Fall CSA pilot

In the months of October and November, Nic and I ran a pilot CSA program from the Walnut Hill Community Farm. We offered six families a box of veggies every two weeks (a total of four boxes), and in return they came to a focus group to give us feedback for next year. It was pretty successful, and the best part is that we made some great friends in the neighborhood! And since I love taking pics of my own CSA box, you can imagine how many pics I took of the ones we were making up. Here are a bunch of them, and here's the post Nic wrote about it on the Philly Rooted website.

Week 1: Swiss chard, green onions, purple heirloom potatoes, beans, thyme, oregano, dill, cherry tomatoes and small bell peppers.





Week 2: Swiss chard, mustard greens, beans, rosemary, hot and sweet peppers.





Week 3: Swiss chard, mustard greens, kale, mesclun mix, dill, thyme and parsley.





Week 4: Swiss chard, beets, kale, mustard greens, thyme, parsley, dill and dried basil.

Veggies Powering Veggies

Nic and I delivered the second CSA box to our families in Walnut Hill: Swiss chard, mustard greens, beans, cayenne and habanero hot peppers, green bell peppers and rosemary.



We pulled the warm season crops and sowed cover crop; rye grass in the middle rows and clover in the long side rows, under the fall crops. The farm is looking good!



We also have some exciting news: Nic purchased a veggie truck! It's a small VW truck that is powered by diesel fuel and used veggie oil from nearby businesses. We delivered our boxes in the truck and were really excited to show it off. Veggie oil powering veggie delivery!

The Other Side of the Coin

The growers from the Walnut Hill Community Farm are all off to bigger and better things. But those darn plants keep growing! So what to do? Start a mini fall-season CSA!

We decided to do a very short pilot of a CSA this year to see how it would go and how much work it would be for the whole growing season. We have six families that are getting a delivery once every two weeks from the beginning of October to Thanksgiving. We had our first delivery and it was a lot of work, as we expected, but also a lot of fun!



The families are getting the boxes of produce for free, and the only thing they have to do is fill out a survey at the end. Though one of our families promised to pay us in sweet potatoe pie in November. We didn't say no.



The first box consisted of: one half pint cherry tomatoes and small bell peppers, one pint blue potatoes, one bunch green onions, two pints green beans, one bunch swiss chard, and one bunch each dill, thyme, and oregano.

CSA bounty

Here are some of the CSA boxes we've been getting since I stopped posting them in June. Enjoy!

Sweet and Savory

We've been getting lots and lots of tomatoes in our CSA box lately, which I am more than happy about because the tomato plants in my garden are falling short. My absolute favorite way to eat them is to slice them thickly and sprinkle a generous pinchful of salt and sugar on each one. Sometimes I add a basil leaf to each slice, but usually I eat them just like that, held over the plate dripping and juicy.

Rounds

Third week of the CSA: shell peas, green snap beans, escarole, salad turnips, lettuce mix, and eggs. From now on I will be posting these to Farm to Philly because it's too much work to post to both! And they will continue to be posted to my Flickr set.

Goodies

Second CSA box, June 8th. Snap peas, summer squash, green garlic, Easter Egg radish, Salad turnip, and arugula. Plus some hydrangea flowers I got from Katrina's house (payment for watering her plants) and a growler of incredible iced tea made by Amy at Earth Cup in West Philly (45th and Pine).

Greens and Whites

It's the first CSA box of the season! We're going to be swimming in produce this summer, what with both community garden plots, working in community gardens for my job, and the CSA. Wowza.



We got green lettuce, spinach, pac choi, Japanese turnips, green onions, sugar snap peas, and eggs.

A Plan is Growing in Camden

The little community garden we recently started in Camden (through my job with the Camden Children's Garden) is really flourishing right now. Here's a picture of it a few months ago, when we first started it:



And here it is now, full of vegetables, some ready to harvest:



In the last few months we've planted lettuce, kale, kohlrabi, rutabaga, swiss chard, mustard greens, spinach, cabbage and escarole. Over the last month we've harvested several pounds of lettuce, spinach, mustard greens, kale and swiss chard. Things are really looking good over there and we haven't watered once since we planted. Amazing.





We also had that (mostly) dead tree cut down and planted trees and shrubs along the edge of the garden. The shrubs were donated to us and the trees were planted with help from the New Jersey Tree Foundation (we got serviceberry and cherry trees, as per my request!).



This garden is very close to the Children's Garden and we're starting to think of it more as a mini-farm. We're expanding our ideas on how we can provide fresh produce to the citizens of Camden (a city of 80,000 with only one grocery store on the edge of town). That might mean starting a CSA! This garden is very large and there's not a whole lot of community involvement yet. We might reserve part of it to cultivate ourselves, like we're doing now, and sell at very low prices to the community as a subscription. I'm beyond excited about this!










