Cincinnati Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Shares?
Anyone do this? Who do you have shares with and why (or why not) would you recommend it? How much does it cost?
Oh..and a somewhat related thought. Anyone use Farm Fresh Delivery? Thoughts on whether this is better or worse than a CSA Share in terms of quality, price, yield?
My Cooking Blog: Christine's Kitchen Chronicles
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Re: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Shares?
We have done both. We stopped doing farm fresh because we were not receiving local produce. It was all organic, but that isn't really what we are looking for.
We did a CSA for 2 years. We really liked it the first year, but felt it was too much. We switched a half share the next year. The variety was dismal in te half share. The year we quit they stopped doing drop offs, which was a gas station near my office. We just don't have the time to drive and hour outside the city once a week. Plus they started to require an hour of work on the farm a week and the cost didn't decrease enough for us.
If we found another CSA that worked for us, we would do it. I know that for most CSA you have to sign up in January. Something you might want to think about.
We did a CSA last year. It was a great experience and I really liked the farm we used. I'd definitely recommend it, but it's north of Dayton so I don't think it's in the area you're looking for.
There were times when we were overwhelmed with all the produce we got each week. They had a great harvest last year with their lettuce and we would get 2-3 HUGE heads of lettuce (larger than I've ever seen in any store) and they started to add up and we couldn't keep up with eating it all. We did end up sharing a lot with my parents just so we wouldn't waste it all. It was also fun to get items that we wouldn't have tried on our own.
This year we want to plant our own vegetable garden. I'm not sure how much we'll get out of it but I don't want to waste a CSA box so we're holding off this year to see how we do. We might get CSA boxes again in the future but for now we plan on supplementing our garden with a couple of the local farmer's markets.
Check out Wilfert Farms. www.wilfertfarmsohio.com or call 513.797.8018
They just started doing it this year and I have signed up. You can buy a full share, a half, or an individual. I have spoken with the Connie a few times and she is very, very accomdating. I wasn't sure what size to get and she mentioned that if we end having too much, we could swap out for other items at their store (honey, jam, etc) so that food wouldn't go to waste.
They are located in Bethel, but have different markets on various days of the week where you can pick up. I know they go to Blue Ash at least once a week and then are in Beechmont/ Withamsville area a few times, too. All of the information is on their webpage.
Thanks everyone for the helpful information.
I found a farm in Wilmington call Bergefurd's that has several drop-off points in Cincinnati/Columbus, one being very close to our house and pickup on weekend. They do vegetables AND fruit (which appears to be rare for the area) and offer partial seasons (10 weeks vs. ~20 weeks full season) and half shares (1/2 bushel) for only $125 (or $150...I'm getting clarification as the website says one number but the form says another). Part of what sold me was that a member had posted pictures of her 1/2 share each week on their facebook site. Being visual, this was very helpful for me to actually see a typical CSA 1/2 share for the year
.
This will allow my husband and I to get our feet wet, so to speak
. I hope to send in my application this weekend. If we like it, maybe next year we'll bump up to a full season and/or full share.
PS: The other farm I considered was Gravel Knolls in West Chester. They are $375 for a full share, full season. They do veggies only and you have to pickup from the farm (about 10 mins drive for us) with pretty restricted hours (3:30-7 Tues and Wed). If they offered half shares I might have gone with them instead...
Latest Blog Update: Peanut Butter Cookie with Salted Peanut Caramel