CSA!

We are very excited to have joined a CSA starting in June. CSA stands for community-supported agriculture, and may also be called a farm share. In a nutshell, we pay in advance to a farm, which gives them the up-front capital they need to buy supplies, hire workers, plan their planting, etc. Then, each week throughout the summer and fall, they deliver a share of the fruits of their labor to us. A share usually includes 8 items and of course varies depending on the season. This is a shared risk and reward; if it's a good year, we'll get lots of produce. If it's a bad year, we'll get less. We believe in supporting local agriculture, and we know that it's healthier to eat food that is produced organically by farmers who care. Many CSAs specialize in organic means of production and heirloom/unusual varieties of produce, which we think is so neat.

We found several CSAs available to our area by searching on Local Harvest. We selected the Wayward Seed because it is the most flexible for us (several different share sizes are offered, as well as separate fruit and veggie shares, plus the pickup location is the Clintonville Farmers' Market, which is up the street from us). We're going to be getting a 2-person share of veggies every other week, and a 2-person share of fruit every other week. I figured we should start on the smaller side, and if we do eat everything, we can order more next season. We all know that unless the fruit share includes apples, I'll be eating all of it anyway.

I'm really excited for June 5 to arrive so we can pick up our first vegetables! I am also excited to get some new and different foods in this house; we don't choose what comes in our box each week, so that means we will be trying plenty of new things. In a few months you'll be seeing those new items in our lunches!