The Food Project Boston

Back in April, I joined a CSA program called The Food Project.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and The Food Project is one of the local organizations that operates in this manner. The Food Project provides for many summer jobs for inner-city and suburban youth (teaming them up and having them work together). Plus, much of what they grow is donates to local food banks and hunger organizations. Their goals are quite admirable.

Food Project members purchase a "share" of the crops that they grow, and in turn, they distribute the crops weekly. I believe the rate this year was $425 for a weekly box of what appears to be 20-22 weeks of pickups. The box usually contains between 4 and 18 pounds of produce.

Yesterday was the very first produce pickup, an exciting day indeed. At the orientation, they described how the crop tended to become much larger as we moved further into the summer growing season, and that the first pickup might be quite small (like simply some greens).

So, on my way home from work, I'm half expecting to detour through the pickup spot in Jamaica Plain to pick up a box with a head of lettuce inside. No problem, I thought. Gets me into the routine of Thursday pickups, and it's still a head of lettuce.

I was quite surprised when the box contained two humongous heads of lettuce (one green, one red leaf), two parsnips, four small parsnips, and a full bag of baby spinach. Wow! And this is week #1?

I did not know what to expect when I joined, and my gut tells me that I am going to have an overabundance amount of locally-grown produce for the next five months!

This is also a good reminder that I need to buy a salad spinner.