In the can: My summer of Community Supported Agriculture

Finding much — almost too much – to like about Community Supported Agriculture program

As the 20th and final week of my Community Support Agriculture share approaches, one thought lingers: if I had to do it all over again, I’d insist on a pressure canner.

This was my first season as a member of a CSA, which requires members to pay up front early in the growing season for a seasonal share in a farm and make weekly dropoffs of what is harvested. My initial reason to join was to get me out of my food rut.

The $450 I spent on my half share with Harvest Moon Farms in Viroqua, Wis., bought a lot of food. There were familiar things (carrots, tomatoes, potatoes and celery), things I thought I didn’t like and now do (kale and Swiss chard) and still other items that were strange but tasty (cattail shoots and kohlrabi).

Some say water bath canning is a dying art, but much of the high acidic produce found their way into Mason jars. Thanks to an abundant crop of strawberries, raspberries and ground cherries, I crafted a selection of jams and marmalades that I plan to hand out as Christmas gifts.

The ground cherry marmalade was a hit at a church pancake breakfast. A friend of mine realized that these have been growing in her backyard all these years. She wrongly assumed they were poisonous and now plans on harvesting them next season.

Water bath canning isn’t recommended for low acidic produce like green beans, though. My freezer is packed with not only beans, but also cabbage, corn and kale.

Though I am well-prepared for the winter, there isn’t a lot of room in the freezer for ice cubes, let alone meat and other frozen items. A pressure canner next season should free up a lot of the freezer space (sure, it’s at the expense of my pantry, but I have more shelves than I have freezers).

“The crop yield this year was about average,” says Jennifer Borchardt, who co-owns Harvest Moon Farms with her  husband, Bob. “Some of our full-share members told us they invested in the second freezer or chest, but this was actually an average growing season for us.”

Temperatures were colder and wetter, for the most part. And while the lack of summer heat did impact crops like tomatoes and peppers that require the sun, the Borchardts were somewhat prepared.

“This is our third year, but we had flooding two years in a row and last year was really our startup year,” Bob Borchardt says. “We have some processes in place now, though.”

“Tomatoes and peppers never got to the huge harvests,” adds Jennifer. “The weather was good for sweet corn, summer squash, cabbage and kale, though.”

The lack of sun meant that share mainstays like the Jimmy Nardello pepper (the “It” pepper when making a traditional Chicago pepper-and-egg sandwich) made a relatively late appearance in the growing season.

One of my favorite foods this season was the Richmond green apple cucumber. An heirloom seed from Australia, it is named for both its color (light green) and appearance (squat and round like an apple).

Alas, like many heirloom seeds, this cuke was temperamental. The Borchardts planted the same number of seeds as last year, but the plants yielded far less; the cucumbers made only one appearance in our weekly boxes.

“Last year, I was waist high in true lemon and Richmond green apple cucumbers,” Jennifer says. “Everyone’s cukes this year had a short life-span.”

The farm will be hedging its bets next growing season, though.

“Cucumber plants have a finite life-span anyway,” she says. “Next year, we’re planning on three sets of plantings.”

Bob says a majority of their planning each year goes into surveying share members about what they expect out of the CSA experience and, more specifically, what produce they want.

“It really is about striking a balance,” Bob says. “We have more than 500 people in our CSA and not everyone like kale and not everyone likes cabbage, but there are some members who do.”

“One of the first things we learned is that you can’t please everyone,” Jennifer adds.

That didn’t stop the Borchardts from trying during their annual CSA shareholders appreciation dinner, held at their farm in September.

In addition to vegetarian dishes, they served beef, chicken, pork and fish entrees (they’ve shared with us one of the recipes from the dinner).

Bradley Borchardt, Bob’s brother and the chef at the Oyster Bar in Bangkok, handled cooking duties for the dinner with chef Gabriel Gil of the Rabbit Bistro in Eugene, Ore.

From the first salad to the dessert of fresh raspberries with sweet cream and basil syrup, the meal was one of the best I’ve had this year and well worth the four-hour drive to the farm.

“The end-of-the-season dinner is a validation of everything we are trying to do with a CSA,” Jennifer says. “To join us at the farm and break bread with us right there among the crops, it’s a great way to not only get to know your farmer, but also your food.”

The Borchardts are currently taking reservations for next summer’s harvest on their Web site, www.harvestmoonorganics.com.