Jen and Derek's Farm Fresh Veggies: 1st CSA Week

And it begins again. Another season of CSA farm fresh veggies officially began today with the Charlottetown delivery. This year we are doing two pick-ups, one at the Arlington Orchard Farm stand and a second at the Culinary Institute. We had alot of feedback last year from members living downtown or in the Stratford area that wanted a pick-up location closer to where they lived so now we have two pick-ups.

It was a pretty "green" first share but that's pretty typical for the time of year. The large box had lettuce mix, spinach, arugula, bok choy, baby red romaine or red oakleaf lettuce head, red scarlet turnips, white hakurei turnips, radishes and the choice between red russian kale and tatsoi. The grab bins had dill, cilantro, swiss chard bunches, spicy purple mustard, wrinkle crinkled cress and purple top turnips.

It was a pretty straight forward harvest morning. Nothing out of the ordinary happened which is always nice. I was ahead of schedule and feeling pretty confident about my planning for the CSA harvest/delivery. It was really windy and as I was half way through packing the boxes early in the afternoon when I looked outside and saw the row cover blowing off my bed of peppers. My rubber boots never moved so fast as they did right then. I really did not want the whole thing to take off as it would be very time consuming and frustrating to try and put back on by myself and in those winds. Luckily I got there just before the second side decided to blow off. I decided to cover the peppers this season for a few weeks to try and give them a bit of a head start against the winds I knew were coming this week. So, I got the cover back over the plants and reburied it. It was an interesting experience. Unfortunately that little detour in my day ended up making me rushed but luckily I was still able to leave on time and arrive at the pick-up on time and somewhat organized.

Here's a little picture tour of today's first CSA pick-up.

Dill & Cilantro in the grab box

The truck was pretty much packed. I could have fit one more bin!! Looks like we'll be upgrading the truck before next season if we're going to expand the CSA again.