When Kari asked me why we started the CSA this year I couldn’t come up with an easy answer. One thing I can say is, all of us working in the Work in Beauty demonstration garden were into it. Somehow we had a committment to a vision we had barely even articulated.
The way I see it we all feel strongly about creating something good right around us, and this is one good thing that seems to respond to the work we put into it: developing a local food system. The time is right, people around us are wishing they could eat local, fresh, in-season food. We want to grow it. If we didn’t do this we would all either be eating from our own gardens or supporting the dysfunctional food system our nation has developed for us over the last few decades, relying heavily on petroleum for fertility and transportation of veggies that are not even meant to taste good or nourish us when they reach our tables. Here we have flavor, natural rhythms, no chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, and fair treatment of growers all at once.
Morning in early September in the garden.
Suddenly in one season more than 15 families for 12 weeks have access to Good food in Gallup. What a deal!
And things went really well this season. We feel we can expand the system to make it available to more Gallupians next year.
There is a farm in Seattle that contributes to the local food system there, it is made up of only backyard gardens, carefully coordinated to produce what a market garden would produce. We didn’t know about it until after we started this, but we are amazed to see them modelling what we would like to do. (I’ll post that link soon.)
So please join us, everyone. Let’s build soil, grow veggies, build up the water table, catch rain on a citywide scale and let’s feed the whole city some day. The CSA is not the only way to do this, but it is a great way to start and it’s a perfect fitfor many of us. Acknowledging the importance of an active farmers’ market, next year we plan to plant enough for more subscriptions as well as sell at the farmers’ market.
