We’ve been working out the details of our 2021 Summer CSA. We love this model. Our customers sign up for the season and receive a weekly vegetable box from May to October. We get to know our CSA members, receive fun pictures of kids eating our produce, and plant over 100 varieties of veggies and herbs!
But there’s something even more important about a CSA that deserves the spotlight. To farm sustainably on a half acre we have to be thoughtful about our crop rotations and plant diversity. We can’t just grow heirloom tomatoes. If we did, our fields would likely be filled with hornworms and the soil would lack important organisms and nutrients. The healthy soil that those gorgeous summer heirloom tomatoes need only exists because we planted fava beans in the spring, chard over the winter, and cucumbers the summer before.
The important relationships between diverse and complementary plants and animals are how cuisines across the world came to be. These relationships allowed generations of communities to eat without depleting the soil.
By joining a CSA, you’re eating the diversity of plants that are needed for a healthy soil ecosystem.
We know that joining a CSA isn’t for everyone. But regardless of whether you join a CSA, I invite you to eat like you’re a member. Here’s how:
- Eat a lot of legumes! Snap peas, green (or yellow or purple) beans, fava beans, and dried beans all form relationships with bacteria that can fix nitrogen from the air. These bacteria convert the nitrogen into a form that plants can use.
- Every time you’re at a farmers market or supermarket, choose a vegetable or two that’s not in your normal rotation. May we suggest fava beans, pea shoots, escarole, fenugreek, edible flowers, or daikon radishes. Each one of these lesser known veggies plays an important role in our crop plan.
- Embrace local winter greens and shoots! It is vital to have living plants growing year round to feed the soil microbes. Winter hearty greens like cabbage, cauliflower, purple sprouting broccoli, spinach, collard greens, kale, chard, escarole, and mustard greens do not always get top billing. But these plants deserve credit for all their winter photosynthesis. Many of the other “winter” crops like squash and potatoes are actually harvested at the end of the summer and stored.
So continue to dream of summer heirloom tomatoes. But as you do, consider eating a few of the other plants that make those juicy delights possible!