Years ago, this part of the summer often would find Angela Collins working the garden patch, toiling at the elbow of one or another grandparent. All four of her mother and father’s Italian-born parents were avid gardeners, and Collins naturally followed their lead. The 15-year Naperville resident still tends a small patch of vegetables in her backyard.
Supplementing the just-picked yield are farm stand goods she picks up for herself, her husband and son at Mayneland Farm, at Mill Street and Bauer Road. The family’s protein comes from a share they hold in Walnut Acres Family Farm, a small ranching operation that sits an hour and a half west of the city, midway between Princeton and Rock Falls.
Collins is part of a growing population that harbors an appetite for foodstuffs grown or raised close to home. The locally sourced trend is steadily gaining strength, sprouting a variety of ways to secure regional nourishment well beyond the warm season’s myriad farmers markets.
“I think that people are looking at how to feel better without drugs, without the antibiotics and hormones that go into their meat,” Collins said. “They want to be healthy, and they want to know how to do it.”
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Beacon-News
