waste, consumption, beauty, bounty, 2020

i have been thinking about waste and my notions of it. as in most all of the food experiences i've had, we have excess produce here that doesn't end up getting eaten. my conception, and one of the things that stresses me out most about our food system, is how much food goes to waste– especially because there are definitely people who could eat it! while i still strongly think that we need to rebuild our food systems to create better production and DISTRIBUTION practices to prevent this waste, i am also trying to challenge my notion of waste because i realize it is informed by internalized logics around the need for natural resources to be utilized and produced for consumption and this feels like some deep ingrained capitalism or something so im like WHOA

lets take a step back. i think my appreciation of flowers this summer, seeing the beautiful dahlias and marigolds and sweet peas at Slide this summer was the start of my 'waste' reimagining. we do not eat these flowers. they do not add nutritional value to our diet. sometimes we pick them and they bring beauty to our windowsills or tables. sometimes we dont pick them, and they bring beauty and joy and POLLINATORS to the garden. flowers were my first step into truly appreciating the value of something that adds joy and light to the human world beyond basic survival, and a much needed reminder of the ecological and benefits besides human consumption that exist for the things we grow

so, what about these vegetables? should we stop growing so many things that dont get eaten, or should we learn to realize that the simple act of growth is a thing of beauty and brings green into the world and helps make soil healthy and sequesters carbon and fixes nitrogen and provides habitat to other creatures and brings smiles to vegetable lovers like me and that all of those things happen even if at the end of the day, those squash do not get consumed? and if we accept that this lack of consumption is part of the cycle, how do we strategically make sure that this end step of 'going to waste' is the least wasteful -if i bring home this squash intending to cook it and not waste it but then we end up composting it, that might take longer to break down as opposed to if we leave it on the plant and it gets to rot in the fields and return as organic matter to the soil?

perhaps these ruminations make sense to noone but me, as they come from the spiraled chaos of my mind...but thanks for coming along on the ride for my continual journey with practicing respect and reciprocity for the natural world and its gifts, the honorable harvest, and looking deeper into my ingrained conditioning to the capitalist society i inhabit! 

now for the content you probably came for...

friday was a full day at the farm, filled with weeding weeding weeding (here's another place to talk about waste- so many weeds are edible! should we eat them? should we keep using these weeds as OM? what is the purpose of weeds?) a class with a speaker who does mad mushroom cultivation and citizen science mushroom experiments, and a little bit of harvesting. also watering, but bc we have drip lines for everything that is pretty low maintenance. mushroom cultivation first got on my radar at my last WWOOF experience, and this speaker was fascinating to learn from, he does all sort of practices, growing on substrates like paper, the traditional straw situation, logs, direct onto the ground...and one thing that i really appreciated was seeing how mushrooms integrated into a garden system can function and also improve the soil health and think about how fungi are great at cleaning soil bc they can digest toxins or things like oil. basically fungi are awesome, folks.

saturday was a harvest day for the CSA, and oh what a bounty! im still marveling at the diversity of this small acre of land. my main tasks were digging up potatoes and then bunching up mizuna and mixed greens. i spent my afternoon on another nice long walk around the neighborhood and played some flute.

i made beet carrot ginger soup on friday with ginger, and roasted some squash and attempted to make gluten free zucchini bread using a massive zucchini. i say attempted bc the result is more akin to bread pudding, my excessive use of zucchini made the batter vERY VERY wet. hehe

today was sunday and our day off from the farm. i spent the morning enjoying sun in the neighborhood and the afternoon was ocean time (which was really monterey bay time)!! went to the beach and walked south to the sand dunes. it was sunny in the morning and then the fog rolled in so most of this beach walk was shrouded in fog, but that feels appropriate for california coast vibes. i walked barefoot, which was maybe exfoliating and healthy for my feet and maybe just made them very very dirty. 2020 has been the year of quite a few things (lol understatement of the year?) and one of those things has been my growing appreciation for the ocean and the california coast. recognizing that this year has been full of BIG BAD THINGS and that a lot of people are facing a lot of terrible-ness, i am grateful to be in a position where i dont think those are the only factors that have influenced MY 2020 and i am always working to remind myself of what else has happened this year and appreciate all the incredible experiences, realizations, relationships, and wonders that this year has held. and we've still got over 3 months to go! what wild wacky worrisome and whimsical things are on the horizon.... ?!