The Local Food Report

Homemade limoncello on Martha’s Vineyard Feb 20, 2025

Years ago, Lou Quattrucci’s neighbor came home from a trip to Italy with a gift. It was a bottle of creamy limoncello.

Oyster seed ordering for the spring Feb 13, 2025

Around this time every year, Elspeth talks with a local farmer or gardener about ordering seeds for the upcoming growing season. This year, she’s branched into aquaculture.

Pruning tips for backyard berries Feb 06, 2025

You’ve probably heard that you’re supposed to prune fruit trees. But did you know that it’s also important to prune berries?

The basics of pruning fruit trees Jan 30, 2025

I sat down with Russell Norton a horticulture and agriculture educator with the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension and started by asking him: why do we prune?

Seed saving tips from local pros Jan 23, 2025

Back in 2001, Lauren Leveque and her husband Josh learned to seed save as professionals with High Mowing Seeds in Vermont.

Five ways to eat a cabbage Jan 16, 2025

This week on the Local Food Report, five ways to eat a cabbage.

Food is medicine on the Outer Cape Jan 09, 2025

Melissa Lynch works with Sustainable Cape, a non-profit dedicated to connecting local food to healthy places and people. Since April of 2024, she’s been running the organization’s Food is Medicine program, where Mass Health actually pays Sustainable Cape to deliver some of its patients’ local food:

This local cactus is edible, but don't harvest it Jan 02, 2025

One fall, I lead a foraging walk with visiting fellows from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. I pointed out Prickly Pear Cactus — a plant that I’ve heard you can eat, but that we’re not allowed to harvest in Massachusetts, because here it’s considered an endangered species.

Tips for pie makers Dec 19, 2024

Imagine yourself sitting down to dessert at the end of a holiday feast. What are you looking for in a pie? This is the question a panel of judges in Provincetown asks themselves each year at an event at the Provincetown Commons called Pie Fest.

A rare local fruit is making its way back to Cape Cod Dec 12, 2024

This week, a Falmouth man heads to the Midwest to meet a rare local fruit.

Making eggnog: time a key ingredient Dec 05, 2024

Elspeth Hay's great-grandfather kept his eggnog recipe in the safety deposit box - it's that good. This week on The Local Food Report, Elspeth reveals its secrets, and how it got the sexton drunk.

A re-telling of the Thanksgiving story with an unexpected narrator Nov 28, 2024

This week on the Local Food Report, a re-telling of the Thanksgiving story with an unexpected narrator.

A Falmouth shepherd, his dog, and their sheep Nov 21, 2024

Until the other day, I’d never thought about how an animal’s diet affects the ways farmers control them. When we talk about the differences between farm animals raised on grass versus grain, we usually focus on health. But there’s also a set of relationships that’s lost when these animals follow the sound of grain in a bucket instead of grazing.

A tiny squash that's packed with flavor Nov 14, 2024

When Brewster farmer Ron Backer first read about honeynut squash, he knew he wanted to grow it.

Farmers, gardeners, and landscapers on adapting their growing practices and crops as our climate changes Nov 07, 2024

This summer, farmer Dave Dewitt of Truro told me he’s growing something I’ve always thought of as a southern crop — okra.

It’s a banner year for acorns Oct 31, 2024

Harvesting dinner and jewelry from the sea Oct 24, 2024

Harvesting Dinner—and Jewelry—from the Sea.

A farm educator in Truro gets kids excited about fruits, veggies and voting Oct 17, 2024

For years now, farmer Stephanie Rein of the non-profit Sustainable Cape in Truro has been teaching kids about growing food. She does this in multiple elementary schools on the Outer Cape, and when she first started, she had the kids make something she called a seed wish list.

100 years of tree crops in Pennsylvania Oct 10, 2024

A few years ago, a Philadelphia arborist named Max Paschall read an article about a man named John Hershey. Hershey ran a tree nursery and experimental farm in Pennsylvania in the 1930s.

Mushrooms as medicine Sep 19, 2024

Reishi has a number of different impacts on our bodies, but one of the major ways it works as a medicine is by influencing our gut microbiota.

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