In the Harvest Basket this week:
- Head Lettuce
- Red Long of Tropea Torpedo Onions
- French Fingerlings
- Broccoli
- Red Cabbage
- Bunch Carrots
- Zucchini
- Persian Cucumbers
- Slicing Cucumbers
On Rotation:
- Eggplant!
- Cilantro
- Dill
Bulk Basil by Special Order - Available Now!
Calling all pesto makers! The basil is abundant and luxurious right now, and it's your turn to place dibs on a pound or two (or more!) for your pesto-making delight. You can order online via our Local Line platform (you will have to log in to your new Local Line account to place the order - if you have not yet registered your account, please do so - I just sent all unregistered CSA members another account invite to make it easy).
When you go to place you're order you'll be prompted to choose your pickup location and date. Please choose your regular CSA pickup location (PO, Bandon, Coos Bay or Valley Flora) and your preferred delivery date. Please note that we will try to deliver your order on that date, pending availability. If we can't deliver it that day, we'll communicate with you via email and let you know when to expect it.
All orders placed via Local Line require online payment. Yes, we are slowly shedding some of our check-in-the-mail Luddite ways...but don't worry, we won't take it too far: the Valley Flora anthem will continue to be the sweet jangle of trace chains behind two bay draft horses pulling a century-old culitvator through the fields. But back to online payment....You have two options:
- Pay with a credit card using LocalPay. A 3.5% credit card convenience fee will be added to your order.
- If you like the check-in-the-mail way of doing things, we have a Store Credit option on Local Line. You can send us a check for any amount and we will apply it to your Local Line account in the form of Store Credit. That credit will then automatically apply to your future online orders (CSA or farmstand). Store Credit never expires, and it's a great way to avoid the 3.5% credit card processing fee. If you want to go the Store Credit route, mail us a check with "store credit" written in the memo field and we'll apply it to your account as soon as we receive it. Make checks payable to VALLEY FLORA and mail to PO Box 91, Langlois, OR 97450. In the meantime if you're antsy to place a basil order you can pay with your credit card and then use your Store Credit next time.
Now order up some basil while the gettin's good!
Busting the Supermodel Myth One Cucumber at a Time
If you've ever grown cucumbers, maybe you've noticed how most of them bear little resemblance to those straight, uniform, supermarket slicers? How, in fact, a very large percentage are curved, tapered, scarred, bloated, tiny, crooked, twinned, sun-splotched, or pocked by cucumber beetle bites? Such is the reality of being a regular field-grown cucumber. The "supermodels" - long, straight, slender and smooth-skinned - make up just a fraction of any harvest. Kinda like humans: women who fit the requirements of a supermodel make up about 1% of the population; meanwhile, in real life, 90% of women have cellulite, 70% of women have stretch marks, less than 17% of Amercian women have blue eyes, and fewer than 3% of American women are 5'10" or taller. This is the cucumber analog of those statistics:
Which is why this week, while spending many, many hours bent over upside down in the cucumber patch (cuke harvest is at its peak right now), I started pondering why this feminist farmer is playing into the supermodel myth every time I sort the cucumbers for packout in the barn! When I fill up the foodbank bins with all the "differently-shaped" cukes, I'm only perpetuating the myth that every cucumber is a "perfect" cucumber - an impossible ideal! What am I doing, when I know firsthand that those "ugly" cukes are a big part of the mix and taste just as great (I know because that's the only kind of cucumber we ever eat at home, since all the "good" ones go to market)?!
So this week I am making a conscious effort to share some of the general cucumber population with you. Yes, we did put a supermodel-ish cuke in each tote yesterday - old habits die hard - but we also put some wonky ones in there in honor of the fact that cucumbers, like us, come in myriad shapes and sizes, and it's what's inside that really counts.
Here's to phenotypic diversity in plants and humans - the world would be a boring place without it. :)
