The First Week of the 2020 Summer Season

In previous years, when asked what I looked forward to the most about the CSA, I’d exclaim, “Garlic scapes!” -- I love chopping them up and putting them in anything from salads to stir fry to omelets to pesto, and their brief appearance at the beginning of the summer season signals the end of an exhausting school year and the harbinger of many vegetable adventures to come.

This year, though, the mere existence of the CSA felt both necessary and impossible for a time, and so I find myself looking forward to all of it. Not only the produce, but the time outdoors in the garden volunteering, seeing neighbors from a distance, and rallying 50-some households to keep showing up. It is a credit to core organizers, current and past, that we have the tools to support each other and continue to work to grow our membership.

Our old routines are fairly well-documented on this blog and other social media; in stark contrast, this season we’ll have pre-packed boxes and limited dawdling. Our first delivery went smoothly and it was great to see familiar, albeit masked, faces and meet new members as well. It was a combination of taking back some control (knowing where our food comes from, avoiding gathering indoors), and yielding some of it (what’s in the box??), too. 

Food sovereignty and food justice are necessary branches in the larger overlapping struggles for racial equity, environmental justice, and liberation for all. I look forward to hearing how members use the material fuel of these gorgeous vegetables to expand their vision of a better world, while hoping for the day we can fling the garden gates wide open once again.