That tears it!
How can you mess up raspberries?! I didn't even know it was possible, but Bob Brackett served up a whole pint of perfectly dark red, perfectly formed, SOUR raspberries in our CSA share this week. His heirloom tomatoes and bell peppers both were beautiful and sweet. Sweeter than the raspberries.
There are all sorts of issues you need to consider when you're growing, picking, and transporting fresh produce for a largish group of people. We've also had an abnormally wet growing season that has disrupted/destroyed many plantings. Considering these points, I've overlooked many of the quality and quantity issues so far with Bob's produce, but sour raspberries cannot be overlooked.
STRIKE 1: Sour, smooshy strawberries
STRIKE 2: Very little bang for the buck
STRIKE 3: Sour, tasteless raspberries
I will not be returning to Bob next year. Nor will I recommend him to others. Here's the total haul for this week's share:
1 pint SOUR raspberrries
1 cup heirloom cherry-ish tomatoes
1 large zucchini
2 sweet peppers
2 Walla Walla onions
2 small heads of garlic
At least my own garden is producing well. My Amish Paste tomatoes (from Seed Saver's Exchange) are melt-in-your-mouth tender, slightly sweet, and very meaty. Good for saucing/pasting/drying. The Roma tomatoes are less flavorful but more firm. Good for canning whole. My french green beans are coming along nicely, too.
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I don't know how you can mess up raspberries. I've barely watered mine and I still got a bumper crop with the second batch just starting to develop.
ReplyDeleteWill you try another farmer or are you just going to depend on your own garden?
I got blackberries for everyone...and after that comment you better believe I'm glad I did. The raspberries just didn't look right to me :) Anyway I wish I could say my tomatoes were doing as well as yours. YUCK! I think I'm done with gardening for life :)
ReplyDeleteJulia, I think I'll try another farmer for next year as well as bump up my own garden's production. When it cools down a little, I'm going to relandscape our jungle of a side yard and prep a few beds for planting berries in the spring (raspberries and blackberries).
ReplyDeleteCrystal, my raised beds full of compost (i.e. the triplets) are working wonders, and they're EXTREMELY low maintenance as far as weed control. When you get a more permanent piece of dirt to call your own, I highly recommend putting in a couple beds and trying this whole gardening thing again. It's a totally different (and much more enjoyable) experience when there's less work to do :)
Bummer!! Your portions have sounded kind of skimpy, and from what I know about CSAs here, there's quite a range of prices and harvests. One guy is mostly greens, while another is crazy for garlic. Borski had a good variety but I still ended up with way too many potatoes. We missed the deadline for CSA this year, but we've been doing pretty well at the farmers' market.
ReplyDeleteI'm jealous of your french green beans--James didn't want to build a frame and I didn't get them out on the balcony soon enough, so no beans for us this year. Next year for sure--I'll have to start researching frames ahead of time.