csa: organic delivery from local farms, on a budget
Every spring, I start seeing flyers in the local coffee shops advertising CSA memberships — “organic produce delivered weekly” — and I’m always a bit intrigued. CSA is short for “community supported agriculture.” A CSA member “joins” a farm for an entire growing season, paying the farmer directly for the produce received, eliminating the middle man, and keeping prices for organic foods affordable. Each member receives a box chock-full of varied fruits and vegetables weekly for the entire harvest season, usually June-October. As a bit of a control freak, I really like being in charge of what produce I buy and consume, so I haven’t taken the plunge. But this year finds me busier and busier, and the idea of getting a huge box full of organic produce for as low as $25 a week (at the CSA I’m considering) is incredibly tempting. Anyone tried it? You can find information on CSA in your neck of the woods at www.localharvest.org. –Megan B.
Photo by Flickr user thebittenword.com.
We tried it last year, and didn’t renew this year. We wound up getting lots and lots of vegetables that we weren’t fond of, and not enough of the ones we loved. Which, yes, is the nature of a CSA share, but while we thought that would be awesome and encourage us to try new recipes, it didn’t work out like that. It did, however, get us into the habit of visiting the farmers’ market each week, and this year we’re able to choose as many of the foods we love as we want (or we will be, once we get out of the way-too-long greens season!).
My husband and I belong to a year-round CSA in Seattle. We LOVE it. We’re allowed to swap out up to six items we don’t want (we’re not too big on beets and collard greens), and we can put our box on hold if we’re going to be out of town — all online, too, so it’s super convenient. We end up saving soooo much money on produce, and get some of the freshest, most wonderfully tasty produce around. I’ll never go back to grocery store veggies!
My only very teeny tiny complaints would be that sometimes you get an item that’s a little sad looking (we haven’t had much luck with avocados), and at our particular CSA, we sometimes get fruit that’s imported (MOST of it is local, but occasionally not). But I like getting mangoes and kiwis every now and then. And well, I wouldn’t really trust a mango grown in Washington anyways…so it’s a trade off to give up some of the locality for variety. Every CSA is a little different, though.
We signed up for our local college’s food guild for our second year, and I eagerly await the growing season. It’s been far too long since I’ve had a fresh salad. Our cost is $220 for a half-share (more than enough for two people) and it runs from the end of May until mid-October.
And it just so happens that our baby girl will soon be starting solids, so I’m looking forward to making baby food with our fresh, organic produce!
I did it one summer and split it with my sister – it was perfect for me as we could decide who wanted what (like, she doesn’t like beets and I do). CSAs are usually mostly vegetables and I found it introduced me to a lot of stuff I never would have tried (that I now enjoy!). I’m not doing it this summer because I haven’t found someone to split it with (and I am working at the local food co-op now so I have more access to that stuff anyways).
I’ve tried them in the past and been disappointed – veggies would spoil within days, and I always seemed to get huge amounts of things I didn’t like. But this spring we signed up for a new one and have really been enjoying it. One of the perks is that the box is delivered right to our doorstep, and if there’s something that you really, truly can’t stand (or can’t have, for allergies or medical reasons) you can call them and they’ll put a note on your account and make sure there’s an adequate substitute in your next box.
I’ll admit we don’t always end up using everything in the box (I have yet to find a recipe that makes swiss chard palatable at ALL, but I haven’t given up yet), but it’s already introduced us to some new-to-us veggies (for example, we now know that we really like kale!), and the taste of those fresh-harvested fruits and veggies just can’t be beat.
We joined last year but didn’t renew this year. I felt a bit guilty for having not rejoined, but I thought we were spending a little too much money to send a handful of vegetables straight to the compost each week. The next time I join, I will do a few things differently. I will pick up at the end of the week instead of on Tuesday during my lunch hour. The stress of the lunch hour took all the fun out of going to the farmer’s market, which is what I missed most about whole experience. I like to linger, not grab the basket and go. Also, I think that if I picked the veggies up at the end of the week, less would go to waste because I would have more energy to put into experimenting with new things on the weekend. Another bummer about the CSA was dedicating all my farmer’s market funds to one farmer. I like to spread a little to everyone.
I adore my CSA, which is from Stone Soup Farms in Belchertown, MA. They deliver to a few places around Boston/Cambridge but I think they are sold out for this year. The quality and variety was great, the half share wasn’t too overwhelming for the two of us, and I loved the challenge of learning to use veggies I hadn’t cooked before! It really inspired my cooking and blogging, and I can’t wait for June so it starts up again.
I think this will round up all my blog posts that used my CSA share:
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/farm-box/
And I took a photo each week and posted all of those up for the farm:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kateflaim/StoneSoupCSA#
We are almost at the end of growing season here in South Florida and we joined our CSA mid-season (February). I love getting a box of fresh produce and discovering new dishes. That said, sometimes it requires a bit of work: washing stuff, figuring out what to do with a zillion pounds of tomatoes, etc. I do think getting a weekly delivery (ours is $40/week) forces us to throw fresh vegetables into almost everything, which works out well since we probably wouldn’t otherwise.
For example: last night I had a little bit of leftover Thai takeout but no leftover rice. I sauteed a bag of arugula in a bit of butter with garlic, served the curry over that.
One cookbook I highly recommend is Deborah Madison’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone,” I don’t think I could’ve survived some of the unknown vegetables without it!
We finally managed to do a CSA for the first time last year, and I blogged almost everything that I made with those veggies (still have two winter squash sitting in the garage waiting to be used). I did miss visiting the farmer’s market, and got a little tired of greens like chard and kale (but that is what grows so well in the PNW). I was definitely often overwhelmed by the amount of produce we got (it generally filled two grocery bags). Our veggies came nicely cleaned and often lasted a crazy long time in the fridge (occasionally the chard piled up for 3 weeks and then I would do a chard-killer recipe) as long as you stored it correctly.
This year I switched us to a half-share and am hoping that won’t be quite so overwhelming plus give us a little more wiggle room at the farmer’s markets. Before you purchase (which get on it, many CSAs are sold out by May in my area) make sure the pick-up/drop-off schedule works for you, you are okay with their growing practices and ask for a list of what veggies to expect, if trades are allowed (if you can’t stand beets for example), and what the “standard” weekly box will be. A few in our area also let you purchase “farm bucks” for a slight in-advance discount and spend them on your pick of produce at their farmers market booth.
[...] by any means, the local foods movement is gaining momentum. We’ve posted before about joining community supported agriculture programs, and here in New York, our grocery delivery service has been promoting nearby farms with special [...]