Very Small Scale Community Supported Agriculture

I planted more beans today, If you read my blog last summer you'll know I'm a little wacky about beans, but they are a great source of nutrition, can be stored frozen or dried, and they help build the soil up by fixing nitrogen so whenever I see a small spot of bare dirt in the garden, I think of putting in a few more beans. Their seed is really easy to save too.

Today I planted three, 30 foot rows of purple hull black eyed peas, and about 15 feet of pole beans; turkey craw which are for shelling and supposedly were found in the craw of a turkey, they are brown with one end a little lighter in color and cook up like a super meaty pinto, yard longs, great for stir fry and freezing, and the new favorite from last summer, Garden of Eden, huge luscious flat beans, tender and tasty. The top new variety of anything we grew last year.

I'm also trying an experiment of planting a one foot square parcel in mixed lettuce and arugula in a spot that gets afternoon shade and just see if I can't grow salad greens all summer if I pick them when they are small. I'm going to try successive plantings every week or two and see what happens. If you live in the south, tell me, have you ever tried this or heard of it? How did it go?

I also embarked yesterday on an experiment in Community Supported Agriculture, you might call it a boutique CSA, I am going to see if I don't have enough to make a share for two of my friends over the next couple of months.

Here's what they got on their first week. One big head of bok choy, a nice size bunch of chard, another of baby beets, about 6 leeks, a bag of peas, radish sampler and a bag of arugula. I thought it was a pretty good mix of stuff and my friends seemed happy.