Local Loveliness: Singh Farm

Welcome to our first Local Loveliness post featuring the most fabulous home, garden, and urban farms hot spots in Arizona.

I made my first visit to Singh Farms last Saturday, and my mind was completely blown away. I first heard about the farm while visiting the Agritopia Community Farm the previous weekend, where I accosted a resident harvesting her abundant winter crops. Her broccoli? Humongous. Her rainbow chard? Gigantic. Her Romaine lettuce? Literally ten times the size of my humble little plants sitting in my garden boxes.

I walked around her plot for a while before I got the nerve to ask her why in the heck her plants were so giant, and she swore my the compost she picked up from Singh Farms. Her garden was enough proof for me and me, my mother, and friend Kathie ventured out to Thomas & the 101 to visit the farm.

Upon walking up from the parking lot, I was completely smitten with the place. No boxes, dividers- the only "order" and "organization" they used were little walls of dirt walled up around their plots filled with all kinds of different combinations of herbs, veggies, flowers, trees, and even succulents. It was a little natural wonderland teetering on the edge of the freeway.

The shabby little shack that greets you at the entrance holds one of the most fresh, unique, and entirely local "farmers markets" I've seen. As I meandered about, taking it all in- farm workers would come in with a freshly washed bunch of turnips or spinach and set them in the fast-dwindling piles in from of their handwritten price signs. I passed a barrel with 5 cartons of farm fresh eggs {there are chickens, roosters, peacocks, and turkeys on the property that you can view} and by the time I came back around to them only 5 minutes later, they were all snatched up! You have to come early and move quickly at this place because they sell out FAST.

 Realizing I need to make my move, I squeezed over to the bread corner and grabbed two of the biggest baguettes I could get my hands on. They were fresh, beautiful, and smelled of wheat and sourdough. I was basically in Bread Heaven. The very knowledgeable farm staff member who was selling the bread and answering all kinds of questions informed me the bread was baked locally by his good friend MJ Coe {husband of Tammie Coe, where you can buy his bread and her cakes- can you just imagine a meal at their house?} bakes the bread and delivers it to the market every Saturday. I also snagged up some AMAZING soft pretzels that blow any other soft pretzel I've ever had it my life out of the water.

Of course to go with this amazing bread/pretzels, I had throw in the Good Ol' Pesto, Spicy Grainy Mustard, and "Salsa Verde" which had spinach, arugula, and basically anything green that was ready to harvest seasoned with the traditional southwestern flavors. In one day my pesto was gone. That's how good it was. Pretzels gone that night, and I made dinner with the breads I bought- 3 different kinds of bruschetta: Olive, caprese, & arugula/mushroom/lemon. Best dinner I've had in a while.

We then took a tour around the farm to spy all the amazing produce grown randomly throughout the property, peeked at the chickens & turkeys, then came back for an amazing Muffaletta sandwich made with the artisan bread they sold in the market, which was stuffed with all the best veggies the farm had to offer. It was the most amazing sandwich I've ever had people- and there was NO meat in it!

I couldn't leave without grabbing a big giant bag of compost- one heaping bag was only $12 and was at least twice as big as the bags of Miracle grow you can buy at the store.

I'm definitely going back this Saturday to snap some photos of the Farm to share here with you- come join me next Saturday, you don't want to miss it!

**all photos from the Singh Farms Facebook page! {I forgot my camera!}