Community Supported Agriculture

Spring is in the air folks, and with that comes the thought of gardening and fresh vegetables.  However if you are like me, you don't really have the space energy for much more than a few tomatoes and peppers.  Now I could take advantage of the farmers markets this summer where I have a access to a variety of fresh and local produce, but those are on weekends and in the morning no less, after a long week I have very little motivation to get out of bed.  So what to do what to do.  If only there was a place I could get fresh vegetables all summer long and not have to think about it.  Any guesses?  Well as you may have guessed, by reading the title of this post, community supported agriculture(CSA) is the answer. 

The idea with CSA's is that you buy a 'share' of the produce upfront and get weekly delivery of produce all season long.  The beauty is that the farmer has much needed cash on hand to pay for supplies and labor early in the year, and you get a portion of the return, so really this is an investment, and much better return than what you can get on Wall Street.  You typically get an assortment of vegetables, fruit, and with some even eggs and cheese.  The selection depends on the particular CSA you work with, but the stuff is fresh, you know who is growing it and may have the opportunity, or obligation to help on the farm. 
The local foods movement is all about knowing where your food comes from and what better way then buying direct from a farmer. 

You can find more about it and help locate one that delivers to your area below.  Make decisions soon as there is a limit to the number of shares a farmer offers to the public, and popular ones may go quickly.
http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

I have done it now for one season and plan to try and do it going forward, and I find there are a number of benefits that I personally find appealing.

Supporting local agriculture and farmers.
As a horticulturist I like the idea that I am putting my money directly into the hands of the people growing the food I eat.

Fresh is always better.
Before I met my wife, she didn't care for tomatoes because she had only had ones she got at salad bars or grocery stores.  I had her grow a tomato on her porch and the 3 or 4 she got on the little plant were sweet and delicious.  I can go into why fresh is better and why store bought are not that flavorful another time, but needless to say, vine ripened tomatoes just taste better, and you can grow different varieties than you can get at the store.  One last point that I can again expand upon another time is that they are healthier because as vegetables age they loose some of the nutritional value.

You are forced to try a lot of different things, and this is by far my favorite point.

Everyone knows that you should eat healthy and exercise, and vegetables and fruit are a major component in that.  So walking through the grocery store every week, you get some tomatoes, bananas, maybe a cucumber and some lettuce because that should be good for you.  Well then you see the 'exotic' section, all those colors and shapes and names you have never heard of.  Bok Choy, Kohlrabi, egg plant, and beets and you think to yourself  'self, those seem to be healthy and I would like to eat them.  I should go home and look up a recipe so I can buy them next time..'  Sounds like a great idea.  You don't dare buy them now, if you don't have a good recipe then they might go bad and we can't waste produce by not using it.  Now how many months go by before you are back in the store having the same conversation with yourself.

What I found with the CSA I did last year, was that I was forced to use things I only dreamed of buying before, and some thing I have never heard of. You bring a box home of your share and look at the Swiss chard and the garlic skapes and realize that you already payed for them, and now that the veggies are in the kitchen they are looking at you, challenging you to to cook them up.  Well your not going to let a radish get the best of you are you????   

So once you are forced to try them you realize that for some, hopefully most, you really enjoy them and they are not that intimidating after all, not even that pesky rutabaga.  I for one now eat Swiss chard regularly and plan to grow it out this year to see how well it will do on my porch.  The nice thing too is that many of the CSAs give you suggestion on how to prepare what they send you, so really you have no excuse.

So that is my pitch to you.  Give it a go if you so desire.  There may be things you never eat, but you will be amazed at how diverse you plate will become because of it.  I will probably try a different CS this year, playing the field a little bit, and I will keep an update of what unfolds and challenge myself to find a way to eat those radishes as they were a bit too spicy for me last year.

Always at your service,
Your Horticulturist