I have signed up for the One Local Summer Challenge again. It is organized by the folks at the Farm to Philly blog. They start up June 1. Participating in these challenges helps me keep my attention on local eating more often and also on keeping up the blog. It will feel good to be more focused on this again.
We are trying a different approach to joining a CSA this year. I loved getting the weekly boxes from Heather at Little Frog Farm last year and joining with other folks at St.Andrews in the Farm to Congregation program. But, it really didn't make sense for us to make that trip to the pick-up point every week - not very close to us. So, there I was putting extra miles on the car in the cause of supporting local agriculture. Our friend Jeff had taken a different approach last year and we've decided to do the same thing this year. We are part of the CSA through Deep Roots Farm near Corvallis and Albany. They bring their produce to a couple of the Portland Farmer's Markets. Having a CSA share with them means you select things at their market stand instead of having a box delivered somewhere. One of those two markets is pretty close to us so it will save on the driving. Plus, for this summer, in particular, it makes a lot of sense since we will be gone quite a bit. With this arrangement, we can get what we need when we're here and not have to make arrangements for produce getting delivered while we are out of town. I will kind of miss the surprise and the challenge of figuring out to use everything that comes in the weekly delivery, but this really seems more practical for now.
Meanwhile, we've been eating lettuce and chard out of our garden pots for a few weeks now and they are doing really well so far.
2 comments:
Glad to see you participating, I love hearing how others are enjoying their local foods. Good idea on the CSA, it must be more convenient as well as less energy use. How is your chard doing? For some reason I always thought of it as a cool weather (fall/winter) crop.
I have been eating lettuce from my garden too, along with the green garlic, and some early asparagus from the farmers markets.
It still has been fairly cool here - even on our nice days. We've had just a couple that were 80+. So, the chard seems to be happy so far. Am heading out there soon to harvest a bunch for tonight, so I'll take a closer look at how it is doing.
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