Thanksgiving Harvest & Pick-Up


Thanksgiving Harvest will occur this Tuesday, Nov. 23rd, from 9am-4pm. Pick-Up will be on Wednesday from 4-6pm. Contact Dave (614.441.1223) if you'd like to help with either Harvest or Pack-Out.



Egg Delivery

Eggs will continue to be available every Saturday through the end of December. The eggs and money jar will be in the cooler at the greenhouse for you to help yourself.



End-of-Season Evaluation

What sets our CSA apart from farmers' markets, grocery stores, and even traditional models of CSA, is the community! This means that your input and contribution really make a difference. Please bring your evaluation with you to the Thanksgiving Pick-Up on Wednesday. Please contact Amy Stross at amy(at)strosspub(dot)com if you aren't able to return the evaluation on Wednesday, and we can make other arrangements.



Meeting Summary

Though we had a lot to cover in a short amount of time, we were able to give our thanks and say our farewells to an abundant and successful 2010 season. This included a sharing of our gratitude to Suellyn for all that she did in the past two years as the glue that held all of the pieces of the operation together, including member needs and questions, communications (between Charles, interns, members, ecovillage and public), social event organization, contribution in the gardens, and so many, many other things for which we will never know. Thanks, Suellyn!





Below I'll briefly summarize some main points from the November 17th Final Potluck & Meeting 2010 Season Reports.





2010 Work Hours: Total hours worked = 1,885. This is twice the amount of hours worked in 2009!





2010 Financial Summary Highlights: Income totals come out to $43,256. Around 48% of income came from inkind and cash conations, 33% of the income from member share prices, 12% from grants, and 7% from fundraisers (including our awesome benefit concert!). The bulk of expenses come from labor (42%- great bargain!), supplies (40%), and water/sewer (4%). Many financial contributions were not recorded, and came in the form of labor, supplies, and water, indicating a fantastic commitment to the success of the CSA project by members.





2010 Garden Summary: Charles is focused on increasing our harvest per square foot of gardening space. Perhaps a summary of what we grew and how much will be accessible to members in the near future.









2011 Planning

The second half of the meeting was an energetic brainstorming activity as we looked ahead to the 2011 season.





After the Thanksgiving Weekend be on the lookout for an email which reviews in more detail Notes from the 2011 Planning portion of the meeting and the results of the End-of-Season Evaluation.





Send an email to urbanfarmproject@enrightcsa.org if you have a special interest in contributing to the leadership and planning for the 2011 season.





And Please remember to return your evaluations.





Sincerely,

Amy Stross and the Potluck Team (Charles Griffin, Chris Boatwright, Jim Schenk, and Nancy Sullivan)

Will Allen Speaks at Xavier University

“It’s all about the soil.” These were the words that rang through Schiff Banquet Center on Sunday night, Sept. 26, when Milwaukee urban farmer Will Allen spoke to a crowd of more than 200 as a part of the Ethics/Religion and Society Ecology and Sustainability lecture series. Allen strongly embodies the theme this year’s lecture series, Green Urbanism, through his work with the non-profit organization, Growing Power, Inc.

In 1993, Allen bought the last two surviving acres of the last remaining farm in Milwaukee, Wisc. Since then, he has started four farm sites in Chicago and grown his original farm to include six greenhouses; an aquaponics, or fish-farming, house; three vegetable greenhouses; an apiary, or bee farm with five beehives; three poultry houses; outdoor pens for livestock; a large composting operation including vermiculture, or worm compost; an anaerobic digester and a small retail store. The company operates on a $4 million annual budget and provides living wage employment for 55 people each year. Allen has been recognized by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people, and is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, or Genius Award, which is a $500,000 grant given yearly to United States citizens who show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work in their respective fields.

The son of a Southern sharecropper, Allen’s family moved to the outskirts of Washington, D.C. at an early age, but his father wanted his children to be exposed to gardening. After careers as both a professional basketball player and an associate for Proctor and Gamble, Allen went back to his gardening roots and has since been a key player in the Good Food Revolution.

