May the coming New Year bring beautiful, peaceful times blessed with good tidings, the return of all the hostages to Israel, a speedy end to the war, and the return of all the evacuees to their homes!
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
There’s a land that I’ve heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream, Really do come true.
Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops,
High above the chimney tops, That’s where you’ll find me.
Somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow Why then, oh why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, Why, oh why can’t I?
Lyrics: Yip Harburg
In this very difficult year that we are enduring, there are moments when we long to fly right along with that blue bird over the rainbow, to a place where pain fades like dew… But here we are in Chubeza’s field, quite connected to the earth, unable to soar with the birds. Yet over the past weeks, we’ve been trying our best to send you a touch of rainbow colors and vitality in your box, through the vivid, multi-coloured sweet potatoes we’re growing this year.
We’ve actually been growing the well-loved, tried-and-true orange sweet potato for 21 years, from Chubeza’s very first harvest. But this year, we’ve added new purple and white sweet potatoes, blending to create a rainbow emerging from the depths of the earth to land into your boxes and onto your plates.
There are hundreds of pepper varieties worldwide, varrying in taste, shape and color. Here at Chubeza, we grow square-jawed peppers with juicy sides, long peppers known as shushka (our variety is called Ramiro) as well as the Lapid hot chili pepper.
At Chubeza, our peppers are grown in the pampered environment of a growth tunnel—with protective mesh walls, shade netting overhead, and support strings to help the plants stand tall and climb high. Like beloved, well-tended offspring, they yield wonderful, heartwarming fruits that make all the effort worthwhile. Still, we maintain some open-field cultivation as well. Plantings at the end of spring and early summer sometimes struggle inside the growth tunnel, so we escort them to be planted in the more ventilated open field.
Chubeza boxes are less varied from week to week, with the same vegetables repeating themselves: onions, potatoes, pumpkin, eggplant. Most of these veggies have been with us for many weeks, and there is less variation from week to week. The entire seasonal organic market is looking forward to autumn…
But there’s something else happening in the field: After weeks of empty beds and matured plants, the sowing and new plantings have begun over the past few weeks, filling the field with sprouts and young seedlings that line the beds in green rows and bring an abundance of renewed autumn joy. It will take some time until these veggies arrive in your boxes, but the hope that fills the newly-green field is once again joyful and exciting, heralding change and abundance.
RUPTURED TIME
Time is ruptured now
And it is clear we must measure
the breaths we take.
Even the roots
of an upheaved tree
Feel their way
Through crevices in the stones
Branching out
To suckle meager moisture
From a clump of soil
Inhaling into their midst
Anything that is willing, at such a time,
To sprinkle
Glimmering shards
Of dim hope
Perhaps even
Some vestiges of solace.
Yehezkel Rachamim
Over the past few weeks, the lovely lubia has begun to ripen at a fast pace, officially proclaiming that summer is at its peak. If you’ve been wondering why the latest green beans you’ve been receiving are so lengthy, coarse, and a bit weird, it’s because they’re not green beans but rather… Thai lubia (yard-long beans)! We “gift-wrap” them in your boxes in shiny paper, like the true one-of-a-kind gift they really are. It’s kind of a shame to expect them to be green beans, because they are a totally different creation
Summer vacation is coming to an end, with the start of the schoolyear waiting in the wings. Beginnings can be exciting times, but sometimes a little scary and difficult: a new place, unknown challenges, people you don’t yet know. This takes time, trust, and the awareness that you need lots of patience and hope for the “new” to become familiar and welcoming.
This week’s Newsletter is devoted to that hard, shriveled corn that you received in your box (or will receive in the coming weeks), the popcorn that proves that if you give even the hardest, most shriveled beginning a little warmth, patience and trust, it will bounce, burst forth and find its very own inner softness to bring joy and pleasure.
This week we’re taking a short break from Newsletter writing, but here’s a list of the latest veggies:
Calendar in the gardenShana Ba’Gina Calendar Celebrates a decade with a special exhibition that accompanies the seasons and the creative processes of Ilana, the creator of the calendar.
Worth a visit!