Pictured above: Bradford Okra
Hey y’all! This week is an exciting one for Bradford Farm. The highlights below have all the info you need about what’s new and what’s changed. Here’s the quick version.
Two huge heirlooms are have begin harvest for this week: Bradford okra and Wicker White cucumbers.
Two promotions: Wakefield cabbage price change and standing order deal, sunchoke buy-one-get-one.
Partner farm additions: Yaya carrots from Wild Hope, blackberries from Dorr Farm, tart Carolina plums.
COMING SOON
-
Cucumbers - Fry Farm ~ 1 week
- Appalachian Red leaf, green leaf, and romaine lettuce - Clem’s
- Beets, badger flame - 1 week
- Hakurei turnips - 1 week
- Appalachain tomatoes - Clem’s - June
- Heirloom cherry tomatoes ~ 3 weeks
- Rhubarb - late May
SPECIAL REQUEST: We kindly urge you to consider adding at least one of our own Bradford Farm grown crops to your weekly orders. We are working with quite a number of other farms to bring you the best access to regional flavor that we possibly can, but the heartbeat of our farm is our homegrown crops. We can’t exist without moving our own crops too. So please review the crops we offer under Bradford Farm Crops below and consider adding one or more of them. It helps us a ton.
Important Info
- NEW! McLeod Farms Peaches!
- PROMOTION! Charleston Wakefield Cabbage - Bradford Farm
- PROMOTION! Clem’s Sunchokes
- NEW! Dorr Farms’ potatoes
- NEW! Bradford Okra
- NEW! Wicker White cucumbers
⚠️ **Highlights of the week**⚠️
Bradford Okra - Bradford Farm (limited first week)
Okra is one of the defining ingredients of Southern food, but its roots begin far from the American South. The plant traces back to northeastern Africa and moved through the Caribbean into Southern agriculture alongside the African diaspora, becoming deeply tied to the cooking traditions and farming knowledge of Black communities throughout the South. Over generations, families selected seed not for appearance or shipping durability, but for tenderness, flavor, and how the pods held up in the kitchen.
Our Bradford Family Okra has been passed down in our family since the mid-1800s alongside our collards and watermelon. It has been selected continuously for one thing above all else: large pods that stay tender.
That’s the opposite of modern okra, even the vast majority of heirlooms out there.
Most varieties turn woody and fibrous if they aren’t harvested very small. Ours remains crisp, succulent, and tender even at 7, 8, sometimes 9 inches long. Allowing the pods to mature longer on the plant changes the flavor completely — sugars deepen, seed oils develop further, and the pod takes on a richer, more savory character while still holding tenderness.
The seeds themselves become something special. Larger, fuller, almost buttery. A project for the fresh seeds alone is more than justifiable.
There’s a story my dad, Nat Bradford, tells that explains this better than any technical description could.
Back when he first started working with a handful of chefs in Charleston — one of them being Sean Brock during the McCrady’s and Husk years — our family was mostly known for the Bradford watermelon.
One day, Sean was being followed around by a media production crew. Cameras in his face, lights everywhere, the whole thing. My dad showed up holding our family okra, and not small or tempered pods either — the absolute biggest ones he could find in the field that morning. Absurdly huge pods. 7, 8, 9 inches long.
Anyone, let alone a chef, would be immediately off put by it.
Dad handed one to Sean and told him to try it.
Sean thought he was joking.
“Yeah, you want me to eat a giant woody piece of okra in front of everybody? Big joke, huh?”
But my dad was completely serious.
So Sean bit into it — right there in front of the cameras — and just stopped. Completely caught off guard. The pod was tender, it was crisp, sweet, and rich. Nothing like what people think okra that size should be.
Then he began pushing out the seeds into his palm — large, juicy, developed seeds — and Sean looked at my dad and said:
“Dude… this is like okra caviar!”
That’s the difference careful selection and nurturing makes over generations. The fruit speaks for itself!
Flavor & Texture
- Tender and crisp even at large size
- Deep, savory sweetness from extended maturity
- Rich, developed seed structure with almost buttery character
- Balanced mucilage — enough body, never slimy when handled properly
For the Kitchen
- Whole pod grilling: Larger pods hold beautifully over fire
- Cast iron sear: Develops caramelization while keeping the center succulent
- Gumbo: Mature pods provide deeper flavor and better texture
- Fried: Crisp exterior with creamy interior and developed seeds
- Stewed with tomato: Natural sweetness rounds acidity beautifully
- Pickled: Larger pods maintain integrity and crunch
This is okra grown the old way — selected slowly, over generations, by people who cared how it tasted more than how it shipped.
And once you’ve had it, it’s darn near impossible to go back.
NEW! Wicker White cucumbers - Bradford Farm
Some years ago, our friend Carold Wicker — an avid seedsman from Pomaria in the historic Dutch Fork region of South Carolina — shared seeds from his family’s old white cucumber with us. Carold is nearly 90 years old now, and like many great Southern seed keepers, he carries varieties that survived simply because someone in the family kept planting them. He told me that he got it originally from his aunt Essie. Who had grown it her whole life. This variety does not exist outside of where Carold Wicker‘s from. It has been passed down through many generations in the Dutch Fork area.
Bradford Farm is very fortunate to be able to not only preserve this wonderful white cucumber, but make it available to chefs for the first time and not just remain a family backyard secret. It has a delicate skin and a mild flavor with no bitterness at all unlike the modern kirby cucumber varieties. It has a wonderful cucumber aroma that fills the kitchen when working with it and a very wonderful crispiness without being too crunchy. This cucumber has been in very high demand by our chefs in the last few years since we introduced it, but it’s availability and production has been limited due to a number of handicaps that we’ve had to overcome.