By selling their locally-grown foods, Growing Power is able to ensure the quality and nutritional value of the food its surrounding communities consume, and likewise stimulate the local economy. “We’re always going to have food,” Allen said. “But is it food that is going to bring us to prominence?” Through Growing Power, Allen hopes to restore healthy foods into the Milwaukee area, recapture vacant lands lost to agribusiness and reinstate small, rural farmers into the food economy.

In addition to their gardening initiative, Growing Power, Inc. focuses on youth education, offering children from low-income backgrounds both academic and professional experience. They instituted a reading program that helped improve students’ literacy skills and grades in the local schools. They also offer three-month internship opportunities where interns work 60 hours a week assisting with community food system development, small farmer outreach, and urban agriculture.

For Allen, the most important part of his work is engaging the community. “Food is the one thing that really brings us all together, regardless of who you are,” Allen said. To pass on his knowledge to the next generation, he encourages the involvement of the community. “You have to have educators, planners, doctors, corporations and youth, and bring folks to the table to have a dialogue and leverage their strengths for success.” He encourages viewing the community as an asset to urban gardening, and wants to share his project’s success and sustainability efforts with the local communities.

For Xavier, Allen’s insights are a move towards more sustainability education and discussion on campus, which is exactly the goal that co-chairs of the Ecology and Sustainability lecture series, Dr. Kathleen Smythe and Dr. Elizabeth Groppe, had in mind. “We wanted to give students, faculty, and staff a chance to begin thinking about sustainability issues,” Smythe said. “We thought there was a strong need for a stronger climate of concern and education on campus.”

Growing Power, Inc. seeks the same goal; to set a concrete example of what a successful urban farming program looks like, and inspire others to follow that example and plant their own roots in the soil. “We have the means to do it,” Allen said. “We just have to have the will. We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and do it.”

Member Evaluation Stats

Hi Everyone! We're four Xavier students who just started volunteering with the farm project this month. We are all members of a class on green urbanism and urban gardening, and have been enjoying getting our hands dirty in the greenhouse. As you can see we've also been familiarizing ourselves with the blog. One of our first projects was to compile the data from this season's member evaluations to get a broader picture of everyone's experience with the farm. Here's what we came up with:

If anyone has any more suggestions, don't hesitate to drop a comment! We'll be posting more in the future. Looking forward to seeing you all around the greenhouse.

-Mike, Sam, Lizzie, and Lauren

The EBike

Member Julie Hotchkiss shares this picture and update with us:

We've got a new way to get from our house to the green house--an ebike, which you pedal like a regular bike, but it has an electrical motor assist that helps with the hills between and around Price Hill. Mike rode it to water the plants at the greenhouse this evening, and I'll ride it to work packout this Saturday. It's fun and green!

Thanks for sharing, Julie!  What an awesome new bike!

CSA Members Take on No Impact Challenge.

CSA Members take on “No Impact Week” Challenge

by Amy Stross

Five Enright CSA member households and one non-member household came together to support each other in a one-week adventure of “carbon cleansing” our personal habits and households.  The No Impact Week was sponsored by the Sierra Club and the No Impact Project with the goal of encouraging folks to test the edges of their comfort zones to explore whether more mindful ways of living could in fact create more opportunities for personal happiness and satisfaction (rather than being viewed as inconvenient or too difficult).

Each day of the week, starting with Sunday, September 29th, had a theme upon which to focus our energies, and the themes were cumulative, so for example, Sunday was “Consumption Day” and we concerned ourselves with consumption from that day on throughout the week.  Consuming less by making your own items, re-using, and buying used items through thrift stores and (not buying) through Freecycle were suggested ways to cut down on waste.  In addition, de-cluttering and gifting away unused items were also seen as particularly beneficial.  Leeann Garrett, CSA member, said, “I'm going to make it my goal to write down what it is that I want to buy, and wait a week to see if I really need it or not. And on the flip side, I'm going to start tackling those boxes in my garage and storage room.”  CSA member Deborah Jordan says her family shares the Sunday newspaper with neighbor and CSA member Jennifer Belisle.  I suggested using cloth napkins, handkerchiefs instead of tissues, refilling aluminum water bottles instead of buying bottled water, and making your own household cleaners and salad dressing.  These all cut down on consumption as well as trash.  

