Well, the garden is losing this fight. I think we would do a lot better if we had a sprinkler (or soaker) system plumbed in and on a timer. The ground just dries out too fast without watering it during the day... which we can't do because we are at work. Also, we need to redesign our shade system, because we lost the eggplants to sunburn. (Apparently, plants can sunburn.) The raised bed is probably done for now. When the weather cools off, I'm going to really work at getting some sprinklers dug in. This will mean digging a trench alllllllll the way across the yard, which I am sure won't be a lot of fun. (I should probably just do a system for the whole yard since I'll have it all dug up anyways!)
The hydroponic garden is going STRONG, though. It really shows what a difference all that water makes. I harvested a cantaloupe this week, and there are several more on the vine. No tomatillos yet, but the plants are HUGE and there are lots of flowers (and bees), so I am hopeful. The pumpkin has struggled. Its leaves were being burned to a crisp by the sun, so Bill put up some shade for it and that has helped a lot. No pumpkins yet, but it does flower, so I'm keeping an eye out.
The Garden O' Buckets doesn't have too much going on. I was kind of phasing it out this summer, and will maybe revamp it for the fall. The grapes are alive, but we harvested off of them in May and there are no new grapes. The potatoes died as soon as the weather turned hot, but I dug up the dirt and there were some grape-sized baby potatoes in there! I think if we can figure out how to get them through the summer, the garbage-can-potatoes would do really well. I do have cotton growing pretty well - there is one boll right now getting ready to pop! I am so ridiculously excited about the cotton, I cannot even tell you. I may do nothing with the fiber and I may never grow it again, but I can say "I have grown cotton." It's part of the heritage of the Great State of Arizona, and now I am a (very itty bitty) part of that.
Ok, its not really a "CSA", and I talked about that here.... I've picked up several boxes from Bountiful Baskets now, and realized that I hadn't really talked about it since. So, this is an update and review. (Disclaimer: This is entirely my own opinion. I don't receive any compensation of any kind from Bountiful Baskets. Your mileage may vary. Please don't sue me.)
There is a nice assortment of fruits and veggies in your box, but I feel like its too much for just two people on a weekly basis. I typically do it once or twice a month, and buy a couple of extra things at the grocery that we don't get in the box. (Again, this is for us. It may be different for your family.) So you get an idea of what the box has, today's box has: 8 plums, 3 mangoes, 1 cantaloupe, 2 heads of romaine lettuce, 1 big bunch of celery, 3 yellow onions, 5 yellow peaches, 1 package of strawberries, 1 package of cherry tomatoes, a bunch of bananas, a paper lunch sack full of green beans and a bunch of sweet potatoes. (I dislike sweet potatoes and this is the second time we have gotten them. Yuck.) I also bought an additional box - 20 lbs of yellow peaches, which I'm planning on turning into jam. They offer a handful of "extras" every week (like the 20 lbs of peaches) and they are a good deal, if you can eat (or share) a very large quantity of food (like 40 lbs of apples or 12 dozen flour tortillas).
Bananas are the most common item, as they have been in every box, even in the winter months. Romaine lettuce, mangoes and cantaloupe have also been pretty common. It does seem like *some* items are things that grocery stores have rejected, or that the produce vendors have left over from their weekly deliveries. Every time I've had strawberries in the box, they have been *right* at that point where they are almost too ripe (so you have to eat them right away) and once I got a container that was already pretty gone to rot. Bananas, however, are usually bright green nowhere-near-ripe. The plums and peaches that I got today feel pretty firm, so they seem just about right. I have had spinach in the past that was pretty bedraggled looking, and absolutely covered in mud. However, over all, the food is in good shape and is very tasty.
So, conclusion? I like it. It's nice to have a variety of fruits and veggies on hand, and it has pushed me to find uses for the items that we get which are outside what I would normally buy. (Like, kale which I used in bean soup and it was delicious. Or, mangoes which I made sorbet of and it was also delicious.) The "extras" they offer are nice too, although I don't get them as often because its usually too much for just Bill and I. (Forty pounds of apples is a lot of apples. I never thought I would get sick of apples. I did.) I would say... give it a shot, see what you think, if there is a pickup location in your area.
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