CSA

Jesse and I have thought about joining a CSA for some time, but didn't trust ourselves enough with the food. We were pretty sure we'd end up wasting much of it and in the end the purchase wouldn't be worth it. However, some of our neighbors were talking about it on NextDoor.com and suggested Earth Dance Farms. We liked that they had multiple sized boxes so we could get a small one to start this year and make sure that it was a good size for us before jumping to something larger. They also had a spring share, a fall share and an egg share that you could opt into. Initially, we decided to do the summer half share and the egg share, but then decided to add on a spring share. Since we are significantly into summer I figured I should finally talk about it here.

There were three spring shares delivered every other week which were filled with a lot of greens. The initial egg deliveries were a little heavy. I started a week late so I got 3 - 4 dozen eggs every other week to make up for the missed week. That was a little much for me (since I'm the only one that eats them), but I was able to give some to my dad and a neighbor so all was good. We have thrown out a couple things which was part of bad planning, but otherwise we've been able to eat everything and figure out what to do with it. This is certainly pushing us to try new things. Jesse even made a beef stew with the greens we received and we discovered that we all like (even Riley) kohlrabi.

We've received all sorts of items: arugula, romaine, cabbage (multiple varieties), kale, chard, asparagus, chives, radishes, green onions, cucumber, tomato, potato, braising greens, kohlrabi, mint, cilantro, popcorn, strawberries, raspberries, broccoli, peppers (multiple varieties), basil... and so on

I was going to take a picture each week, but that quickly went to the wayside. There are a total of 18 summer weekly shares which means that we'll be getting fresh food deliveries through October 22. The CSA drop off site is nice and close to our house which has made this a feasible endeavor for us.

Will we do this again? Probably. It's worked out really well and you can really tell that this food was picked fresh. We are definitely CSA converts.