Friday, August 23

 
Vegetables Forever: Real Life on a CSA Farm

Have you seen or heard stories about Community-Supported Agriculture farms, in which people buy shares of a harvest and get fruits, vegetables or meats delivered year-round? It's a great idea - you buy a small, medium or large share of a harvest, or a slaughter if you buy meat. You either pay cash for the whole share or mix cash and some hard labor on the farm. Then, when the harvest comes, you get your share. The reality can be a mixed blessing, especially if you are a city-dweller with romantic notions of going back to the land. The joy of getting your hands dirty lasts until you can't dig Mother Earth out of your cuticles, you've done your turn on the corn-detasseling crew or battled a horde of grasshoppers under an unforgiving August sun. But, the rewards make up for the labor when you taste your first sun-warmed tomato, broccoli that tastes as green as it looks, or sweet corn that's hours, not days, off the stalk. This story is worth reading on two counts: It's an honest, wry look at a woman's first year on a CSA farm, and it's written by Marian Winik, a writer who has had a fascinating life and has written lots of nonfiction books about it, including The Lunch-Box Chronicles: Notes from the Parenting Underground. It's not as precious as the title might imply, and this story isn't as reverential about her all-vegetables-all-the-time experience as stories about CSA tend to be.
posted by Unknown 9:56 PM