Watercress is an ancient superfood that fueled our ancestors for millennia, and is now making a comeback. Watercress’s name come from it growing in fresh spring water and slow moving streams, leaving this leafy green small, tender, and succulent. It’s also very nutritionally dense, meaning you get a lot of nutrition in a smaller serving; a serving of watercress has more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk, and more vitamin C than oranges, plus oodles of Vitamin K. Use as a delicious and nutritious salad base, just remove the thick fibery stems; quickly saute with ginger; blitz into soup or pesto; or make egg and cress sandwiches.
Local
Organic
Chester, NY
Sun Sprout Farm is located on New York’s famous black dirt in Chester, NY. The land is being leased from the Chester Agricultural Center as part of an innovative farmland preservation project that provides long term, stable leases for high quality farmland.
Sun Sprout Farm is co-owned by Simon Ziegler and Madeleine Banulski who met in 2006 as volunteers at Camphill Village Kimberton Hills in Kimberton, PA, a living community that includes adults with developmental disabilities. Simon worked on the bio-dynamic dairy farm and Madeleine worked in the CSA garden, apple orchard and village cafe. After their two-year service, Simon returned to Germany in 2008 to study and obtain his bachelor’s degree in Organic Agriculture Science in Witzenhausen, Germany while Madeleine started going to nursing school in Philadelphia, PA. Simon came back to farm during his summer breaks every year, and worked on Riverbank Farm in Roxbury, CT with Madeleine as well as various CSA and community gardens in Philadelphia. Simon moved permanently from Germany to the US in 2011 and worked for six years as the field manager at Riverbank Farm, a fifteen-acre organic vegetable farm in Roxbury, CT.
They always dreamed of starting their own farm together. They have been in love with the Hudson Valley for a long time, and after several years of looking for the right place, found our destination in Chester, NY. Madeleine is a nurse and works on the farm part time while continuing her nursing career.