CSA-hooray!

every so often i become possessed with a new project. luckily, i circle back to my obsessions often enough to do things like finish quilts, gloves, or baby blankets–but for the most part, every few months or so i find a new passion and it does not let me go until it has had its way with me.

this post  is to record my latest foray with a newfound passion. it’s an interest that’s been germinating for a while, but sprang up to possess me yesterday and today.

it all began quite innocently. i went with leslie to the CSA fair at the Seward Co-op in Minneapolis.

It was raining gently outside, and the air smelled fresh, like soil. Leslie knows a lot about food, so I let her do the talking and followed along as she spoke with the farmers, asking questions that I wouldn’t have even known to ask, much less thought to ask. These were mostly family farms; parents making a life and a living off of the land, in a way that is good for the land, and good for our bodies.

the farm i think B and I have decided to go with is in its first year, called Growing Lots Urban Farm. apparently it’s right in Minneapolis somewhere (at a location yet to be disclosed), so the food that we’ll be eating this summer will literally be about as local as we could possibly get. i really like the idea of bringing the food we grow right into our own environments. it sounds a little goofy to say, maybe, but i think we’d all be a little better off if we knew where our food came from. it seems to me that this separation from food we’ve created for ourselves engenders that fear people have of vegetables, and that gravitation people have toward processed food. if we started thinking about food coming from the ground, instead of food coming from stores, maybe we’d be less ridiculous about eating stuff like broccoli.

Another cool idea? Roof Farming. This has of course taken off in New York (where, frankly, they kind of need it more), and finally is starting to catch on in Minneapolis. Hurrah! I’m excited to see how that organization does in the next few years.

If we had a yard, this would potentially be the year that I’d dabble in vegetable gardening for the first time. But, since we don’t, I’m kind of fascinating by window farms.

They really, really look a little bit beyond my level of expertise… but we’ll see. They also remind me of the hanging gardens of babylon, which as a really big biblical scholar geek (king nebuchadnezzar, anyone?), only makes me want to do it more. PLUS we have the PERFECT WINDOW. (B is shaking his head right now and sighing. he knows first-hand the extent of my crazies when i get consumed by a project. And, he’s also seen me stop more than once mid-project…).

Maybe more along my skill level (but a potential stepping stone, perhaps?) is indoor composting via worms, a.k.a. vermiculture.

We even have a friend who will give us some of her worms.

So, there you have it, friends! My new obsession has been outlined to you in full, taking immediate effect in our CSA share and potential vermiculture. Does anyone have any good blogs, articles, videos, etc to share? Please post them in the comments–I need more info to consume!!! And, don’t worry yourselves–you’ll get the full updates of my attempts, travails, successes, and failures all right here.

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