For Trash Day on Monday several participants reported surprise at the realization that much of their garbage tended to be tissues, and vowed to experiment with carrying handkerchiefs instead.  Most participants reported having home waste systems which included recycling and composting.  Devin Schenk had a great idea to tie the project into our habits at work.  He writes, “At work – we have paper towel dispensers in our bathrooms – I’m bringing in hand towels and will commit to washing them regularly so that my co-workers and I will reduce the amount of paper we consume.” As a group we seemed to be going beyond the (light) green, yet important, act of bringing reusable bags to the grocery store.  I committed to bringing reusable containers to the grocery store, having them pre-weighed, and using them to fill up with grains, nuts, seeds, and dried fruits in the bulk bin section in order to cut back on packaging waste.

Tuesday was Transportation Day and it got us all thinking about the challenges of living in a hilly city with sparse bike lanes and bus lines.  What we collectively realized is that although cars may be a necessity for some trips, with a little extra planning it doesn’t have to be the norm for all trips.  Many participants reported being more mindful of the necessary car trips and did their best to consolidate errands while using smart trip planning, i.e. more right turns.  Vince and I reduced ourselves to one car about a year ago and I re-committed to riding my bike when going to Enright (8 miles round trip).  April Laskey, participant and friend of Imago, takes the cake on this challenge, as she works toward being car-free.  You can follow her progress on her blog, Carless in Cincinnati.

Wednesday was Food Day and several participants focused on eating an all-local food dinner.  Reported meal items were gazpacho and giant salads made with local produce, crackers and bread made from local flour, locally-sourced eggs and egg salad, and polenta fries made from local cornmeal with homemade ketchup from local tomatoes.  Many of the participants reported having vegetarian tendencies, as eating lower on the food chain possibly results in fewer carbon emissions.  Devin Schenk suggested that “If everyone in Cincinnati gave up eating meat one day a week – we would collectively lower our carbon footprint by an overwhelming amount – some where in the vicinity of Duke Energy switching from Coal to solar power!!”

Are you tired yet?  By Thursday we were becoming exhausted, too, yet the group experience helped us all to stay motivated and keep going.  It was Energy Day, and we were all looking for a boost of it.  Try Power Strips for a boost of power that lessens electricity costs!  Deb Jordan and Jim Schenk focused on the household projects suggested to them through their energy audits with the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance, and both households reported either having no a/c or using it very little.  Deb used her solar oven to make crackers on both Wednesday and Thursday.  I committed to air-drying laundry (on Friday), and having a low-energy evening of a no-cook dinner and candles for evening lighting.

Friday was Water Day.  Low-flow showerheads, faucets, and toilets were the order of the day, as was the oft-unmentionable mantra “If it’s yellow, let it mellow”.  Grey water and rain catchment were also on the docket.  I stretched my use of water by catching laundry and dishwater in buckets and used it to water trees and bushes in my yard, which has been especially useful considering the drought, and became completely humbled to see how many buckets it took to catch a laundry load of water or from a dishwashing session.

The weekend was for Eco-Volunteering and at least four of the participating households volunteered at Imago for its “Reduce, Reuse, Rummage Sale” receiving some much-needed community and connection after a challenging week.

So what is the moral of the story?  Living mindfully is a process that is both challenging and deeply rewarding.  Taking personal steps toward low impact living with the support of the group seems to help solidify actions into habits.  What habits will stick for members of our group?  Deb Jordan thinks her family will continue to be mindful of, and work toward reducing purchases of packaged food and disposable items.  April will continue to use a hanky more and paper tissues less, and is researching rain-catchment options for her yard.  My household will focus on lowering our water use and using grey water to recharge the water table in our own yard.  Even bigger than these individual habits is our resolve to continue to work in community with one another to offer motivation and ideas and to continue the conversation.  Want to take on the challenge as a group or an individual?  The next No Impact Week Challenge begins January 2nd.

Learning Ideas

Several people have expressed an interest in getting together to work on teaching skills associated with the CSA.  We have a bunch of members who do a lot of canning and freezing, as well as folks who have very creative ideas when it comes to cooking, crafting, etc.

As it stands now, it sounds like folks would like to do this on Saturday mornings during pickup?  Is this the case?  What would you like to see?  Are there other times that would work better for folks? 