When we planted it the first time we found some green cucumbers showing up along with the white ones. Carold apparently planted them too close to other varieties and they crossed. Over the past eight years we have culled out the green ones and for two years straight, we have only produced pure white cucumbers. Now we have sufficient seed stock and hopefully this year will be the first year that we can supply the demand of our chefs. If you have never had the Wicker, white cucumber, you will not want to miss out.
Flavor & Texture
- Thin, tender pale skin
- Crisp, juicy flesh
- Mild sweetness with no bitterness
- Tight seed cavity and excellent hydration
Because the skins stay so delicate, they’re especially good for fresh eating straight from the field, but they also pickle beautifully — maintaining crunch while taking on acid cleanly.
For the Kitchen
- Fresh sliced: Requires little to no peeling
- Crudo & chilled seafood: Clean flavor without aggressive cucumber bitterness
- Quick pickles: Excellent texture retention
- Salads: Pairs naturally with herbs, yogurt, citrus, and fresh cheeses
- Cold soups & relishes: Sweetness stays balanced and restrained
PROMOTION! Charleston Wakefield Cabbage - Bradford Farm
This is the season of the Wakefield cabbage. We have harvested a huge crop this year and they are as good as ever which is why we are changing the price for the first time ever and offering a really nice standing order deal!
10lb case - $4.50/lb —> $3.90/lb
20lb case - $4.25/lb —> $3.75/lb
Standing order prices
- 8 weeks - 1 case (20lbs) - $65 ($3.25/lb)
- 8 weeks - 2+ cases - $60 ($3/lb)
We hope to quickly move through this crop because we honestly have too much to store in our coolers here on the farm. Please reach out to Theron, Noah or Nat to get on board.
PROMO! Sunchokes - Clem’s Organic Gardens
ALL SUNCHOKES MOST GO - Buy one get one free. We have 120 units to move and we need them gone to make space for our incoming crops in the cooler.
Key:
** - limited availability
*OUT- currently out of stock
*OFS- out for season
NEW- recent addition
(SlowFood AOT)- appears on the SlowFood Ark of Taste for its exceptional qualities, flavor, story, and historical significance and/or usage.
✅ Bradford Farm Crops: ✅
-Bradford collards bagged/chopped (spring crop)
-Bradford collards whole plant (spring crop)
-NEW! Spring Charleston Wakefield cabbage (SlowFood AOT) *NEW PRICE
-Hybrid green cabbage
-Purple cabbage
-Shredded hybrid cabbage
-Shredded purple cabbage
-NEW! Wicker white cucumbers
-NEW! Bradford okra
🤝 Partner Farms: 🤝
-NEW! Peaches - McLeod Farms
-Spring Onions, Italian Torpedo (nickel/dime diameter) - Fry Farm
-Spring Onions, Red candy apple - Fry Farm
-NEW! Onions, Santee Sweet (dried) - Dorr Farms
-Matt Fry’s mixed kale (loose leaf) - Fry Farm
-Kale, Matt Fry’s curly green (loose leaf) - Fry Farm
-Kale, Matt Fry’s wild red (loose leaf) - Fry Farm
-Leeks, Lancelot - young/small - Fry Farm
-NEW! Carrots, Yaya - Wild Hope Farm
-Tomatoes, heirloom
-Farm eggs, organic - Wild Hope
-Strawberries - Dorr Farms & Hickory Bluff Berry Farm
-Blueberries - Mob ties
-NEW! Blackberries - Dorr Farms
-NEW! Plums, tart - SC
-Cantaloupe
-Watermelon
——red seedless
-New potatoes
——Red (sizes: A, B, C)
——White (A, B, C)
——Red & white mix (A, B, C)
-Potatoes, Adirondack Blue - Dorr Farms
-Potatoes, Adirondack Red (1 week) - Dorr
-Potatoes, Pontiac (red skin, white flesh) - Dorr Farms
-Turnips, White Salad - Wild Hope
-Radish, purple Daikon - Wild Hope
-Radish, cherry belle - Wild Hope
-Stampede Sunchokes - Clem’s Organic Gardens *BUY ONE GET ONE
-Broccoli - Southeast (SC, GA)
-Pecans (fresh, shelled, halved) - Johnny McNair
-Jalapeños - FL
-Sweet corn - FL
-Blue Lake Pole Snap Beans
-Summer zucchini medley - Fry Farm
-Baby zucchini medley - Fry Farm *limited
-Zucchini - Dorr Farm and others
-Yellow Squash - Dorr Farm and others
-Grey Zucchini - Dorr Farm
-Italian purple eggplant
-Green Bell peppers
-Red Bell peppers
-Banana peppers
-Grape tomatoes
-Red round tomatoes
-Gold tomatoes
-Roma tomatoes
-Tomatillos
-Pee Dee sweet potatoes - Dixon Farms
-Beets, Golden
-Beets, Red
Coming soon:
- Beets, badger flame - 1 week
- Carrots - 1 week
- Hakurei turnips - 2 weeks
- Appalachain tomatoes - June
- Heirloom cherry tomatoes - 3 weeks
- Rhubarb - late May
- Bradford Okra - 1 week
MORE COMING SOON
….let us know if there is something else you are interested in that isn’t on our list