With this past week’s plethora of produce I feel it is a good time to talk about one aspect of farming that is unique to CSA farms – produce allocation.
Trying to provide the right amount of veggies to each of our customers and their individual needs is impossible. We walk a fine line between providing too little to not make it cost effective and providing too much where people feel they are wasting either their money or their food. And the most difficult part of walking this line is that every family has a different line. Some large families don’t eat at home often enough to consume a FamilyShare. Some small families/couples are vegetarians and can consume a FamilyShare quite easily. Then there are all the others in between. So trying to fit a two-size-fits-all share size into a many size membership is impossible.
So let’s take a step back and look at why someone would join a CSA farm. The primary reason should be that they want the farm to succeed and be around for many years. The original idea behind CSA started in Japan in 1965 where it is known as a Teikei, which translates to partnership or cooperation. A group of Japanese women became concerned with the increased use of synthetic chemicals, the prevalence of processed foods and the corresponding decline in the farm population. To alleviate these concerns, the women initiated a direct, cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship with local farmers whereby they would purchase a share of the farmer’s crop at the start of the season thereby participating in the farmer’s success and ensuring quality, locally grown produce for years to come.
Though that is the altruistic reason for joining, I feel most people join because they see CSA as a good way to get delicious local produce. Sure they want the farm to succeed but here in the Twin Cities we are blessed with a lot of farms serving locally grown produce to the population. The number of farms is increasing as of late so saving one or two farms may not be as important as it once was.
So why not shop at farmers’ markets? These are local farmers supplying local produce. Wouldn’t buying from a farmer at a farmers’ market save the family farm as effectively? Possibly. But this brings up another reason for joining a CSA farm. A farmer selling at a farmers’ market has to grow the types of produce that the majority of consumers want. When I sold at farmers’ markets I felt like the oddball farmer – the one who sold things like tomatillos, fennel, and weird looking heirloom tomatoes. Most of the other farmers sold round, red tomatoes; green beans; and cucumbers. When I walked past their tables I felt like I was in a cartoon where I was the character walking along while the scenery in the background keeps repeating. Every table had the exact same stuff. Where was the diversity? Where were my fellow fennel farmers feeding our fried fennel fixes? I felt like an outcast. There surely were people who wanted tomatillos and kohlrabi. Someone has to supply these individuals.
And you know what happened when I brought all this weird stuff to the market? I drove home with a lot of tomatillos, lots of fennel and quite a few now thoroughly-softened-by-the-heat-of-the-sun heirloom tomatoes. The beans, cucumbers, red tomatoes and potatoes all sold out. It seemed like farmers markets were a microcosm of the large-scale food industry where a few varieties dominated the marketplace. I suppose farmers’ markets could save the local food system as long as the local food system only wanted the seven things that sold at farmers’ markets.
So another reason to join a CSA farm is to get the diversity that farmers’ markets don’t provide. Now it has been quite a few years since I last sold at a farmers’ market so things may have changed, and I suspect different markets have different levels of diversity just as different CSA farms provide different products. But for those who like to try new things, or really like fennel, a CSA is the way to go. And with the direct connection to the person growing the produce you get to influence what the farm grows.
Which brings me back to the major CSA farm dilemma. How do we provide just the right amount of veggies to each and every one of our members? We can’t. So we shoot for a certain amount of produce each season and each week then ask our membership to figure out how to use what we give you. And don’t feel bad if you don’t use it all. Think of it like joining a gym. Your membership fee at the gym pays for all the machines, weights, locker room facilities, etc. whether you use them or not. If the “lat pulldown” machine has 200 pounds of weight but you only use 150 pounds do you feel like you are wasting the other 50 pounds? Of course not. But I suppose the other 50 pounds won’t go bad in your fridge. So maybe what you do with your excess produce is the same as what you would do with the excess weights – find someone else who can use it. Share your share with a neighbor. Learn to can, freeze, pickle, dehydrate and preserve – it really isn’t very hard. Bring your lunch to work. Make large batches of dishes and freeze the leftovers. Save your restaurant dining for the winter months.
I’ve heard from several longer-term members that it took them two seasons to “get the hang of it”. Over that time period they figured out ways to use the produce they receive. It wasn’t always easy to change long-term eating habits but they persevered and are now happy that they succeeded. They have developed strategies to make consuming the veggies easier. They may set aside an hour of time on the day they receive their produce to prep everything so it is ready to go the rest of the week. They have an assortment of recipes that they enjoy that use seasonal produce in large quantities. They realized that they couldn’t always eat everything they were given so they figured out how to preserve the various items that came in large quantities or they made new friends to share their bounty.
So if you are a newer member of our farm and feel overwhelmed with produce at this time of year please do your best to use what we give you but don’t feel guilty if something ends up as compost. We would hate to lose a member because we gave them too much. If anyone has specific tips or recipes they’d like to share please send them my way and I will put them in the next newsletter.
What will we have this week? Lots of stuff that’s for sure. In large quantities we will have sweet corn, eggplant, cucumbers, green beans, yellow beans, and summer squash/zucchini. In smaller quantities due to their winding down we will have fennel, broccoli and kohlrabi. In smaller quantities because they are ramping up we will have tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos and cabbage. And finally in some quantity to fill in as needed we will have kale, basil, carrots, cauliflower and beets. There will also be the usual onion category. As I’ve mentioned before but it is worth mentioning again: just because we have something available doesn’t mean the delivery boxes will receive it. We try to switch things up each week to prevent vegetable boredom though you will get those things identified above as being in large quantities. Also, with so much food available and needing to be harvested we are letting the potatoes continue to grow underground for a future week. Don’t worry, we will have more potatoes — once the other plants slow down their production.
SeafoodShare, SalmonShare and MeatShare continue this week. Pick them up if you haven’t already.
CheeseShare, EggShare and FruitShare are also here this week. The fruit is a mixed box that includes nectarines, pluots (three different types), Valencia oranges, green grapes and maybe more.
Garlic Harvesting: I’m looking at possibly Thursday afternoon as a starting time to harvest the garlic. Let me know if you’d like to help out!