the squibix family blog

As I may have mentioned before, I like to grow "crops" in my garden. That is, I want to plant enough beans that we can, on any given day, pick enough to serve for dinner. We've got the space; might as well take full advantage of it! The only problem, as you have no doubt already perceived, is that enough beans on any given day means that many beans, at a minimum, three times a week. We can't quite handle that much. In this particular case we don't have to because the beans aren't doing as well as they might—but suffice it to say that we have vegetables to spare. Here's a way to get rid of them!

At the same time, I don't want to discount the—what is it?—radical anti-capitalism inherent in this effort. It's early days of course, and we're not going to bring down the Whole Foods produce department or anything like that, but there's something very nice about sharing. I've always felt like I should be giving away food, but I tend to not be forward enough to visit with people and bring them things. This way I can share with more than just the friends who come to visit us.

In theory, anyways. One of the problems we're having with the stand so far is that sitting out in the sun all day isn't really good for tomatoes and peppers, so I don't want to pick tremendous quantities to display. On the other hand, if there's not a lot out there then people won't feel comfortable taking anything. A conundrum, but one that can probably be solved by a few weeks of steady operation—to get folks used to the idea—and a roof over the stand to keep out the sun. That's in process; we had an umbrella for a while but it blew into the street and got run over.

So there it is. I hesitate even to mention it here, so limited and insignificant is the effort thus far. But it's something we're doing, and I suppose advertizing won't hurt either. So if you're in the neighborhood, come on down!