Community Supported Agriculture
I wanted to join one of these for a while. For those of you who dont know what this is I choose to bias-ly describe it in the words of my friend Brandon:
"This is a farm that sells locally, practices sustainable farming (no agribusiness, no chemicals, minimal shipping and handling, and good land-use practices like crop rotation), and places itself within the community instead of above it. For ~$20 a week, I will have in-season vegetables and fruits fresh off the vine or tree. And none of my money will go to support ground water contamination, soil erosion, government subsidized over-intensive water use (you think growing wheat in the desert is a good idea?), aquifer depletion, or food that tastes like diesel fuel and feels like rubber."
There is a farm near my house (several it turns out if one just goes looking) that is organic and has a CSA program (South Coast Farms). Charles correctly pointed out at the time that even if I got the small basket a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables would likely go bad before I could eat them. Now that I have been on the south beach diet for almost 2 months - and I've more or less forced Charles on aspects of it - we've found we go through a lot of fruits and vegetables. There was also the expense to consider but I figured I'd at least go to the farm and check it out. This farm also has a full stand that I can just buy a few things at and if the CSA program looked way too expensive then I could at least price check the organic stuff at the stand.
From the website of the farm we understood that they had two basket sizes that could be received once a week or bi-weekly. A regular basket averages about 15-20 different items and a large averages about 17-22 items with the large also including more of certain items. I wasnt sure what counted as 15-20 items nor what types of items. Once we got there we were pretty amazed at the amount and variety. The small bi weekly basket comes out to $31 and the large $38 so we got that one. For the quarter (7 baskets, one every two weeks) we paid like $265 plus a one time $15 set up fee. They even email us to let us know our basket is ready and include some recipes in it. We choose the Tuesday pick up and it is ready after 1pm and I have until 6pm to get it. If I forget about it then on Saturday they send the basket off to some charity that comes and gets them. I forget now what kinds of stuff they said were in the basket but I plan on doing a full report after I pick up the basket today after work.
We did all of this on Saturday. When we pulled up they also had some hand pressed apple cider, just free to give people. If they had any bottled I totally would have bought it. We bought a few thing at the farmstand to last us until our basket came... I was surprised that the prices really weren't all that bad, especially for organic. Apples were $2.29/lb but they had several varieties and they were all the same price. Normally I have to buy the one cheap kind of dark red apple even tho I like yellowy-red ones better. Everything else was at the same or cheaper than regular grocery store food with the only other exception I think were avocados @ $1.50 instead of $1.
The thing that really impressed me was that the lady said if I choose farm pick up I could swap things I didnt like out of the basket right there when I picked it up. They go on the honor system so you just leave/take what you think is right. There is something about that I can really appreciate especially as all the other CSA's I find are "Ya Get What Ya Get." I will still stress slightly and use algebra to swap as correctly as I can but that is just how I roll.
SO! Full report to follow!
"This is a farm that sells locally, practices sustainable farming (no agribusiness, no chemicals, minimal shipping and handling, and good land-use practices like crop rotation), and places itself within the community instead of above it. For ~$20 a week, I will have in-season vegetables and fruits fresh off the vine or tree. And none of my money will go to support ground water contamination, soil erosion, government subsidized over-intensive water use (you think growing wheat in the desert is a good idea?), aquifer depletion, or food that tastes like diesel fuel and feels like rubber."
There is a farm near my house (several it turns out if one just goes looking) that is organic and has a CSA program (South Coast Farms). Charles correctly pointed out at the time that even if I got the small basket a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables would likely go bad before I could eat them. Now that I have been on the south beach diet for almost 2 months - and I've more or less forced Charles on aspects of it - we've found we go through a lot of fruits and vegetables. There was also the expense to consider but I figured I'd at least go to the farm and check it out. This farm also has a full stand that I can just buy a few things at and if the CSA program looked way too expensive then I could at least price check the organic stuff at the stand.
From the website of the farm we understood that they had two basket sizes that could be received once a week or bi-weekly. A regular basket averages about 15-20 different items and a large averages about 17-22 items with the large also including more of certain items. I wasnt sure what counted as 15-20 items nor what types of items. Once we got there we were pretty amazed at the amount and variety. The small bi weekly basket comes out to $31 and the large $38 so we got that one. For the quarter (7 baskets, one every two weeks) we paid like $265 plus a one time $15 set up fee. They even email us to let us know our basket is ready and include some recipes in it. We choose the Tuesday pick up and it is ready after 1pm and I have until 6pm to get it. If I forget about it then on Saturday they send the basket off to some charity that comes and gets them. I forget now what kinds of stuff they said were in the basket but I plan on doing a full report after I pick up the basket today after work.
We did all of this on Saturday. When we pulled up they also had some hand pressed apple cider, just free to give people. If they had any bottled I totally would have bought it. We bought a few thing at the farmstand to last us until our basket came... I was surprised that the prices really weren't all that bad, especially for organic. Apples were $2.29/lb but they had several varieties and they were all the same price. Normally I have to buy the one cheap kind of dark red apple even tho I like yellowy-red ones better. Everything else was at the same or cheaper than regular grocery store food with the only other exception I think were avocados @ $1.50 instead of $1.
The thing that really impressed me was that the lady said if I choose farm pick up I could swap things I didnt like out of the basket right there when I picked it up. They go on the honor system so you just leave/take what you think is right. There is something about that I can really appreciate especially as all the other CSA's I find are "Ya Get What Ya Get." I will still stress slightly and use algebra to swap as correctly as I can but that is just how I roll.
SO! Full report to follow!