First official week of the CSA!

It's finally here - the first official week of the Fresh is Best CSA harvest! Ok, so we sorta cheated because the customers have already been getting freshly picked spinach because the spinach was ready early...but hey, that's hopefully going to stick in their memories when we have some "low harvest" weeks as the season gets started.

Another way of bribing them? Give 'em something nice that they won't actually be eating. In this case, a mix of flowers and foliage. Brett said these needs more color and flash, and I admit maybe this picture doesn't do the bouquets justice - I think they look pretty good in person. It's just a mix of 'El Diablo' Ninebark, mint, hydrangea, variegated dappled willow, and shasta daisies that haven't opened up yet. Eh, I suppose folks could nibble on the mint? ;-)


Don't worry - that's not all the customers will be getting. Here's over three pounds of various lettuce varieties - most of it is the big head you see in the lower left of this picture...


...and the massive head of romaine you see on the flip side of the same bowl. Trust me, this is a huge mixing bowl - and there's a ton of lettuce in there! I cleaned it all this afternoon, finding only two slugs in one head of lettuce, tore it all up, mixed it with the baby beet greens I picked, and divvied it out. Now my big fear is: what if the bags closest to the back of the fridge FREEZE over night!?


This mixing bowl has 30 garlic scapes (an unexpected surprise), 3 oz of sugar snap and snow peas, and a collection of baby beet greens. Now the peas are a problem - I don't know how soon the pea plants are going to start cranking out so many peas that everyone gets some each week - or if they'll ever start producing that much. So for now I'll be using a random generator to put the customers in order, and then each week that there are peas I'll work my way down that list.

Not shown here are the 4 lbs of mixed radishes I dug up (that's including the greens - apparently some folks like to cook with them).

But that's not all! At the time I'm posting this, I've no idea for certain what Mary will be bringing. I know she mentioned walking onions (always impressive) and herbs, plus maybe some additional flowers for the bouquets. I guess I'll need to take my camera to work to get the full effect, and hopefully some pictures of people getting their produce!

Looking forward to seeing if people are excited to get their shares....and I'm even more excited to see how things improve with warmer weather this summer!