Friday, June 10, 2011

CSA Season is Back!

We may have shot ourselves in the foot. Thinking we wouldn't be gardening this year, I signed us up for a CSA from Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport, Maine.

We have raised beds at the house we're renting but the owners mentioned some lead issues. Very minimal ones, but nonetheless they did the raised beds, which is what you're supposed to do with lead. But Dan is paranoid and long story short, I didn't think we'd be planting anything to eat, just flowers.

I decided to get the soil tested in the beds and wouldn't you know, no lead. And then Dan did some research and decided that he would eat the fruit of the plant, just not any leaves (ie tomatoes good, kale bad).

Also, I had put us on the waiting list for the community garden, not thinking we'd get in until next year at the earliest. Of course, we got a spot this year.

So now, we have 6 raised beds in our backyard, 3 beds at the community garden plus a CSA. Eeek!

I was much smarter about planting our community garden (read: I was in charge of seeding...) So there's not much there: 3 tomatoes, 1 tomatillo, 6 broccoli, 2 fennel, thyme, rosemary, chamomile, 2 boxes of broccoli rabe, red iceberg, wax beans, carrots and zucchini. At home, we're going to put in 3 peppers, 2 eggplant, 3 tomatoes, 1 tomatillo and tons of flowers. We also have strawberries and raspberries.

Our CSA is nice so far. The past 2 weeks have been the same: radishes, salad turnips, arugula, head lettuce, mesclun, chard and spinach. Nom leafy greens. Last week we also got some potatoes from Goranson Farm, which, ironically enough, I'm possibly writing a story about for EatingWell.

So what have we done with our bounty so far? Well really just salads. Which is terrific, of course. Salad season is the best...

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