hopes to be selling some Jerusalem artichokes. Miller also grows other produce, such as leaks, carrots and potatoes, but is using them all herself at present. Later in the season, she might have some excess to sell, she said.
“It’s great to be able to showcase what’s able to be grown in Sumner in February,” she said.
Ode also is trying to stock farm-fresh eggs from Take Root Farm in Buckley, and fresh milk from grass-fed Jersey cows, which live on a farm in Oregon.
“I also buy it for my family, so it’s convenient,” she said. “It’s what I believe in.
“With organic eggs that come from chickens that have been fed the proper food, I don’t worry about cholesterol in them.”
Additionally, Ode had made her store a drop place for boxes of produce from the farm-share program through Take Root Farm. Participants who have paid for this season’s share can pick up a box of assorted produce. The produce is all organic, but, depending on the season, it may not be grown at Take Root Farm.
Each week, the box is a surprise, Ode said.
“I’ve actually changed the way I do my grocery shopping,” she said.
Now, she looks at what she gets in her box and thinks about what she can make from the produce and what she needs to buy according to those recipes.
She said it’s great to be offering so many options that are pesticide- and genetically-modified-organism-free.
FARM SHARE CO-OPParticipants in the farm share program buy in for a season at a time and receive an assorted box of produce each week throughout the season. Participants are invited to join at any time; prices are pro-rated. Boxes are dropped every Wednesday at Jubilee Naturals in Sumner. For more information, visit www.takerootfarm.com.
Meredith Lawrence is a freelance reporter for The Herald.
