Tag Archives: CSA

Farm Box, Food

CSA: Week one, greens galore

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Agh, I am terribly behind. I’m mere days away from picking up CSA week three, and I haven’t yet posted one and two! I’m hopping to it now.

Ok, so. Last week I picked up my first CSA share from Stone Soup Farm. I have a half share, 5-8 pounds/week.

The goods:

-3 oz. mesclun
-1 head lettuce
-1 bunch kale
-1 small summer squash (3 oz.)
-1 bunch radishes, in place of cilantro
-5 garlic scapes
-I small basil plant

The radishes Kabir and I ate with butter and salt:

The kale I made into a very tasty absorption pasta with sausage and feta:


(I just can’t resist those colors)

The summer squash I forgot in the produce drawer, oops.

The lettuce made several delicious salads.

Salad 1, for after the pasta:

Salad 2, dinner later in the week, with baby beets (vacuum-packed from Trader Joe’s, thanks Juree for the tip!), feta, chicken, etc. (Shockingly bad photo):

The basil I transported home like so:

It was in a tiny, tiny grower’s pot:

And I transplanted it a couple days later into a bigger pot:

I can’t say that it’s thriving. It still has that sad little droop at the top, even though it’s living outside and the soil is nice and damp. Germi, help me! Is it ok??

City Life, Farm Box, Food

Earth Day

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Happy Earth Day! Along with most of the northern hemisphere, I’ve tried to switch to reusable bags this year, and I won’t lie, I’m longing for the happy and practical (they roll up so small! they still go over your shoulder!) RuMe bags that Not Martha posted yesterday–she has ten sets to give away! Delight.com makes this brilliant Starter Kit that would make it easier for anyone to switch to reusable bags and bottles:

(photo: Delight.com)
I definitely need to make or get some produce bags like that.

The other bandwagon we’re jumping on this year is the CSA (community supported agriculture) weekly farm box. We joined the Stone Soup Farm CSA–the farm is in Belchertown, MA and this is their first year running a CSA. We have gotten several extremely entertaining and well-written newsletters so far, and when I checked out the About Us page it turns out the farm is run by a very young and idealistic crew. I’m excited to see what the summer brings–here’s the lettuce growing in the greenhouses right now:


(photo: Stone Soup Farm)

Yum.

Anyway, if you haven’t heard about CSAs, they are a program designed to help connect buyers with farmers so the farmers have some guaranteed income and the buyers know they’ll be getting a steady supply of local produce all summer, even if getting to the farmer’s market is inconvenient. I have been frustrated by how much of the produce at Whole Foods is trucked from California or is completely out of season stuff from South America, and I’m excited about challenging myself with the weekly box of whatever Stone Soup is harvesting. I’m planning to do at least a weekly post about what is in my box once it starts up in June. According to the farm:

“You can expect to see all of the following vegetables in your CSA share throughout the year: Arugala, Beans, Beets, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celeriac, Celery, Sweet Corn, Cucumber, Diakon, Edamame, Eggplant, Fennel, Garlic, Kale and Collards, Kohlrabi, Leeks, Lettuce, Melons, Mesclun Lettuce, Okra, Onions (Red, Yellow and Walla Walla), Parsnips, Peas, Peppers, Popcorn, Potatoes, Pumpkins, Radishes, Rutabaga, Spinach, Summer Squash and Zucc., Sweet Potato, Swiss Chard, Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Turnip, Winter Squash, As well as the following herbs: Basil, Cilantro, Chives, Dill, Hot Peppers, Rosemary, Mint, Oregano, Thyme, Parsley.”

Wow. If I get even half of those things there will be lots of experiments to conduct!

For more information about CSA and how to find a CSA in your area (shares are getting very booked up for this year, so act fast!) check out Local Harvest.

Stone Soup’s geese keeping watch over the farm back in early March:


(photo: Stone Soup Farm)