Our family is doing something new this summer. We’ve joined a CSA: Community Sponsored Agriculture. This spring a friend shared that she’d been doing a CSA for a couple of years. I’d never heard of such a thing! Maybe you haven’t either so I thought I’d share it with you.
A CSA is run by a local farmer who allows people to purchase a share of his garden harvest. Every Tuesday we go to a local pick up point to pick up our garden share that has been picked fresh that day. Our particular CSA runs for 26 weeks from the last week of May through Thanksgiving. That’s fresh, local-grown vegetables for 1/2 of the year!
The most interesting part of a CSA is getting vegetables you’ve never even heard of. Last week we got sorrel and argula, both vegetables from the lettuce family. Thankfully the CSA also gives you a recipe book that includes several recipes for every vegetable you receive throughout the year! I’ve been trying a ton of new recipes…some we like and some we don’t.
What’s the cost? Our CSA was a $400 share which works out to be about $15/week. I’m buying less at the grocery store because of it. We’re also eating better! Other CSA’s run for less weeks and cost less. Here’s our share for this week:
We have rhubarb, a head of lettuce, radishes, green garlic, green onions, a bag of spinach, mizuna, and pizzo mustard. Yes, we’ve never heard of some of those vegetables, but we’re enjoying trying something new every week!
While it’s probably too late to get in on a CSA this summer, it’s something you might want to think about for the future. You can simply google “CSA” or “Community Sponsored Agriculture” to find one in your area. Our CSA can be found online at www.henrysfarm.com.
I’m curious…have you heard of a CSA? Participated in one? Let me hear your thoughts!
Hi Jill ~
I love the CSA concept. My family joined one on a month to month basis a year or so ago. The quality of the produce and the price was great. The only downfall w/ my particular CSA was that delivery times/days were very unreliable. Sometimes our produce was delivered on Monday, sometimes Friday, sometimes a week was skipped. Because of that, we had to cancel our membership, but I really loved it and my kiddos tried more veggies because of it!
I just heard of this recently when some friends of mine joined one in our community. (We're in Muscatine, IA.) Sounds like a great concept…might have to look into it next year.
Sounds like a great idea! Anyone know of one closer to Decatur, IL?
This is our second year being a part of a CSA. Ours is for 15 weeks and we love it. We have friends who get their produce from the same farm. We are looking into also joining a fruit CSA next summer.
Tami,
I'm on the list for our local Fruit CSA, but they said it's a 5-year wait!
Lisa, I would google "Community Sponsored Agriculture" and see what you can find in the Decatur area.
It's a great idea! I'm kinda picky when it comes to vegetables (as in I don't enjoy eating them) so I don't know that this would work for us. Definitely something to check into though. Thanks for sharing about it.
We just joined a CSA this year as well and we love it!! We are eating awesome fresh veggies that we probably would have never tried before. Who would have thought that my 8 year old daughter would love turnip green quiche?!?!
Marci,
We had turnips tonight and Austin (age 12) LOVED them! We cut them up and put them on salad. He said, "Mom, why haven't you ever had these before? They are so good!" I'd never bought turnips because I'd personally never had them myself!