herbs and cutting flowers

We joined a CSA this year so we could get local, organic vegetables. So far it has been spectacular. I am rarely able to use it all up in one week. We’ve enjoyed many types of greens (tat soi, vitamin greens, arugula, spinach, kale), lots of lettuce, cukes, kohlrabi, squash, broccoli, scallions, chard, turnips, and more. This week something new started: u-pick. You can help yourself to as much as you want in the u-pick fields that is ready for picking. They put little signs with labels so you know what is ready. This week it was herbs and cutting flowers. I planted my own herb garden this year (which is much handier because I can just pop out the back door and grab what I need for dinner each night), but I don’t have any dill, so I picked a bunch of that and some flowers (daisies and black-eyed Susans).

It was so fun to walk back into the fields and cut what I

Note to self: wear closed toe shoes next week!

wanted.  I’m already wondering what will be ready next week! And in the meantime, I need to roast the beets I picked up today so we can use them in a salad.

Heading back in the fields made me think of my grandfather, who was a farmer and built a successful greenhouse business with his brother, now run by my uncle.  By the time I came along, everything was grown in the greenhouses, but I did go with my grandfather to pick corn in his brother’s field a few times. The CSA fields aren’t far from my grandfather’s fields. On the way home I was wondering what he would think. I can hear him saying “Why cripe, why don’t you just plant it in your own backyard?”

view of the fields not yet ready for picking