Aside #21: CSA Basket, Meet You in the Summer of 2012!

January 2012

Community Supported Agriculture from Bryson's Farms .  I signed on last fall as an experiment and gave half a dozen bi-weekly deliveries of baskets a trial.  But, last week, I hoisted my standing order until the summer.  sigh...

I loved the vegetables -- all organic, heirloom, interesting varieties of vegetables, with some I'd never tried before like daikon radishes, purple top turnips, Kabocha squash, and kale micro greens.  Many are NOT found in supermarkets like Bloblaws.

But post-holidays, I was finding the quantity too much for one person to consume.  Even with all the salads and vegey meals, there was always a lot left over just as another basket arrived.  Greens in particular. I was giving away lettuce and greens to all.  The fridge bins were over-jammed.  Plus, January is a typical cut-back month in terms of food quantities soooo.... all to say, I stopped the order. 

Not to say that I will quit organic vegetables or Bryson Farms.  Bryson is now at The Fieldhouse at Parkdale Market every weekend, part of a 10-local farm initiative to make us locavores happy with Bryson Farms (vegetables), Le Coprin (mushrooms), Halsall (honey), Fromagerie les Folies Bergères (sheep, cow, and goat’s milk cheeses), Hall’s Apple Market (apples and cider), Stanley’s Olde Maple Lane (maple syrup), Trillium Meadows (red deer and wild boar), Beking’s (eggs), Acer Farms (hormone- and antibiotic-free Red Angus beef), and Dusty Lane Farms (hormone-free lamb).

I fully intend to re-register for a CSA again as the spring and summer months approach.  Garlic scapes, wild garlic, early tomatoes, spring asparagus, kale, swiss chard, garlic festivals.  New recipes await. So, until then....