First Pick Up!

I could hardly wait for 11am, June 5th to arrive.  That was the time and day when I could pick-up my first CSA share from Clarion River Organics (CRO).  I belonged to another CSA for 15 years and quite frankly had grown a little tired of the predictable boxes each week.  An overload of strange greens in June (memories of massive daily lunch-time salads containing weedy mesclun and pea shoots still make me smile), more tomatoes in August than I could keep up with, and beets upon beets upon beets in the fall.  In addition, sometimes the produce was a little let's say "off".  When I was told by Farmer Joe, as I'll call him, to soak the kale in my sink to remove the grey-green aphids that clung to the underside of the leaves I knew I'd had enough.  I needed a change.  I needed variety.  Enter Clarion River Organics.

With ten families contributing produce, the potential for great variety intrigued me.  Still there was no guarantee of that - perhaps all the families grow similar things - no assurance of better quality either.  Afterall, they would be subject to the same environmental uncertainties as Farmer Joe since the growing season, climate, pests and geographic area are roughly the same.  Still I thought I'd take a desperate chance and so signed up and sent my money to CRO.

Anxiously wanting to form an initial impression, I set an alarm on my phone for 10:45am and entered the little market where I pick-up my CRO share at exactly 11am on June 5th.   I was handed a handsome, new, sturdy reusable shopping bag by the store's proprietor which was filled with the first fruits of the growing season.  I quickly left the store and examined the contents on a bench outside.  I had brought a shopping bag with me since I was not sure what the procedure for pick-up would be (with Farmer Joe I had to bring my own bag(s) and transfer all my veggies from his wooden crate to my bags).  Since I had walked to the market, I decided to split the produce between the two bags to balance the load for my walk back.  

Sitting on that bench dividing up the contents between my two bags I found a wonderful variety of fruit and vegetables: asparagus, rutabaga, Winterbor kale, strawberries, Romaine lettuce, Russet potatoes, rhubarb and mint; all in excellent condition and each item of a manageable quantity - not too much, not too little.  I could not wait to get cooking.  It's going to be a good season.