Crushed Under the Weight of Blueberries

Last night we picked up our 7th weekly box of farm fresh produce. Daniel said, “So what week are we on now? The 900th?”. Clearly he was being facetious – his memory hasn’t completely vaporized with his advanced age. But, seriously, since becoming part of the CSA program at a local farm it often feels like our lives are being run by produce.

We are handed a butt-load of fruits and vegetables every week by the kindly John and Judy of Doe Run Farm. This week our box contained things such as sweet corn, tomatoes, green tomatoes, poblano peppers, beets, red potatoes, eggplant, lettuce, blueberries, blackberries…and thankfully, for the first time this summer, NO SQUASH.

For the past 7 weeks our refrigerator and countertops have been full of every imaginable type of produce – cabbages and onions and cucmbers…squashes and strawberries and peas…broccoli and asparagus and beans. We have bags and bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer along with one enormous bag full of blueberries. We spend our days trying to come up with creative ways to use our overabundant produce supply and we spend our nights cooking or freezing the produce. It’s always there and it always has to be dealt with.

We are not farm folk, dammit! We do not spend our weekends putting up stores in the pantry. We do not delight in the making of preserves. We do not own a root cellar! We are busy people who don’t have the time or inclination to cook every night!

Yes, it’s healthy. Yes, it’s nice to have fresh produce while supporting community agriculture. But, damn! It gets to be exhausting and tedious having this constant obligation to use all of our healthy, local, organic produce.

Clearly, one share in the farm is just too much produce for only two people. IF we ever decide to participate in a CSA again, we’ll have to find more people to go in on it with us. Any takers? Only seven more weeks to go! After that I think we’ll go back to relying on Whole Foods, and regulate our produce consumption to a more manageable volume.