This is truly a milestone. Our GANG (Green Acres Neighborhood Garden), though it still exists underneath, is now also a CSA, the “business” end of our newly ordained Green Acres Urban Farm. This first growing season (June through October) we will provide produce for one full share (for a group house) and two half shares (one for a small family, the other for three young housemates). And of course, there’s also the six of us in these two ecopod homes. And we can only imagine what will come next! If, as I hear, one California family harvests six thousands pounds of food on only 1/10 of an acre, what can we do on a half-acre? And now that we’re also beginning to clear the under and over growth from the grounds of the house in back in prep for new beds there, isn’t the sky the limit? Or rather, the neighborhood lawns? There are 440 homes in Green Acres, way too many for a village. Perhaps four villages is more like it, and we are starting the first one, a permaculture village, through and through, with this motto on our brand new www.greenacresvillage.org business card: “growing community from the ground up” — literally.
So here’s this evening’s first CSA harvest, with Leah’s sister Hannah and CSA young co-founder Brie (her partner Rebecca, she with 40 years of organic market gardening already under her belt, has taken off to camp out at a nearby weekend music festival).
Me? I just take pictures — and marvel at the dynamic evolution of this beautiful little magic place.
Here they are, washing the greens in two huge tubs. (Next week we will replace the tubs with a deep sink gifted to us by the owner of Lennie’s Brew Pub, where Brie works part-time.)
Altogether, first week harvest offers greens of various kinds, lettuce, radishes, and peas.
After washing, they hauled the tubs to the pond/wetland, to dump.
The few remaining fish (we have exported probably 100 other fish to Aaron’s much larger pond in the country) will enjoy the extra water, and so, of course, will all the frogs.
Here’s the bed the lettuce came from.
And the bed where they pulled the radishes.
And here’s where I do my chi kung and tai chi in the late afternoon. My own little sweet front yard sanctuary, nearly invisible to passersby, because of all the foliage.
Brie left the greens to dry for a while, and then packed up the three boxes.
First harvest complete!
CSA is launched!
2 thoughts on “PHOTOS: First CSA Harvest at Green Acres Urban Farm”
All very nice and leafy green, Ann, but I see several clear violations of “liberal” Bloomington’s precious Weed Ordinance.
How do you Outrageous Scofflaws get around that?
The city is well aware of our entire project. We keep in touch with various departments as we move forward, recognizing everything, all situations of any kind, as opportunities for relationship. The city recognizes our function as pioneers, experimenting with a new sustainable template for existing neighborhoods. We we all realize that there will be times when we bump up against the edges of antiquated laws.The point is, we all, fundamentally, want the same thing, a world that works for everybody; and all involved with this project, including various individuals within the city, work in tandem to help navigate through the legal and other complexities of these dynamic, difficult, exciting times.