I decided this year that my husband and I were going to participate in a CSA. For those that aren’t familiar, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It pretty much guarantee’s a farm that they’re going to have someone to buy their crops. And the great thing for the farmers is that they get their payment early in the year so they have the money they need when they’re doing the planting.
I found the farm we decided to patronize by going to http://www.localharvest.org/csa/. They have a pretty good search feature to find farms that are near you or have delivery spots near you. The farm we get our veggies from is Erehnow Farm. Since there is only 2 of us, I wanted a farm that would do a partial share. I was afraid that we would be overwhelmed with vegetables and they would go to waste.
So you might be wondering, if you’re so frugal why did you pay over $300 for 5 months of veggies? In this case it doesn’t have anything to do with money. You see, I’m not much of a veggie person. In fact, I could never eat another vegetable and be content. There in lies the problem. Turns out veggies are good for you! A body needs them to stay healthy. Plus my husband loves them and has been pestering me to buy some. This was my way to force myself to cook with vegetables. And a way to force myself to cook with vegetables that I wouldn’t otherwise buy.
We had our first few weeks already. I haven’t blogged about them sooner because most of what we had was green leafy things. Here’s what we have gotten so far (that I can remember):
- Lettuce! (many, many kinds and colors)
- Kale
- Brocolli
- Green Onion
- Garlic Scapes
- Garlic
- Basil
- Strawberries
- Raspberries
- Sour Cherries (more to come on these!)
It’s been pretty neat so far. I can’t wait until we start getting into things like corn and beans. They’re my favorite when they come from the garden.