We are planting away under the blue skies of June! Photo by Scott David Gordon

It's hard to believe that it's June already.  This means we are almost halfway through the year - and what a crazy one it has been so far in terms of the rain.  We've also had cooler-than-normal temperatures up until now, and this has had an effect on our tomato plants.  Specifically, it has taken much longer for them to bear fruit.  We planted our first round of this crop early this year, and so we anticipated having tomatoes by no later than mid-May.  Well, it is now June, and I am happy to say that the tomatoes are finally coming in - CSA members can look forward to some in their boxes this week.

Tomatoes ripening on the vine. Photo by Scott David Gordon

The unprecedented rains have also rendered our squash and zucchini crops pretty much non-existent so far this season.   My apologies to our CSA members for this  delay- I had hoped you would have more of this constant of summer in your shares by now.  We have planted more, so don't worry, we will have these summer staples before too long.  The weather is beyond our control, but please know that we are doing everything we can to ensure your shares are full of our fresh organic produce.  I said this last week but will say it again - your support is now more important than ever during this difficult time as we readjust our planting schedules to be in-line with what the weather has wrought.  I truly mean it when I say that the CSA is at the heart of our farm - you keep us going even through the rough parts.  We may end up with overall smaller yields of some vegetables this year, but my hope is that a CSA member, you won't even notice it.  The smaller yields may affect what we can offer wholesale clients and what we bring to market, but the CSA shares will always be filled first.

And for those of you who haven't already, I encourage you to sign up for the Ceres Vegetables Society - believe me, it's a lot of fun!  So far, we've hosted pop-up events at Contigo and ABGA - two fantastic local businesses - and we have lots more planned.  I started the Ceres Vegetable Society because I wanted to share my love of vegetables with like-minded folks - people who love to cook and love to gather together.

Inglorious Vegetables!

The overall mission of the Ceres Vegetable Society is super ambitious - to protect, preserve, and establish land for plant and animal habitat all over the world in perpetuity - but at its heart, it's really about community.  The way it works is you sign up to be a member (it's free to join), and then we email you when we are going to have a pop-up event.  In this way, it's kind of like a secret society - those who sign up get the details first!  You can come hang out, hear good music, and talk to folks who also love to cook.  You can also order a "mystery" vegetable box ahead of time that's full of our fresh organic produce for only $25!

At these pop-up events, we also set up a farmers market stand full of "inglorious vegetables"at 30%-50% less than our normal prices.  What are inglorious vegetables, you may ask.  Well, inglorious vegetables are beautiful in their own right - they just aren't perfect.   They might not be on the cover of Vogue (or the vegetable world equivalent), but they still pack the nutritious and tasty punch of just harvested organic vegetables.  If you go to most supermarkets, you will see vegetables that have nary a blemish (supermarkets are notorious in terms of wasting good vegetables that lack a perfect veneer).  To me, that's crazy - I care more about how a vegetable is grown than living up to an unrealistic standard of beauty.  Believe me, none of our vegetables are perfect - that's an ideal that is close to impossible to come by for those growing organically.  It is also an ideal that comes with at a cost to health through the use of pesticides and also leads to unnecessary waste.

Part of the reason that I started the Ceres Vegetable Society is that I hated seeing any good vegetables going to waste just because of how they looked.  So, while we know that none of our vegetables are perfect, we also know that some are a little bit further from perfect than the rest.  We've lovingly labeled these "inglorious."  I believe there is beauty in these inglorious vegetables, and I hope you will, too.   Even if you aren't charmed by their looks, hopefully their incredible taste will win you over.  You know what they say about a book and its cover...

Photo by Scott David Gordon