After the long holiday weekend, I did a quick new harvest for the handful of usually-on-Monday CSA shares. We have three CSA pick-up days, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and harvest for the last two can be mostly combined on Sundays. With kinda cool and cloudy weather today, veggies could be left outside on the table for a few minutes—in full summer heat, they’d quickly start to get toasted. I’ve tried to reduce PLASTIC to a minimum (tiny farming has somehow made me averse to much packaging, especially with plastic). The tomatoes need to be kept together, they’d be crushed if let loose in the final shopping bag. And the greens, well, no other easy solution (I’m looking into reusable cotton salad bags that could be put in the fridge, another future project; I’ve moved to paper bags this year for potatoes). As for the shopping bags, I’m considering reusable tote bags, two per shareholder, that could be swapped empty-for-full each week, but the extra BAG MANAGEMENT I know would be fairly, let’s see…time-consuming. Details…
green onion
Found onions
There still wasn’t much to take to the farmers’ market today, mesclun and radishes both weren’t ready, so it was baby spinach, the last harvest of early lettuce, and this surprise crop, volunteer green onions sprouted from a few dozen of last year’s cooking onions that had been overlooked in the field. I made a last minute decision to harvest them at 6:30 am, just as we were about to leave. I pulled them up—no time to dig—and filled a bushel bin in just a few minutes. At the market, I explained how they were grown and that they’re stronger tasting than regular bunching onions grown from seed. They were snapped up in no time. One of the great things about taking fresh veggies that you’ve grown yourself to market is that you’re not forced to conform to standardized tastes and sizes and appearances. So long as quality and freshness are consistent, unusual offerings provide a cool extra bit of variety and freedom all around!
CSA share!
Here’s part of a weekly CSA share. There are about 25 members this year. A third pick up here, the rest on Saturday mornings at the farmers’ market 15 miles away. It’s all local! In the pic, this week’s washed: carrots, beets (red, golden and striped), mesclun (the bag’s in the top left corner), green onions, baby beets for cooking greens. These go in with cucumbers, string beans, baby potatoes, zucchini and other summer squash, garlic. Still waiting on early tomatoes, but the main season harvest is picking up! (I’m still thinking over the what-to-wash question. Washed veggies look nicer and are less messy when you get ’em home, but there are various arguments for not washing, like longer storage and even better nutrient retention. Not to mention, saving lots of post-harvest time. I do know it’s a lot more work)