Our Life Together

Digging the CSA Thing.

It’s a mystery box! What on earth could be inside? (hint: not tomatoes!)

Well you won’t have to wonder too long… the reveal is about to come!

The box contained our first week’s worth of our CSA share. Never heard of a CSA? CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. I’ll quote from the website of our CSA farm, Elmwood Stock Farm, what they have to say about CSAs:

CSA members participate in their own food supply by committing to share in the harvest of a local farm. Members purchase shares in the spring, and each week receive seasonal vegetables: a subscription to the farm’s weekly harvest. A CSA creates a unique relationship between the consumer and the producer – nowadays, not only do many people not know what country or what state their food comes from, they certainly don’t know the farmer who picked the tomatoes they are eating. By joining a CSA you express your support for locally grown food, for clean food, and for the farmers that grow it. CSA may not replace patronizing a farmers market. It does guarantee your access to the best of each week’s harvest. This is a way to be a part of something positive for you and your community.

We had a desire to be more “green,” community-focused, and healthy. The idea of joining a CSA fell into place as a great way to achieve these goals: it is more green because it is local (and therefore, seasonal); it is community-focused because it supports local business; it is healthy because the majority of the produce is organic. Shares were sold in the spring, both “mini” shares, “regular” shares, and “robust” shares for different prices. They also had optional egg, chicken, and beef add-ons. We opted to split a regular share with Chad & Karen (sister and bro-in-law), which was cheaper than getting individual mini-shares AND gives us the greater variety of produce that comes in the larger share.

Our regular share came out to around $24 dollars a week, or $12 for each couple. For this price, we get 22 weeks of fresh, locally harvested, organic produce, from May 10 – October 4. While this is more than we might usually spend on produce at the grocery weekly, we believe the additional cost is worth the stretch in our budget. We’re caring about our community, and caring about our bodies by choosing organic. This is an investment worth making. This investment isn’t just a sacrifice of money – it’s also a sacrifice of choices. We don’t choose what we get in our box each week; this depends on what is growing and in season, and also depends on if the harvest is plentiful this particular year or not, which is highly dependent upon weather conditions. This requires us to be satisfied with new foods we may not have chosen for ourselves (and the fun part: learning how to cook them). It also forces us to give up foods that must be imported at great cost from other climates where they are grown; we will have to adapt to a simpler palate in some cases. The quantity is also not in our control, so we will learn to be satisfied with what we get each week.

Well, if up to this point you’ve been bored hearing about the “why” behind buying a CSA share, we’ll turn to the “what”: what was hiding in our mystery box for week 1?

Week 1 CSA Share:
-Garlic Greens (organic)
-Baby Lettuce (organic)
-Radishes (organic)
-Fresh Sage (organic)
-Strawberries (organic)
-Over wintered Spinach (organic)
-Asparagus
-Dried Beans (organic)
-Over wintered Rutabagas (organic)

One final note: there is another great benefit to going with a CSA. You eat produce that was harvested that same day. The freshness of the food is unparalleled to what you’ll find at groceries, where most of the produce they have on hand had to be picked before it was ripe to survive the time it takes to ship it and stock it in your local store. The benefit? Rich flavors you can’t get anyway else unless you were to grow it in your own backyard! Check back this weekend to see how we’ve been enjoying the bounty.