Cante's Urban Croft - an adventure in Community Supported Agriculture

I'll soon be posting more pictures of my maturing garden croft. Its quite amazing how the earth brings forth a variety of plants we can eat, that our ancestor's "tamed", cultivated, and nurtured into the foods that we love and enjoy in 2008. I have the largest variety of vegetables and herbs growing in my garden then ever previously attempted! I'll try to list these here, not in ABC order, but off the top of my head as I visualize my urban garden:

I'm growing: several varieties of lettuce, red cabbage, green cabbage, spinach, cilantro, Kentucky pole beans, yellow pole beans, onions, black cherry tomatoes, pumpkins, zucchini, sugar snap peas, rhubarb, broccoli, radishes...., purple bush beans, garlic, Swiss chard, rainbow Swiss chard, collard greens, basil, spaghetti squash, winter squash varieties, tomatoes and more tomatoes - several varieties, carrots, egg plant, tomatillos, turnip greens, sorrel, ground cherries, green onions, yellow onions, baby bok choy, brussel sprouts, dill, fennel, beets, Yukon gold potatoes, red Pontiac potatoes, blue potatoes, green beans, several varieties of hot peppers, Hungarian sweet peppers, Chinese greens, a couple varieties of heirloom beans (yard long, Hmong, Lakota) for seed, Jerusalem artichokes, cucumbers, parsley, corn, kale, and asparagus. (Radishes and I seem to have "bad karma"....not very successful in getting those things to bulb up).

All of the above is in the "vegetable section" of my garden planted in either the raised beds, a couple kiddie swimming pools, or in containers.

The herb garden has a number of items, also: a couple varieties of basil, chocolate mint, apple mint, spearmint, horehound, marjoram, oregano, fever few, lemon balm, chives, parsley, tarragon, thyme, horse radish, ...and a couple other things that are escaping my memory.

So...there you have it!

Oh, my yard also has raspberries, plums, apples, cherries, grapes, pears....but the harvest of these is quite variable, having dwarf trees. The raspberries will be coming ready soon, however!

The extensive number of items is due to deciding to try my hand at Community Supported Agriculture. My friend, Maria, has indicated I am the ONLY CSA in our county. She also believes I may be the only URBAN CSA in the state of Wisconsin. So, what is a CSA? I may have mentioned it previously, but in brief, it is an agriculture effort (in my case a garden) where folks from the community purchase "shares" in the farm or garden. I describe it as folks who have taken out a "subscription" to my garden. For an up-front 20-week fee, each subscriber gets a weekly package of a variety of the vegetables that have come into season. The "share" provides meal-sized portions, meant to help folks to "eat locally". So.....I'm "piloting" the CSA idea via my backyard URBAN garden, and having a very good time with it.

One of my subscribers told me this week: "We love getting the grocery bag of items! Its like Christmas, full of pleasant surprises!"

Unlike some of the larger, established CSA's that post what a share is likely to hold, what I harvest and put into the "share" each week is a surprise to me, also, as I wander through my garden and harvest samples of items that are ready. Luckily, due to my style of French raised-bed gardening, things are going well as I was unaffected by the heavy rains earlier this month.

My little CSA seems to be getting a bit of attention. Looks like I may be hosting a tour in September, and also getting some other curious inquiries from folks embracing sustainability locally...