Things are in the works, so wish us luck!

Fall Harvest

This afternoon I finally had the time to pick up the CSA during the daylight hours.



It's a nice combo of apples, pears, fingerling potatoes, squash, green peppers and lettuce. It's fall!

Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew

Red Earth CSA report, last week of July.



Beans, cukes, taters, peppers, onions and lettuce. Mmm, mmm, good.

You're Green with Envy

CSA box from Red Earth Farm.
July 14th, 2009: Escarole, red leaf lettuce, zucchini, green beans, cucumbers.

I Heart Produce

It was meant to be more circular but on second viewing it seems to be a heart. Frisee endive, summer squash, new potatoes, beets, bulb fennel, and Italian flat leaf parsley.

As always, see the entire season of CSA boxes from Red Earth Farm on my Flickr page.

Yummerson

The box, 6/30/09:
Green onions, green leaf lettuce, snap peas, zucchini, kale, eggs!

CSA - Now in color!

More colors are starting to creep into the CSA box. I have to pick them up late in the day though, usually around 8pm, so it's hard to get a shot in before it gets too dark. This week we have one dozen eggs, snap peas, zucchini, baby pac choi, radish, and swiss chard. I added this one to my Flickr set along with the others.

On Monday M and I are going to California for a week for my friends' wedding and other visits, so we'll miss the next box. But I've been fiddling around with "scheduling" posts, so there will most likely be something to read here while we're away.

Snap peas are my manna

My pea crop failed this year so we jumped on the chance to order them in our latest CSA share. We ordered two pints of snap peas and if you'll notice from the picture there was only one pint left when I got the box home. And my pickup location is only 6 blocks away.



A great perk of this CSA is that we can actually log in to our account on Farm to City and choose what we want in the next week's box. Crucial. This week we got red beets, snap peas, curly kale, swiss chard, spinach. Delish.

It's Ba-ack!

It's our first CSA box from Red Earth Farm!! The pickup location is only 6 blocks away so I can walk over there on Tuesday nights and walk back with my box o' goodies. It's kind of ironic that in Davis I usually had to drive to pick up my box, but now that I live in a huge city I can walk.

In the box: Pac choi, spinach, green and red leaf lettuce, green onions and one baby basil plant. We bought an egg share too so this week we got a dozen beautiful eggs (with small, dark yolks - I'm eating one now).

I'll add this to the CSA Flickr group and my own CSA set. Jaja has joined in the fun of posting pics of her CSA box ("CSYay!!"), and I'm really enjoying my friend Erin's postings about her CSA box on her blog and on the Farm to Philly blog.

Our new CSA!

We just joined a CSA for the 2009 season! Our new farm is called Red Earth Farm in Orwigsburg, PA and they have a drop off site in West Philly. We will be getting a partial share (6 items a week) which should be plenty for the three of us (me, M and Jonathan).


(picture by 427 from the CSA Flickr pool)

The difference between joining a CSA on the east versus the west coast is that the season here in Philly goes from June through November instead of all year long. So we made our investment for the whole growing season and we are now a partner in the process, having put our faith in the farmers and Mother Nature to give us a season full of yummy veggies.

Until June I am keeping my spirits up by looking at the pictures in this CSA Flickr pool.

Carrot Frame

CSA box, July 2nd, 2008.

Happy fourth of July! I'm gonna go grill a bunch of these veggies now.



Savanna Green Beans, Carrots, Globe Eggplant, Garlic, Basil, Parsley, Potatoes, Summer Squash.



Newsletter info of the week: The best way to store basil is to put it in a glass of water and cover the glass with a plastic bag. Then put it in the fridge and change the water regularly. I've also found that you can revive wilty basil by running it under cold tap water, shaking it dry so there's some water still left on it, and sticking in the crisper drawer.

Verdolagas

This week we got purslane (verdolagas) in our CSA box (the greens on the far left). Along with green beans, cabbage, carrots, fennel, stockton red onions, potatoes, and summer squash.



I've just been picking the leaves of the purslane off and adding them to salads. They don't taste like much but according to the newsletter they are full of beta-carotene, magnesium, and potassium, as well as high levels of alpha-linolenic acid (an omega-3 essential fatty acid). You can also add it to omelets and soups. Yum?



On a different topic, I've decided to really start playing with the still-life potential of the CSA box pics. It's very difficult to frame the veggies well and I don't know that I have it figured out yet. The photo above is an example of one that I think is poorly framed, and the one below is much better. But I can't really verbalize why yet. But the veggies will help me learn!