Sustainability and Farm Shares

Lately I've spent a lot more time thinking about the health of our planet and what impact I want to have.  Now that I have moved across the country and have my own apartment, stipend and plenty of decisions to make, it is the perfect time to think about the lifestyle that I want to have now and in the future.

This past week I have been reading the book No Impact Man and briefly suspended my television hiatus to  watch the documentary Food, Inc.  No Impact Man is written by an author in NYC who did an experiment to see if he and his family could live for a year with gradually diminishing environmental impact across different categories, such as waste and transportation.  Food, Inc examines the way that Americans eat and where our food comes from, along with the potential implications of the current food system on the environment and our health.  Both of them are thought provoking and it is just the start of my research on the topic.  As a geologist I frequently here about or think about the global carbon cycle from an academic perspective, but I don't think I had stopped recently to consider my own lifestyle.

I have, however, settled on one step to take as a beginning.  As I was researching urban garden plots, reading the chapter of my book on sustainable eating, and talking to one of my peers, I stumbled upon the idea of joining a CSA program (CSA = community supported agriculture).  A CSA program provides revenue for farmers at the beginning of the season when they need it the most for planting and other costs by having consumers purchase a farm share at the very beginning of the season, typically sometime between February and May.  Then, throughout the growing season, the consumer who purchased the share receives a weekly allotment of produce directly from the farm that they support.  Not only is this a way of supporting local agriculture, most of the local farms offer organic or very close to organic produce and the carbon impact of shipping food across the country and around the world is eliminated.  In addition to vegetables, you can also find farm share programs that involve fruit, eggs, dairy, meat, or even fresh flowers.  Together my roommate and I purchased a small share from one of the farms here in Massachusetts (http://stillmansfarm.com/csa.htm).  From the third week of June through October we will get to pick up our shipment of fruits and veggies fresh from the farm at our local farmers market for roughly the same amount of money that we would spend on produce here in the city.  We get local, conscientiously grown food...plus an incentive to eat our fresh veggies!  I may live in the city, but I'm still a Midwestern girl at heart who loves the idea of garden fresh vegetables and eventually wants a goat and/or chickens someday.

I would encourage you to look for a CSA in your own area if you are at all interested.  They can be found across the country with a simple Google search.  Do something good for your local economy, the planet, and your own health.  If not, find another step to take to reduce your impact on the Earth and research the impact you are having on the planet.

Boston Exploration Excursion (BEE) #1: Haymarket

This is the first post of what I hope will be an ongoing, intermittent series.  While I'm here in Boston for a while (probably five years!) I am hoping to have opportunities to explore some of the local sights, culture, restaurants, etc.  BEE posts will give you the opportunity to explore Boston with me from afar!

BEE#1:  Haymarket, Quincy Market, and Boston Harbor

My roommate, one of her friends who came into the city for a visit, and I decided to check out the discount produce market known as Haymarket, which takes place on Fridays and Saturdays year round.  According to a local tourism website about Haymarket, people have gathered here since about 1830 to buy and sell produce!  It resembles a farmer's market with tents and handcarts full of produce and lots of people jostling around to purchase fruits and vegetables.  

Haymarket Produce Stands

Vendor at Haymarket

However, there is one big difference.  The produce for sale is stock cleared out of warehouse stores across the river to make room for new shipments, so it is ripe and needs to be used or frozen quickly but is also sold at incredible prices.  As we walked around we saw everything from garlic to oranges, onions to cantaloupe, carrots to mangoes, and much much more.  To give you an idea of the prices, I got two pounds of white mushrooms for $3 and three small plastic containers of red raspberries for a total of $2.  My roommate got 8 pluots for a buck or two and a large eggplant for $1.  You have to do a bit of picking to avoid overripe produce...but it's well worth it!  We're going to have fresh mushroom pizza tonight, and I froze half a quart of red raspberries.  Another cool thing was one of the vendors let us try an Asian fruit called longan.  It has a tough covering, but once you peel off the covering it looks like the inside of a grape with a pit!  We all thought it was pretty good.

After we were done at the market, we walked over to Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall, which are nearby.  This is one area where I will return to explore more later, but this time we stuck with Quincy Market.  Quincy Market opened in 1826 and more information about it's history and the surrounding area is available here.  

View outside Quincy Market (The crowd is watching a street performer.)

Quincy Market is a long building with two wings lined with food vendors selling basically every type of cuisine imaginable.  For dinner, I ate veggie Mac n' Cheese from one of the vendors.  It had onions, mushrooms, peppers, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes and was delicious!  The center of the building is two levels filled with public seating.  We sat upstairs to eat and enjoyed people watching as well.

Inside Quincy Market, looking down from upstairs seating area

Boston Marina

 Finally before heading back to our apartment via the T (public transit system), we walked out to see the water.  I have never lived near the ocean, so being within an hour of a beach and the ocean is superbly exciting!  We walked through Christopher Columbus Park where an arts festival was going on to a marina on Boston Harbor.  The view was beautiful, and you could also see planes coming in over the water to land at Logan International Airport across the harbor.  Here is a look at the view:

Boston Harbor (plus large plane landing at Boston Logan!)

More adventures to come in the future!