Weekly update from Suellyn

Hello all,


David and I are participating in AmeriCorps training at Urban Appalachian Council all week, so you won't see much of us. And I won't be here over the weekend either. Thought I'd touch base this way.
There will be no share pick up again this week. Hope you are getting the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants out of there. Also, the eggs were delivered, so please write eggs into your menus for the week. Just put the money in the basket in the cooler. Pick up will resume September 18 with squash, garlic, pears and new lettuce.
A few people said they'd be up for some kind of group sharing, learning during the Saturday pick up time, but I won't be on hand to provide the impetus. David suggested that we could harvest the basil and a group could make pesto together. But we will be swamped with high school volunteers on Saturday so the staff may be wanting to supervise some heavy labor. Whatever activity you might be interested in, perhaps a couple of you will want to organize on line or by phone and promote.
Special occasion: A group of members are organizing a baby shower for Heather, whose baby is due in November. Heather served in a full time AmeriCorps position starting from July 2009-July 2010. She has continued to volunteer as a work share member since then and has contributed a great deal to the CSA. The shower will be held during the pot luck prior to the members meeting on Thursday, October 7 so put the date in your calendar. An email with the details will follow next week.

Update from Suellyn

The watering team is diligently keeping our new sprouts going.  Pat Dolan waters twice a week using a technique for the flats that she learned from Julia. 

  She's there Wed and Sat mornings if you  want to learn.  I watched her and tried it.  It works well and seems to save water. 

A big thank you to Pam Rolandelli, Claire Ventre, and Michael Frazier for preparing the display and handouts for our table at the Price Hill Heritage festival.  Several other volunteers spent time there talking to interested people.  We had one sign up for next year so far.  

Karen Lukes has become a specialist in planting seed trays.

Watch this space for the results of the evaluation survey... and for announcement of the next pot luck.

Those HOT peppers!

Angie Utley found the following information and shared it with the group:


Good day all!  Wanted to share that I do believe that I have successfully identified those little yellow hot peppers as Cayenne peppers.  Here's what the website says...

Long, slender pods. Varieties range from 4 inches to 10 inches, mature color can be either red or yellow.

Heat Range

30,000-50,000 Scoville Heat Units

Typical uses

Dried, and powdered, or crushed into flakes. Many Louisiana hot sauces use cayennes. 

To understand the Scoville Heat Unit Scale follow this link.  Cayennes are an 8 on a scale of 0-10+, with 10+ being the hottest.

So I think I'm gonna try to make my dear hot sauce lovin' husband some sauce with what I brought home this weekend.  Thanks for sharing your portion of peppers with me, Jen!  Instead of stringing them, I'm making hot sauce!  Rest assured that I have vinyl gloves to protect myself with and I will not make this sauce until after my littlest one are in bed tonight.  Better safe than sorry!


How did making hot sauce go, Angie?


I'm with you on that, so I'm going to try to make some tonight, using the proportions in this recipe.

Harvest and Packout

On Eggplants

Suellyn on Eggplant

My share partner Nancy G. took and cooked some of those attractive yellow eggplants when they were available.  As we split up the following Saturday's share I mentioned that I hadn't tried any of them yet.  She said, "Oh they're so full of hard seeds that I had to keep spitting out.  Finally there wasn't enough veggie to make it worth eating."

Well, that explained why Charles had Butch pull all the yellow ones earlier that week.  He planned to keep them for seed, but unfortunately they were stored in the cooler, and put out for distribution. 

I've appended below a partial list of eggplant varieties.  We have at least four varieties growing in the greenhouse and those of us who harvest are at a loss to know when the various ones are ripe for harvest.  Apparently the 'yellow' ones should be harvested when they are at the spotted green stage, which is counter intuitive as far as I'm concerned. 

So yesterday, I went through those plants and pulled the ones that still had some green on them.  These are the only ones that we'll distribute.  All the yellow ones will be removed to stimulate the plants to produce more.  We'll see if that will works this late in the season. 

Inside the greenhouse is ideal for growing eggplant and we've had a good crop this year.  I hope you will peruse the list below (I googled eggplant varieties), think about the ones you've received and used, and give some feedback about how many and which varieties you'd like to have next year.

