We joined a CSA this year and I have been going every week to pick up my share. While we were away, my mom got my share. We’re now at the point in the year where I bring home bags and bags each week. This week I came home with a quart of potatoes, onions, 14 tomatoes, squash, zucchini, beets, carrots, cucumbers, Swiss chard, green pepper, kale, a big bag of lettuce greens, a watermelon and U-pick beans and cherry tomatoes. I also picked some dill and cilantro.

Our CSA also has a U-pick flower section, which I am taking advantage of every week and am really, really loving. This week I brought home enough for two beautiful bouquets. These flowers last at least a week, so I always have fresh flowers now. I need to buy a nice big basket to use when I go to pick them. It makes me so happy to have fresh flowers in the house.

We joined a CSA this year and I have been going every week to pick up my share. While we were away, my mom got my share. We’re now at the point in the year where I bring home bags and bags each week. This week I came home with a quart of potatoes, onions, … Read more →

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

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?”

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 … Read more →