Tomato Time!

The first red tomato appeared in my garden this morning. It was a cherry tomato, a half-inch in diameter, but it was still ripe and delicious. It got me thinking that southern Ohio/ Kentucky tomatoes must be the single best argument for locavore eating. From the time I was a kid, I can’t remember any food—not chocolate, not chili, not even blueberry pie—tasting as good as a sun-warmed tomato straight from the garden.

I eat all the tomatoes I can get from July to October, and I hardly touch them from November to June—I’ll even pick them out of a salad at a restaurant during the chillier months of the year. Nothing is worse than a cottony, flavorless winter tomato, but a summer tomato—ah, that is the stuff. If I had written Dandelion Wine, that homage to summer, it would have been called Fresh Sliced Tomatoes. If I tackled my own version of Rememberance of Things Past, the trigger for a million memories would be a tomato straight from the garden, not a warm madeleine cookie.

My uncle used to pack a couple of suitcases of Rabbit Hash tomatoes (the Ohio River valley, on either side, is the mecca of homegrown tomatoes) and take them to Florida where he’d trade them for hotel rooms and restaurant meals, because they had nothing like a good northern summer tomato down in the tropics. I’ve had meals in August that consisted of a tomato and basil salad followed by gazpacho (cold tomato soup) and baked tomatoes. And I consider them some of the best meals I’ve ever eaten.

When they are plentiful, I can sun-dried tomatoes, and when I open a jar of them in February, I get exactly the same feeling Ray Bradbury describes when they open a bottle of his grandmother’s dandelion wine in the depths of winter: it’s summer in a jar. Here’s to red, ripe, Cincinnati tomatoes—coming soon!

A visit to the greenhouse

The other evening, our daughter and I came along while Mike was doing evening greenhouse duty. It was a nice evening, and the greenhouse smelled wonderful--you could really smell the rich earth and even the growing things. Our daughter, Alice, asked what everything was growing in the greenhouse, then asked the same question when we went out back and walked down to the gardens on Terry Street. She just stood there looking at everything growing in the Terry Street gardens, inhaled deeply, and said again how wonderful it smelled. It made me think about how the farm affects all of your senses; the growing plants look like natural art as they escape their neat rows, and the fruits and vegetables add color to the palette. Of course the produce tastes great, but I think maybe the smell is the most profound and visceral way the gardens can affect you. It calms me down, makes me walk slower, and just makes things seem better to visit the gardens and take a deep breath. I heartily recommend a visit to the greenhouse or garden as a way to unwind on a nice summer evening.

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.