International Heirloom Eggplants:

• Cambodian Green Giant – Large, green fruits with light colored stripes and unique ribbed fruits.
• Diamond – This popular Ukrainian variety offers dark purple, delicious tasting fruits.
• Rosa Bianca – An Italian eggplant displaying beautiful shades of pink and lavender.
• Brazilian Oval Orange Eggplant – Fruits start out green, ripening to orange and finally red.
• Thai Yellow Egg – This heirloom eggplant from Thailand produces yellow, egg-shaped fruits.
• Ping Tung Long – A productive slender purple fruited eggplant from Taiwan.
• Japanese White Egg – Plants are very productive yielding large quantities of small white fruits.
• Thai Long Green – Another heirloom eggplant from Thailand produces long, light green fruits.
• Listada de Gandia – Purple and white striped eggplant, this one is another Italian variety.
• Goyo Kumba – Unusual, tall and ornamental African heirloom with attractive, bright red fruits.
• Chinese Round Mauve – This heirloom from China produces colorful medium sized eggplants.
• Udmalbet – This green and purple striped eggplant from India turns yellowish as it ripens.

Midseason Potluck

Midseason Potluck!
Thursday, Aug 12
Imago Earth Center
6pm - 8:30pm

Don't forget, folks!  This Thursday is our next potluck/meeting, and we have a lot to cover.  At the meeting everyone will get a chance to look over their work hours and make sure they are on track. 

We will also be discussing this blog and the Price Hill Heritage Cultural Festival (which is going to be awesome!). 

If you aren't able to come to the meeting, make sure to contact Suellyn and get all the information that you need.

Go ahead and comment here as to what you are bringing to the potluck.  This will help make sure we're all not bringing the same thing!

Veridian Dynamics - Food: Yum!

This video is from the show Better Off Ted.  I thought some of you may find it interesting, in a scary kind of way. This short faux commercial uses some exaggeration to make a really great point.  There's a lot of genetic manipulation happening with food these days.  This is one of the reasons that being a part of an urban farm and CSA is so important to our members.  We farm the land ourselves, so we know what fertilizers and seeds were used. 

Pack Out Crews

With the start of a new month, we also need folks to sign up to work the pack out crews for the coming weeks.  If you would like to sign up for either shift (8-10:30am and 10am-12:30pm), just email Suellyn to sign up.  The sign up sheet for the remainder of the month will be available at pickup this week!

Several Things

A message from Nancy Sullivan:

Several things




We had a very generous donation of canning jars and related items to the CSA, just in time to fire up our stoves and get busy! But- you have to share the bounty later on- kind of a "pay it forward" effort.



Here's the idea: any member can take a case of a dozen jars; mix and match if you want, half pint, half quart, etc.



After you use them to can salsa, spaghetti sauce, jam, whatever, label and donate one jar back to the CSA. At the final fall celebratory dinner we will have a raffle with these donated items as the centerpiece! All proceeds will go back to the CSA, while we get to share in your culinary genius!



We'll have a box set aside for the final products at pack out each week.





Second item



Basil coming out of our ears- what to do with it? Make pesto and freeze it, of course. Many people already know this trick, but it is easy to make it and then freeze it in ice trays. When frozen, pop out the green cubes and put them in a freezer bag*. Easy to take out just one or two as needed later in the season. It seems to keep well for many months.



*Note -always use thick freezer bags, not thin sealable sandwich bags. Things definitely get less freezer burn, etc., in the heavy duty bags.



Good basic pesto recipe from "Simply Recipes" website



Ingredients



* 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed

* 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese

* 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

* 1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts

* 3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced

* Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste



* Special equipment needed: A food processor



Method



1 Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. (If you are using walnuts instead of pine nuts and they are not already chopped, pulse them a few times first, before adding the basil.) Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.



2 Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.



Makes 1 cup.





Cucumbers- One of my favorite really simple summer recipes...



peel, thinly slice one or two cukes



mix together:

3 tablespoons cider vinegar, equal amt. water

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 tablespoon salt, some freshly ground black pepper

1 small onion, sliced into thin rings

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill (if you like dill)



add cukes, marinate in fridge. Add ice cubes to the bowl before serving to keep the slices super crunchy; use slotted spoon to drain and serve.

