Lugging Digging Buddies at the pick-up today!

It really felt like community supported agriculture day today. Wonderful people chipped in to help unload, lug and set out today's crates of fresh veggies and greens, ready for shareholders to collect from Farmer John's morning harvest. I was so wrapped up in the moment, I forgot to get my phone out to snap the scene but here's a shot from last week, when the ladies swooped in to help just as I was about to collapse over another 60lb crate of turnips.



THANK YOU EVERY SINGLE KIND SOUL - YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE

It's really amazing how farming brings people and communities together. While CSA shareholders lugged heavy crates full of vegetables, Molly and Alex, volunteers, bagged up the soil we'd dug out from the side lawn, where the CSA pick-up is. They bagged up 2 yards of soil, maybe even 3. That's a big pile of soil! Farmer John is going to take it away for us.



(The soil had come from where we'd built two community raised beds with financial support from the Archer School For Girls. We'd dug out a foot layer of soil, built the beds and filled them with a clean mix of organic soil, composted horse manure, sand and worm castings to a depth of two feet. I threw in some endomycorrhizal fungi for bacterial good measure. Veggies love it! Young ladies from the school, and their wonderful teachers, planted the raised beds with veggie seedlings last month.)

Shareholders passing by on their way to pick-up, chipped in to help Molly, Alex and I dig and bag until sunset. Chris Murakami, cycling past to pick up for the first time, pitched in to help with Stacey, who was there picking up for a friend. We met, dug, bagged and talked about how Chris was going to use his veggies the following Tuesday in class. Storing his greens is going to be important. Everything needs to be fresh and crisp for Chris' class on Tuesday, when he's planning to teach his students about food - where it comes from, how its grown and why local, fresh, organic produce is good. There are so many people out there doing good work like this.

We scraped clods of wet soil off each other's shoes.

Past 7pm, our friends "the lads," helped Molly and I load my van with the empty crates and boxes. Lads, if you're reading this, Thank You! That was a really nice thing you did ...

Molly's husband, Clay, and shareholder Dan, helped Molly and I wrap up bagging soil.

Molly, you are REALLY loved! Thank you so much for all your hard work!

Here's what good 'ol Farmer John had for us at the Silver Lake pick-up today:

(off the top of my head because my brain's exhausted, my back aches and I can't find the list)

celery
russian kale
arugula
mizuna (in the mustard family, lovely raw in a green salad)
turnips
butter lettuce head
red leaf lettuce head
chamomile
fresh garlic
baby bok choy
beets

I feel like I missed something out. Let me know if I did.

Have a happy, relaxing weekend. Thanks everyone for helping so much today.

Tara