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Fresh air-flown vegetables, fruits and herbs from organic farms in Nepal. Box delivery of produce to your home.

Introducing regular harvests of nutritional goodness and true flavours from our organic hilltop farms (nearly 2,000 meters high) outside of Kathmandu valley.

We grow a variety of Himalayan staples and Mediterranean-style heritage vegetables to give you the true taste of farm-grown and manually-picked greens, roots, salads, mushroom and herbs.

We are against the use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers. Our farms’ water is piped in from an underground source and a spring-fed stream. The environment is free of traffic and factories. We use organic compost. As natural as can be.

We make specialty fruit and flower jams and pickles on the farm. Guaranteed that you will not find rhododendron, roselle, ginger, mulberry or yacon jams anywhere else.

Box Delivery

We accept box orders from $70 onwards with a delivery charge. You make a selection or we choose from our weekly list of vegetables in quantities suited to your family needs. For instance, we have potatoes, tomatoes, various lettuces, rocket, cabbage, fresh shiitake mushroom, carrots, radish with leaves, bok choy, lemon, herbs (parsley, oregano, chervil, celery, (coriander) and more to prepare your meals.

Our Organic Himalaya newsletter informs on seasonal vegetables, highland beans and lentils, oils, bottled produce that are available. We include nutrition information, cooking tips and caring and storing fresh vegetables.

Join in our mailing list: cynthiahoefer@mac.com Tel.: 98630434.

List of Vegetables

  1. Avocado
  2. Carrot
  3. Bok Choy
  4. Cabbage Napa
  5. Cauliflower
  6. Coriander
  7. Ginger
  8. Green Onion/ Spring
  9. Herbs 20 Bunches
  10. Lemon
  11. Lettuce Red
  12. Lettuce Green
  13. Mizuna
  14. Orange
  15. Potato
  16. Radish with leaves
  17. Rocket
  18. Shiitake
  19. Yam
  20. Yacon
  21. Tomato
  22. Plus a range of jams, pickles, nettle tea, highland lentils and beans

Brief History

Well, it is another year for us at Organic Himalaya and as I reviewed past correspondence on our Phulbari farm in Nepal back in January 2008, I did not think that I would be plodding along bringing in fresh organic vegetables and processed produce from Nepal today.

It was a decision by two men – my husband Hans and a European agronomist – to plant a range of Mediterranean vegetable crops and fruit trees to sell in Kathmandu and abroad. The excitement of rich harvests from a hilltop farm left dormant after years of internal strife between Maoists and the Nepali army was palpable. Projections, costs and sale of large yields flew over my head as a casual observer.

When I visited the farm with some friends that fateful March in 2008 after eight years’ absence and tasting the bitter chicory, endives, rocket and a slew of supreme off-the-ground vegetables I was converted to our own organic produce.

Landing back in Singapore, I yearned for that discernible quality of Himalayan vegetables fed by spring water, soil enriched by natural compost in a pristine environment with a view to the sacred mountains.

Starting with a small order to sell to friends and others by word-of-mouth, I became an instant purveyor of greens selling from our “countryside” home on a hill in Upper Bukit Timah. Struggling to manage quantities of carrot, tomato, lettuce and herbs, I was dubbed by the Straits Times newspaper as an “Accidental Farmer” and became a text-book graduate of edible plants and growing the sustainable way. My background as a print journalist of magazines and newspaper in Singapore helped as I engage my e-mail list of readers on my adventure in shipping in the Nepali vegetables, jams, pickles and tea through my updates.

It is an enterprise if I may call it, that earned me some rewards as well as tribulations. I have been told that what I am doing is a “hobby” (translate that as not money-making), fueled by an innate passion for the taste and goodness of the harvests. One local publisher offered to publish a book if I ever get to it, a tempting proposition which I might get to some day when I retire on the farm and face the valleys and snowy peaks.

There were starts and stops along the way. Water shortage on the farm, strikes and road blocks on the streets of Kathmandu, staff problems and reaching out to customers are all part of the Organic Himalaya experience. I concede that taking off for holidays match the exodus of my mostly expatriate customer base.

Selling vegetables has ingratiated me with new friends and newcomers and mounted my knowledge in nutritional value of vegetable matter, the food culture of communities and an endless curiosity and love of nature.

I have had equal parts of rebuff. Chefs who heralded Organic Himalaya vegetables to be extraordinary froze when it comes to real orders. Some retailers ask for organic certification. People cringe at the thought of sky-high prices of organic vegetables. I contend that farmers who tend to plants in the traditional way avoiding chemical pesticides, fertilisers and dubious practices ought to gain the respect and just rewards for their efforts. Today’s food chain has been overtaken by conglomerates fattened by government subsidies and damaging wide-scale farming. The over-riding concern is for the environment hereby linked to healthy living.

So here I am into my third year as a part-time green grocer comforting myself that as long as I am able, going organic green is the way. You will be reading, hearing and seeing lots more of me!

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