Zucchini and Okra, Oh my!

Microwave Zucchini  Casserole 

4 cups zucchini cut in chunks

Medium union, thinly sliced

4 eggs, beaten

1½ cups shredded cheddar cheese.

Small bell pepper, red or green, seeded and chopped

½ teaspoon salt

Dash pepper 

Place zucchini and onion in 8” pie plate. Cover with plastic wrap, turning one edge back slightly to vent. Microwave on high 10 minutes. 

In large bowl, mix together eggs, cheese, peppers, salt, and pepper. Add zucchini and onions. Grease pie plate in which veggies were cooked. Pour mixture into dish, cover with plastic wrap. Microwave 8 to 10 minutes; do not vent the plastic this time. If you don’t have a rotating tray in your microwave, rotate plate ½ turn after 6 minutes. 

This turns out more like a pizza than an actual casserole or even a quiche—you can cut and pick up a wedge to eat it. Delicious!

Smothered Okra 

4 quarts fresh sliced okra

3 large yellow onions, chopped

2 large green peppers, chopped

2 16 oz cans whole tomatoes

      (or substitute an equal amount of skinned and cored fresh tomatoes)

1 cup vegetable oil

Salt and cayenne pepper to taste

¾ cup water or chicken broth 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. 

In a large roasting pot or ovenproof dish, alternately layer the okra, onions, bell peppers, crushed tomatoes and juice, sprinkling salt and cayenne over each layer, until all the vegetables are in the pot. Pour the oil and water or broth over all, cover the pot, and place it in the oven. Cook for 30 minutes, stir, and turn the oven temperature down to 350 degrees. Cover the pot again and continue to cook for 2 to 2 ½ more hours, stirring the pot every one half hour to hour. 

It makes a lot, but you can halve the recipe, or if you cool the leftovers completely, they freeze well.

Making Salsa with Maddie

This week's Children's Garden included making fresh salsa from the veggies grown in our garden.   Maddie walks us through the steps involved:

Checking out the different veggies that will be in the salsa!

Garlic fresh from the garden!

Maddie peels the garlic to get it ready for the salsa.

Tomatillos are a little different from tomatoes.  David taught us that some are sweet and some are sour.

Mom helps with the tough cutting.

All of the fantastic, fresh veggies are cut and ready to go.

We put the veggies into the processor.

Start with the all veggies but the tomatoes; we'll add them last.

Now it's time for the tomatoes!

YUM!

We were also treated to a song by David.  Look forward to hearing that in the coming days!

Great Publicity!

I found this great little article in Cincinnati Magazine this month!  Thanks, Nancy Sullivan, for giving some great quotes.

Benefit Concert

Here are all of the pictures that Julie Hotchkiss shared with me from the benefit concert.  I wasn't able to get all of them into the newsletter last week, so here they are for everyone to see!

Oil Spill Confessions

Share member Amy Stross contributed this article for the newsletter. If you would like to contribute, email me at eandriacco@gmail.com. You can post the text in the body of the email or share from google documents!

Oil Spill Confessions
A Tale of My Owning Up

by Amy Stross

“It was only a matter of time before those evil people committed a really heinous act on our sacred Earth,” I told myself about those executives at BP, while feeling powerless to do anything about the oil spill tragedy. The thought of an ecosystem lost - made up of billions of innocent marine and aviary lives of which we had come to take for granted, and whose impacts on planetary homeostasis we haven’t yet fathomed - was unconscionable.

I felt a heavy sadness that alternated with anger as I searched for someone to blame. How could this be? I wondered. After a long few weeks of depression oscillating with anger, I came to an ironic realization: I was the culprit; I had finally gotten caught red-handed. Eventually, an addict must admit she has a problem: “My name is Amy, and I’m an oil-aholic.” I try to live intentionally - working from home, combining car trips, growing a lot of my food, cooking much of my food from scratch, and heck, getting fresh veggies from the CSA that were produced less than 4 miles from my house, among other things - what more could I possibly do to reduce my oil reliance and consumption that would fit into my budget and time constraints?

