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.

More Squash? No, Thanks.

We have squash coming out our butts. We're into our third week of farm-fresh produce and we've gotten armfuls of squash every week so far. Trust me, it's a lot of freakin' squash.

Week 1: ZUCCHINI, YELLOW SQUASH, PATTY PAN SQUASH, asparagus, strawberries, and green onions

Week 2: ZUCCHINI, YELLOW SQUASH, cucumbers, broccoli, strawberries, romaine lettuce, green peas, green onions

Week 3: That's right, ZUCCHINI, YELLOW SQUASH, broccoli, strawberries, cucumbers, green onions, beets, a couple different kinds of spring lettuces, cabbage

We've grilled squash. We've sauteed squash. We've baked squash. Daniel made a squash and rice dish with cumin and onions. And I made some kind of cheesy squash casserole. I think we're to the point where we may end up shredding some of the zucchinis and freezing them for future zucchini bread endeavors.

While most of the produce I'm loving - especially the strawberries, broccoli and lettuces - I am tired of SQUASH. Please, No. More. Squash.

Our First Shareholder's Dividend

If you read my post about the CSA program Daniel and I recently joined, and were hoping for an update, well, here ya go.

Right. So, yesterday was our first CSA pick-up of the summer season and we were handed a half bushel box full of zucchini, summer patty pan squash, green onions, asparagus, yellow crookneck summer squash, and red, ripe strawberries! Yum. I am a huge fan of all of these fruits and vegetables, except for the patty pan squash which I have never had.

Everything had been picked and boxed up that morning and you could smell the sun and dirt still clinging to everything. Gwennie was particularly interested in the onions and kept nibbling on the green stems. For dinner, Daniel grilled some of the squashes and threw them together with some whole wheat pasta, garlic, tomatoes and some leftover broccoli we had. Soooooo good. The strawberries, which I tasted almost immediately upon receipt, are sweet and juicy. Below are a couple of photos of our first week's farm bounty.

CSA

Controlled Substance Act? No.
Combat Support Associates? No.
Certified Senior Advisors? No.
Contract Services Association? No.

Community Supported Agriculture?
Yes!

Heard of it? I actually hadn’t until very recently (sorry, apparently I’m just woefully ignorant of sustainable farming practices) when author Michael Pollan mentioned it in his book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. The concept of buying a share in a local farm to meet my produce needs struck me as such a neat idea, especially since moving away from my garden growing grandparents and having to settle for the produce fare offered at my local grocery stores, which more often than not has been trucked in from industrial farms from all over the world.

The LocalHarvest website says, “A CSA is a way for the food buying public to create a relationship with a farm and to receive a weekly basket of produce.”

Sooooo, I did a little internet research and found Doe Run Farm located in Petersburg Tennessee (just south of Nashville), contacted the owners and after some broad economics-based discussion (zzzzz…), Dan and I decided to buy a share of their farm for the summer growing season. For 14 weeks beginning May 27th, we will be receiving a half bushel basket of various produce, vegetables, melons and berries grown organically on local soil.

We’ll be helping out a small local farm and in return we’ll be getting really fresh, healthy produce at a great price. Cool, huh?