The First Delivery: the Beginning of a CSA Part II

The following is part 2 in an ongoing series documenting the inaugural year of the “Knox-yoke” CSA, a collaboration between Knox United Church and Oxyoke Farms. You can view photos of the visit to Oxyoke in mid June here.

The garden at Oxyoke is big, but not unusually so. Robby steps between the rows, grabbing his hoe every once and a while to root out some weeds.

“If you plant everything on diagonal it’s so much easier to weed,” he says, picking out some weed seedlings to show me. “This way I don’t have to get on my hands and knees to pick each one.”

Born in Switzerland and migrating to Canada at a young age, Robby spent his formative years with the Amish in Ontario. He strikes an interesting pose. At only a little over 5 feet tall, he sports a great long beard and large calloused hands. His straw hat makes him look the part as an Amish patriarch, though he identifies as an old-line Anabaptist. Phyllis, his wife, was raised a Mennonite and the plot they now farm has been in her family for thirty years. That history runs through everything he says–it seems like every bit of practical information is accompanied by a theological reflection on agriculture.

We step past some large half-circle wire frames, covering fledgling tomato plants. Robby tells me that they are season extenders. You pull a thin piece of white canvas over the frames to protect from frost. The white colour and thinness of the material also allows some sun to penetrate while the plants are being protected.

He points to some short plants that I’ve never seen before. He bends over, reaches between some leaves and angles a small green pepper. “Some people say you can’t grow these without a green house,” he says. “They’ve always done well here.”

He shows us beans, lettuce, kale and Swiss chard. A small sprinkler sits in the middle of a patch of lettuce. That sounds about right, I think. A garden big enough to feed us all, but small enough for a garden sprinkler attached to a well to maintain.

Just beyond the garden we get to see the bees. The three hives produce over 100 pounds of honey–they only use about 40 themselves. Robby tells our friend’s 6 year old not to be afraid. If he stays still, he says, they won’t sting. It makes me want my own hive.

The First Delivery

After much anticipation the first delivery arrived last weekend at Knox at 10:00 in the morning. My wife and I were out of town so I had some fellow members take care of the project in my absence. They waited around for an hour, passing out to those who preferred Saturday to Sunday. Robby & Phyllis had planned to wait as well to introduce themselves to those who had decided to vote with their wallets. However, as luck had it their daughter was getting married that day so putting a face to the food would have to wait another week. The leftovers were then placed in “the pit,” an undeveloped room in the Knox basement. On Sunday folks lined up after the church service. All the leftover vegetables were then dropped off at Alpha House, a substance abuse recovery centre in downtown Calgary. It all went very well.

Alberta has had some very finicky weather this year, so the bag wasn’t a huge one. I got a few emails before I came home. “The lettuce is wilty,” one said. “What is the green crinkly stuff?” asked another.

We did order a dozen eggs, though, making the bag seem a little larger. The lettuce was a little squished, and the green stuff appeared to be kale, and there were some beets with the greens still attached. It didn’t seem like much at first, until we got going. I ran the sink with ice water and the lettuce, beet greens and kale all popped right back to that crunchy freshly-picked state we all love.

What to do with it all? Salad is easy of course, but what do you do with kale? How do you prepare beet greens? Luckily, we have the internet, but how did people figure all this stuff out before that? Was it just passed-down knowledge? My guess is that much of it came on the fly, especially in places like Western Canada where the climate affords a different variety of foods. Improvisation was the key, adding different ingredients to traditional frames of reference.

Making Due

In the few days following the first pickup, I received a few emails from members. One said that the lettuce was so good that their children had actually asked for salad again the next day. Another said her husband was sick of the soft romaine from Safeway and the lettuce from her bag had him coming back for more. Then a few recipes were tossed around, telling us that we should boil and slice the beets, fry the beet greens and add some soy and ginger for an excellent Asian-tinged, but geographically unique stir-fry. This was the best part! The fact that we were not only sharing vegetables, we were trading ways we could use them.

I made a salad, using all three greens and boiled the beets to have as a side dish. The kale went in a stir fry. It was less adventurous and exciting than the rest, but I can’t wait until next week. This time we will be able to see our order, then plan the meals that week around it. There is something incredibily satisfying about making due with with what you’ve got.

To be continued…

Tagged as: alberta, Calgary, community supported agriculture, csa, knox united church, linden, oxyoke farms, robby & phyllis fyn