I realized the only way I was going to get myself out of this funk of self-blame and despair was to do something. One Saturday morning, as I was picking up my share at the greenhouse, it hit me: Look at all these petroleum-guilty plastic bags I’m scooping up this produce in, as if they’re the only option to keep my veggies moist and my cute canvas bags dry!

A few years ago I had heard of cloth bags for produce and began using them. I found small cloth bags around the house that I had collected from various things - a bed sheet set came in one, shoes came in a few others, etc. They’re pretty easy to use - moisten the bags with water, fill with produce, and place in the refrigerator crisper drawer. Every 3 days or so re-moisten the bags. Somewhere along the line I had gotten lazy and had gone back to plastic bags. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a few plastic bags in the rotation, and I’ll continue using them until they wear out, but I’m back on track with cloth bags. If you’re interested in purchasing these types of bags, be sure to find ones with sustainably-produced cloth such as hemp or linen, or organic cotton, since conventional cotton farming is notorious for its pesticide and water consumption, and you’ll need the extra large variety to fit in all of the CSA goodies. If you’re crafty, try making some of your own out of old rags or clothes. They’ll get dirty and it will seem odd at first. They may even develop some tomato battle-wound stains, but guess what? They wash and reuse just the same.

So by now you might be saying ‘so your answer to the oil spill is to use cute little cloth produce bags instead of plastic?’ How simplistic and naive! And yet, every action, every decision has the power to set a whole bunch of things in motion that we might not have anticipated. Just look at the thousands of actions and decisions that led us to being an oil-dependent nation, to unsafe offshore drilling practices, and finally, to that fateful day of the spill.

Recently, my husband, Vince, and I splurged and bought ourselves bike helmets and took an inaugural road-ride over to the greenhouse for a share pick-up. It was pretty exhausting on my rusty old rickety bike, but I felt quite empowered, and quite motivated to learn how to give it a tune-up. And much to my surprise, I felt safe and that the drivers gave me adequate space.

I’d like my everyday decisions to reflect my values, and I’m noticing more and more small ways I can work toward my own oil independence. Even if the oil spill has been stopped, it won’t be the last of unnecessary acts of violence and it seems like we’re only buying time until this finite resource runs out anyway.

Have you experienced feelings of despair regarding the oil spill? If so, have you found ways to cope or reduce your dependence? Please write me at amy [at] strosspub [dot] com with your thoughts and ideas.

Pictures from around the greenhouse!

In addition to our wonderful veggies, there are some beautiful flowers growing around the greenhouse. Beautifying Price Hill one flower at a time!!

What wonderful things are you making with your tomatoes? Don't forget that tomatoes are acidic, which means you can safely can them using a pot of boiling water as opposed to a pressure canner!

With a variety of peppers on the way, I know I am excited about making salsas. What about you? What's your favorite use of peppers?

I'm not a huge fan of eggplant, but I wanted to use all the ones we have been getting through the CSA. I did some reading online and created the following recipe for Eggplant Burgers:

2 large eggplant

1 onion

1 green pepper

2 carrots

other various fresh veggies that you have on hand

1/2 a cup of egg-replacement or 2 eggs

bread crumbs, corn meal, or a combination of the two

Start by cooking the eggplant. I roasted it at 350, but you can cut it into squares and boil or steam it. You can cook it any way that you would like, the important thing is that it is cooked all the way through and soft.

Take the insides of the eggplant (the cubes if you cooked it that way or, if you roasted it, scoop the cooked "meat" out of the skin) and throw them in your food processor and blend until smooth. Add your fresh veggies and pulse a few times until your veggies are chopped small and mixed well with the eggplant. Toss the eggplant veggie mixture in a bowl and mix in the eggs/egg replacement and stir until well-mixed. Add your bread crumbs until you reach the consistency that you desire. Shape the mixture into patties and pan fry or bake! Enjoy!

These burgers freeze very well!

CSA Newsletter

In an attempt to save paper and make the newsletter easier to read online, it is now a blog. Let me know what you think about it. There will be an entry at least every Saturday, but more likely there will be several throughout the week. Anyone is more than welcome to contribute, just email me at eandriacco@gmail.com and I'll post it here!