Starting your own homestead heirloom garden

Try as we might there's just no way will be be able to accommodate everyone in our CSA this year.  We have just a few slots left and a VERY long list of interested folks (but we are still moving down the list so keep your fingers crossed).  Still - being in a CSA is far from the only way to enjoy farm fresh veggies every week of the summer.  It's super easy to join the growing set of urban homesteaders that want to grow their own foods.  Last year I posted about simple gardens in containers on your patio and that's a GREAT way to start (just not this early).

One thing we like to do in our market gardens is use each season as an opportunity to discover some new tastes and flavors.  To try things we have read about, heard about or just haphazardly discovered.  More often than not these are varieties of heirlooms that have long been next to impossible to find.  Well - in recent years as more and more people have raised their own shovels and spades in the local food revolution against factory farming it has become even easier to find those seeds that it seemed time had forgotten.  Seeds that grow into plants with tastes and textures of yesteryear (like, do you remember how good grandma's porkchops used to taste? More on that in a future post).  One terrific source for heirlooms is the Seed Savers Exchange.  They work with individuals all over the country who are dedicated to saving our agricultural heritage, one delicious heirloom at a time.  And we figured "why not give them a try this year", so, we did!

While just a very small amount of our total seed orders this year is from Seed Savers - if you are a Slow Food person - you will notice that just about ever single variety we DID purchase from them is part of the Ark of Taste.  If you are not a Slow Food person, that's fine, the Ark of Taste is a list of agricultural species prized for their flavor and in danger of going away forever because they are no longer actively cultivated.  So when you grow an Ark of Taste plant - or any open pollinated heirloom for that mater - you are really promoting biodiversity in addition to the selfish reasons of taste (Ark of Taste is more than just plants - follow the link above to discover some cool "things to eat" that promote biodiversity and historical agricultural preservation)!

All that goodness about heirlooms said, if you are going to try starting your own garden this year as well you should absolutely not shy away from those seeds in catalogs that have the little (F1) next to them.  Likely the F1 hybrids (a natural cross between two parent plants, not a GMO) will provide "hybrid vigor" and be better plants to learn on as they tend to be more forgiving than many heirlooms...  and don't get us wrong - they taste great too!  Really, the most important part to trying out your own homesteading garden - big or small - it to actually DO IT!

2011 CSA Update

We have had several recent questions about our plans for a 2011 CSA so I figured I'd take this cold wintery day to provide an update.

Like many things we want to do on our farm - we found ourselves pulled in two different directions: increase the size a lot, so more people can join OR increase the size a little and focus on a very special experience.  Certainly there are pros and cons to both approaches, which is ultimately what working with nature is always about, tradeoffs.

We have to admit, there is a certain allure to adding many more openings to share in the harvest, but there are costs to that.  When you reach a certain size it becomes unrealistic to pick items and add them to the delivery box in the hours before the delivery.  You need to harvest and pack ahead of time.  That means cooling and refrigeration.  And in the context of picking local, seasonal, fresh vegetables and storing them before getting them into the hands of people - well - it just seems silly.  But perhaps more importantly - it also changes what we can actually provide.

Consider this - If you walk the aisles of even the best produce sections of local stores you will not find a multitude of heirloom varieties.  Trust me when I say it's not because the grocer isn't interested in selling delicious, fancy, expensive vegitables.  Instead it's because, by in large, most heirloom vegitables are too delicate to pick, pack, store and ship.  If they tried to replace the head of iceberg lettuce in the store with a nice head of heirloom (Ark of Taste) Speckled lettuce - by the time it got to your produce department it would look more "blob" and less "lettuce".

So we had to make some hard choices and like just about every one of our endeavors here - quality won out over quantity.  Now we certainly don't disparage any of the larger area CSA's that offer massive quantities of seasonal veggies - quite the contrary, we are super happy for them and fully support their efforts...  we are just different.  With a focus on many different heirloom varieties we really try to introduce people to tastes and flavors they may not have encountered before.

So what does all that mean about this years CSA?  First off - we are adding some capacity because there has been a lot of demand and we think we can increase the number of shares but stay true to the model described above.  Also, we have already offered some "shares" to last years members...  Some have joined and some have passed this year.  In the next week or so we will be contacting folks who have expressed interest in a rolling manner and filling the available remaining openings.

In the meantime - feel free to see what last year offered and read some additional thoughts about our CSA model on our CSA Page, How it works and our commitment to heirloom plants.