Morning Song Farm brings food from farm to table

Farm fresh food is not a luxury or novelty when you live in Southern California. It's a tangible and affordable way to feed your family. Fruits and vegetables picked from the fields in the morning can be on your fork that evening when you join Morning Song Farm's community supported agriculture program (CSA).

Morning Song Farm is located in the quaint rural community of Rainbow, part of the Fallbrook area. It is a certified organic family-run farm producing sub-tropical fruits, nuts, and heirloom vegetables.

œWe are a culmination of a life-long dream that through hard work and the perfect location we are able to fulfill our family's vision of a diversified, sustainable organic farm, said owner Donna Buono.

The climate in Rainbow is Mediterranean cooled by ocean breezes allowing Buono to grow a large variety of produce on more than 30 acres of land.

As a CSA farmer, Buono can share the fruits of her labor with the local community by delivering baskets of fresh produce to subscribers from San Diego, Riverside, and Orange counties. Because of the growing demand, Morning Song Farm's fresh food can only be enjoyed through the CSA program.

œBecause we harvest in the morning and deliver our produce within hours, our customers really are getting that field-to-fork experience. Its something you cannot obtain by shopping at a grocery store, said Buono.

In many cases, produce sold at a grocery store can be 14 days old, has traveled across the country or been imported from foreign lands.

Morning Song offers two basket sizes - small and large - that are delivered weekly to a CSA supporting store with the customer's name on the basket.

The weekly subscription baskets range from $35 to $45 a week with a 13-week commitment or more. For a family of four, the cost of food averages out to eight to eleven dollars a week per person for all their fruits and vegetables.

œWe cost less than one family trip to a fast food restaurant for a whole week's worth of healthy, delicious food, said Buono.

Families have said they enjoy preparing an amazing variety of dishes with Morning Song Farm's heirloom seed heritage lettuces, beets, Swiss chard, herbs, tomatoes, chiles, beans, garlic, carrots, and more. They also grow Reed, Pinkerton, Bacon, Toro Canyon, Zutano and Hass avocados. Bearss limes, Satsuma mandarins, Nagami kumquats, Asian pears, ollieberrie blackberries, boysenberries, Fioja guavas, and several varieties of figs are grown as well. Their trees produce, Valencia, navel and Moro blood oranges, and assorted grapefruit in addition to trees that grow citrons, apples, peaches, apricots, plums, pomegranates, and an unnamed tiny pink fig whose harvest rarely makes it past family and friends.

Buono is experimenting with mangos, passion fruit, loquats, stevia and papayas, Dragon Fruit, Himalayan and Pakistani mulberries.

Morning Song Farm's growing grounds also has the right amount of heat and cool ocean air to allow a large assortment of macadamias to grow and prosper.

œMost people have never tasted a raw nut, freshly cracked, rather than fried in coconut oil, salted, and stored for who knows how long, said Buono.

To learn more about Morning Song Farms, visit their website http://www.morningsongfarm.com or call (949) 310-4870.

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