The Summer Season

This week marks the start of the sumer season at the Tempe CSA, so I thought I'd discuss some of the vegetables and fruits that grow to maturity during this period of time. The produce that I discuss will not necessarily show up at the Tempe CSA because that is completely dependent on what the Crooked Sky Farm is able to provide us with, but these are great options to grow in a personal garden if gardening is one of your hobbies! There are a lot of fruits that grow during the summer, so I think that some of our members at the CSA will be happy with the variety that they will receive this season. For instance, last week we received watermelon for the first time since I started my internship and many people were excited to see them.

Some other fruits that show up during the summertime are apples, plums, apricots, berries, melon, cherries, grapes, limes, mangos, and peaches. It would be great to see some of these selections at the CSA because I know that there are a lot of fruit lovers out there. However, if we do not get them in at the CSA, Arizona is know for having a great climate to grow fruit trees in. Anyone can easily plant one of these trees if the have a place to put them so that they can enjoy these delicious selections during the summer. While they make take a few years to mature, if residents have a permanent place that they are living or if they can become a part of a community garden these are both viable options.

Sadly, the summer season has lost us many members at the CSA due to people going on vacation or moving away. Hopefully the new members that have joined and the existing members that have renewed will be able to continue on with us in future seasons so that the Tempe CSA can continue to grow and provide great local and organic food to people in the city.

An Abundance of Corn and Tomatoes

Before I begin to talk about the produce that we received this past week, I want to remind everyone that this is the last week of this particular 12 week block. This means that next week will be the first week of the new season, so anyone that has not already renewed their membership or anyone that is interested in starting a new membership should do so soon! This can be done through our website, tempecsa.org. Additionally, there is fresh bread that can be purchased through the website and members can pick it up with the rest of their produce at their particular pick up location each week. There are both loaves of bread and fresh bagels, so there is definitely something for everyone!

For the first time this season, we had corn at the Tempe CSA! They come in their husks with some caterpillars crawling in them, but they are absolutely delicious once you get them home and cook them! They are smaller than the corn that can be found at the store because they are organic and are grown completely naturally. This means that their taste is full of flavor and a much better option because it is completely local and natural. There may be a few bad ones in the bunch, but I would choose these over corn from a grocery store any day!

We also had some awesome tomatoes this week at the CSA, and the great thing was that the farm had an abundance of them so our members were able to purchase 15 pound boxes of them if they wanted them. The tomatoes were so delicious that I was able to take them home and eat them plain without even putting them in a salad or cooking them! I have always been a huge fan of tomatoes, so I was especially excited about this.

Last, I wanted to share this picture of lemon cucumbers because I wrote about Armenian cucumbers last week and I wanted to show another form of them! Again, these cucumbers are extremely similar to the regular cucumbers that most people think of, they just have a shape and size that is much different. They taste like cucumbers and can be great mixed into a nice salad with some other fresh vegetables!

All About Armenian Cucumbers

Before I begin, I want to remind anyone that reads that the last day of this session at the CSA is June 20th, so there are only two more weeks left. If anyone would like to renew their membership or if there are new people that would like to join the CSA for the first time, it is recommended that you sign up before this date so that you will be ready to start on June 27th.

We have been receiving Armenian Cucumbers each week at the CSA, and I wanted to do some research to find out why these particular cucumbers are different than other types of cucumbers, and what our members can do with them once they have them at home! These cucumbers look different than the regular cucumbers that can be bought at a grocery store. They are lighter in color, have larger ridges on the outside, and look slightly different inside as well. The taste is very similar to the taste of traditional cucumbers, so they are light, mild, and slightly sweet. There is no bitterness in the skin of this type of cucumber, so people that are using them for their meals can feel free to eat them without peeling the skin off first because the taste will not change.

I took the second picture to show a scale of how much larger than my hands these cucumbers are. They can reach up to a length of three feet, so they are also sometimes referred to as the "yard-length" cucumber. They are not very flavorful at this length, though, so they are better to eat when they are about one foot long.

How Does the Tempe CSA Work?

I realized this week that there might be some people that read these blogs that are not members of the CSA, so I wanted to take this week to explain how it works! This is especially important because our next session is starting in just a few weeks, so those of you that are looking to renew your membership or start a membership will need to sign up before June 20th.

The first picture shows the room that we use for the Thursday afternoon pick up location. The members start at the right end of the far tables and move along to each of the stations and choose their food selections. There are eight different types of produce that we receive each week, and the small cards that are on the buckets tell the members how many of each different fruit or vegetable they are able to pick out. This number is dependent on how much yield the farm has per type of produce and how many members the food needs to be split between.


The second picture shows our Trade In table. There is one share of each of the eight foods placed on this table at the beginning of the day, and if a member would like to trade in one of their shares for a second share of something else that they like better they can replace it. During the past few weeks many people have been replacing their grapefruit with the other options on the table because there are so many people that have trees of their own. Since they were still eating their own fruit, they decided that it would be a better option for them to take something else. When the trade in table is full of something they do not want, the members can choose to place the items on the discard table instead.

All that the members have to do to get into this program is to pay their dues every twelve weeks, and then they are able to receive all of this fresh produce on a weekly basis!