Harvest lust—what is it? You know how it is when you go to an orchard to pick your own apples. The trees are heavy with fruit and the air smells sooo sweet from the apples and you take a bite of one and it’s delicious and you lose your mind and pick waaaayyy more than you intended. That’s u-pick lust. Harvest lust is u-pick lust on steroids.

Every fall, harvest lust grabs me because Hubby and I belong to a CSA, Essex Farm. CSA is short for Community Supported Agriculture. That’s a local farm that’s financially supported by its members.  We pay a flat annual fee for two shares’ worth of whatever the farm produces over the course of the year.

What does the farm produce?

·      veggies, of seemingly infinite variety

·      dairy, including the best yogurt ever

·      bread and pastry flours for baking

·      grains, beans and salt

·      eggs

·      chicken, pork, beef and lamb

If you shop for food at a grocery store,

·      you can shop 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

·      you pay retail by the piece. Say, 6 ears of corn for $2.99.  Or hamburger for $6 a pound.  

·      you can get most vegetables and fruits year round, out of season, because they’re shipped from all over. For example, asparagus is a spring veggie, but it’s available at Hannaford’s in the fall.

The farm works differently.

·      I pick up food only once a week, on Friday afternoon.

·      The flat fee we pay means I can take as much as I want for the week, of whatever is in season, unless the farmers say there is a limit.

·      The produce is harvested that day, or the day before.

For the past few weeks, it feels like all the veggies are peaking, all at once. The abundance is overwhelming. Dizzying. Crazy making, even.

Last Friday, there was an enormous truck parked under the open-air pavilion, tail gate down, a mountain of just-picked sweet corn in the bed. My eyes glazed over. I took way, way too many ears. There was a bin of fresh basil sitting right there. The perfume wafting up in clouds from that bin was intoxicating. I stuffed a two-gallon bag full!

I couldn’t help myself. That’s harvest lust.

Look at what I had to choose from that Friday:

·      Flats and flats and flats of several kinds of tomatoes.

·      Summer squashes and zucchini; chard and kale; three kinds of lettuce.

·      Sweet peppers and hot peppers galore.

·      Leeks big as baseball bats.

·      Shiny purple eggplants big as bowling pins.

·      Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. And more. So much more.

Then there was the farmer strolling around grinning diabolically and encouraging the madness. "Take lots! Put up the extra for the winter! Give it away to your neighbors, friends and family!”

The next thing I knew, I was standing at my kitchen counter in a daze, fondling the knife and considering my options. Where to start? I looked at the overstuffed bags of produce scattered around the kitchen floor and groaned. What had I done? I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to pull myself together.

Dinner first. I put a spaghetti pot of water on the cook top to boil, and shucked six ears of corn. Eight. Ten. Why not? I was swimming in corn. (Corn on the cob cold from the fridge makes a tasty snack.) I sliced a couple of huge, ugly, gold heirloom tomatoes streaked with red. They were so pretty on the plate! A little salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a few torn basil leaves. Okay. What next? I looked in the fridge. Chicken left over from yesterday. Good enough! Summer time… and the cooking is eeeaasssy.

After we ate, I brought all that beautiful produce out to the garage and puzzle-pieced it into the ancient fridge I keep out there for when I have time to deal with it.

I have two freezers out there too. By the end of the season in early October, the veggie freezer will be full of zip lock freezer bags stuffed with corn, cauliflower and peppers; green beans, chard, and kale; broccoli, chopped herbs, and more. So much more.

The other freezer will hold the homemade stock I make from the chicken and beef bones I get from the farm. Marinara sauce. Salsa. All the other things I cook too much of. Because, you know, that’s how I roll in the kitchen.

Over the sixteen years we’ve belonged to Essex Farm, I’ve come to appreciate how fragile an endeavor farming is. How vulnerable it is to weather, blights and animal thieves. Every year, some crops fail and others produce lavishly.

Last year, the green beans failed. I missed them all winter. But this year, there was a bumper crop and I’ve filled many quart bags for the freezer. This season, the cilantro failed. But, not a problem—I froze lots last year.

Double bagged, things keep amazingly well in the freezer. I recently excavated a bag of dill from 2017 that released a cloud of scent as fresh as when I bagged it! I don’t can. Too much work. Plus, heat kills nutrients. Freezing doesn’t.

Over the winter, I’ll make the farm run less often. But I’ll look forward to spring, with its new carrots and delicate radishes, the first spinach, the asparagus and the strawberries. I’ll be sad when they’re done. But then I’ll delight in the lettuces, the sweet onions and scallions. And so it will go as the season rolls on, one vegetable after the other showing up in its time.

I love being part of the seasonal cycle. It makes me feel so close to the earth. It reminds me to not take for granted the relentless labor that goes into growing the food that feeds us. My heart warms knowing that the pigs and the cows, the chickens and the sheep live good lives on the farm before they become…dinner.

I feel lucky, and grateful to belong to this thriving ecosystem. But I won’t lie to you—it’s a lot of work. Then again, what’s not to love about five-star quality everything. And organic too.

It’s not cheap either, which is why I spend so much time at the counter this time of year, chopping for the freezer. We got some good news the other day though. Given the economy, this year it will actually cost us less to get most of our food from the farm than if we shopped at the grocery store!

Summer time… and the harvest is craaayyyy zzeee…. But, you know me, I like crazy.