Eighth of an Acre Bounty

Plant Something – No planting this past week but next week for sure.

Harvest Something – Our first tomato! I am a little concerned it will be our first and last with the weather lately. Tons of green beans. Yin Yang beans. Lemon cucumber and summer squash. Pulled out half of the chinese broccoli out of the tomato bed. It was pretty gnawed up so it went to the girls. I will pull the rest this weekend and may try canning some.

Preserve Something – I put up 14 quarts of black beans, 3 of which didn’t seal so we have been eating beans for dinner all week. Blanched and froze the whole harvest of yin yang beans.

Prep Something – Does repair count? The torrential rain and Skyway wind took down part of our bean trellis the other day so we spent a portion of the morning MacGyvering a solution to last through the remaining harvest. Need to find a more sturdy solution to trellising, I am thinking cattle panels. The rain also beat down the tomatoes something awful so I spent yesterday evening trying to resurrect the slumped vines and stake them so there is some sort of air circulation and sunlight actually reaches those green tomatoes waiting so patiently.

Cook Something – Steak, green beans and salad. Cherry clafoutis. Pasta with fresh ricotta, the second to last quart of canned tomatoes from last year and assorted garden veggies. Baked Dill Salmon, roasted golden beets, roasted fennel and onions and garden salad. Salmon patties with red onion and corn, garden salad, green and black beans.

Manage your Reserves – One quart of tomatoes left. Eating down the bread previously frozen (another batch proofing right now).

Work on local food systems – Found a pig! Well, half a pig. We will be ordering half a pig from Whistling Train Farm, a local farm south of us between the rail tracks. It was a bit pricier than other pastured local pork. But they are a 15 acre farm within 1/2 hour of us. I figure the extra money is worth it to support folks that are preserving farmland so close to the city, instead of selling off so another big box store or office park can be built. I am also considering switching our CSA to them this winter – but need to get a handle on whether we will be producing enough of our own fall crop to necessitate a CSA subscription. I have been generally pleased with our current CSA (Full Circle Farm) but do have a couple issues. They bring in a LOT of produce from other regions to use in the boxes. California and Mexico don’t really count as local in my book. And I know they are trying to deal with a rather urban market that wants everything whenever they want it, but strawberries in December or tomatoes in April just aren’t necessities (nor do they really taste all that good and they kind of defeat the point of a CSA subscription). My other gripe is the local food that they do include in the boxes. Full Circle is also pretty active in the local farmers markets, which we frequent regularly. I see thier stands at the market and they have all kinds of interesting asian greens and other unique produce – but these items never seem to make it into the CSA boxes. The boxes are usually a pretty standard array of produce. To be fair Full CIrcle does have a lot of positive and convenient aspects too. They have regular drop sites in the city which makes it really easy to pickup. They have a comprehensive website in which you can review the content of your next box and make substitutions. And they also bill on a per box basis, which ennabled us to go on a twice a month delivery schedule instead of every week (cause I still like to go to the farmers market). And they are very flexible and will suspend your delivery at request when you go out of town, have too much food already, etc. Whew, guess I have been spinning on that for a while, eh? All in all I think Full Circle is doing just fine (they are up to 260 acres and a part of the farmland trust) and I like the idea of supporting a family right close to home that is giving it a go.