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NBR: CSAs
I am researching CSAs - Community Supported Agriculture - for this year, and I have some questions. If you have had a CSA, what did you think? Did you do it more than one year? What did you do with excess produce? Any tips or tricks?
Re: NBR: CSAs
My work offered one last year and I participated, but it wasn't picked up again for this year, so I'll just be hitting up the farmer's market more.
Ours listed the produce that we'd be getting at the beginning of the week so that you could go ahead and meal plan and we would pick up the box on Thursday. I liked that it got me to try things that I may not have picked on my own, but my H is kind of picky so there were things that he just wouldn't eat. We were lucky that we got a nice variety each week, and only got repeat items a few times, but I know that's not always the case, especially if the weather is lousy and crops just don't come in.
We got a smaller share, and there were times when that ended up being too much for us, so I gave extras to my IL's, or if there was something I knew I wouldn't end up using, my co-workers were happy to take it off my hands. I really liked doing it, especialy for the convenience factor, and I'm sad they won't be offering it to us again. I know I could sign up with another CSA, but I'll have more days off this summer to go shopping, so it worked out.
My new bff Gayle Forman!
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We did the best we could to eat or preserve it all, but we didn't keep up as much as we would have liked. It was probably poor timing since we had a 9 month old and I didn't put aside enough time to freeze or process some of the extras. Although we really enjoyed it, we are going to try our own hand at a garden this year so we are skipping the CSA and seeing how we do on our own. I liked that the CSA gave us a lot of variety, but there was definitely some things in it that I didn't know what do to with or didn't particularly care for like kohlrabi and celeriac.
We had so much tomatoes I had to give some away. I was eating them like candy and I still couldn't eat them all. We made salsas and tomato sauces. We froze all the extra peppers in slices so I could just grab some from the freezer and toss them in something. However, they do lose a bit of texture, so I don't recommend eating them from the freezer! We mad a lot of kale chips (that was definitely trial and error, lots of burned ones) and salads with the greens. I've discovered that some greens have A LOT of flavor and I don't know that I cared for them!
It did force us to try a lot of new recipes. I made a particularly awful Szechuan eggplant stir fry that I am happy to give the recipe so you can avoid it. There were some great ones in there too. We ate a lot more veggies last year than previous, so it was a good thing.
tl:dr: I would definitely recommend it if you have the time to process/cook the foods and enjoy trying different things!
my read shelf:
Wes: 10/8/2012
my read shelf:
Wes: 10/8/2012
A few years ago we joined one that had a couple standard sized bags and I picked it up at somebody's house who offered their porch as a pick-up location. It was okay, and we got a lot of things we didn't like, and tried a lot of new things that we did like (swiss chard! who knew?) It was a pain to get to the house within the allotted time and more than once I forgot.
Now we belong to a CSA called Hometown Harvest, and I get the small custom bag and a carton of eggs every 2 weeks, sometimes I'll order extras like bakery bread or meat or upgrade to a medium bag. I love love love the concept of this CSA.
1 - Huge plus. I get to go into my account on their website and make changes. I can customize my produce to make sure we get more of what we eat a lot of and remove stuff we don't like or just don't eat much of. I can skip deliveries or add/remove extras, as long as I have a $25/delivery minimum.
2 - They deliver. My delivery is every other Thursday, and it's sitting on my porch by 5:30 am. I've never seen the delivery people, and they don't wake the dogs. They're seriously the Ninja Farmers.
My package, being totally customizable, costs a smidge more, but it's totally worth it. We hardly ever throw anything away, and if the garden is going gangbusters, we're out of town, or budget-tight, I can cancel the order if I get it in 2 days before my delivery. The flexibility of this CSA makes it so much better for us.
I liked that it was from a "local" Illinois farm.
I THINK it was about $350 for 8 weeks.
I would like to do a fruit one but I can't find an organic one (though I haven't looked too hard).
Books read in 2010: 153
Books read in 2011: 160
Books read in 2012: 134
Books read in 2013: 110
Books read in 2014: 151
Books read in 2015: 153
Books read in 2016: 31
We've learned about a lot of new veggies that we likely wouldn't have tried otherwise, and have also learned a lot about how to put up various veggies so as not to waste. We also end up giving some stuff away, too. There is seriously only so much eggplant I'm willing to live with. This year we might ask them if we can have extra eggs in lieu of any eggplant, because I just don't love it. My favorite thing about it is that we eat SO MUCH BETTER in the summer because we have all that fresh produce on hand.
I recommend CSAs to everyone. Do some research and find a pick up or delivery option that is convenient for you. It's not going to feel like its worth it if you're driving so far out of your way every week. Start with a small share the first year, just so see how it goes for you, or maybe find a farm that has half season shares, or even consider sharing a share with someone else, so that you either pick up every other week, or you split the basket with them each week.
Sugar & Spice
We did one last year. I am also in Minnesota, so I know that you're right when you say the first month isn't a huge variety. It's a lot of lettuces. Which I really loved for making salads, but then I was still buying other salad veggies from the store. Later, in July/August is when we got the salad veggies (cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions), and then we were no longer getting lettuces, so I was still having to go buy lettuce from the store. Kind of annoying.
I don't know if we'll do it this year. It took so much time. I used to work later in the morning, so I would stay up until midnight each night, and take the time to prepare the vegetables for our lunches the next day, or to try to preserve them for longer. Now that I work earlier, and work longer days, I'm not sure when I'll have the time to really try to use everything. I'm going to miss it if we don't do it, because I loved trying new things, and the melon and pepper variety was my favorite.