Joining a CSA and so excited!!

[infomama]

Big year for us..CSA and our first garden. The great thing about this farm as compared to others in our area is that they also raise free range chickens for meat and eggs. No herbicides, pesticides and they have been farming for 15 years. Going for a tour Saturday...yipee!!

[WatchingThemGrow]

CSA and a garden...you better be ready!!! We need to gear up ourselves. One more month! Tell us about your farm visit when you get back!

[sewarsh]

we joined a fruit CSA & have our own veggie/herb garden this year.
i'm so excited too!!
this year we did seeds for the first time so i'm anxious to see how well those harvest.

[jenfromnj]

I am very jealous! There are several around here, but they all have waiting lists and I haven't been able to get into one yet (we've only been waiting since last year, but it's torture!!). Some of our good friends belong to one of them and have only great things to say.

[infomama]

Toured the farm this morning. Super nice folks and they were instrumental in starting one of our farmers markets years ago which I did not know. This is going to be such a great experience! Bring on the fresh local food!

[mommylamb]

This will be our second year of CSA membership and our first year with a veggie garden (well, second if you count my herb garden last year). There are pros and cons to our CSA, but we decided the pros outweighed the cons and re-joined.

[daniele_ut]

Good for you for starting a garden! I haven't gotten anywhere near that point yet. I LOVE our produce co-op, though! Ours doesn't require a subscription or a membership, which is awesome for us because we travel a lot during the summer. We can order each week only when we want it.

This is what we picked up today for $15. 5 Mangoes, 3lbs of apples, 8 bananas, a bunch of clementines, lettuce, 5lbs of potatoes, a huge bunch of broccoli, some small zucchini, 4 large tomatoes, 2 large celery bunches and 4 artichokes :
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v609/daniele_ut/DSC03418.jpg

[infomama]

Wow Daniele that is an awesome basket of goodness! We will get 10 pounds of produce a week and they email us what will be available so we can choose what we want and how much of each. Lots of fresh herbs and he said most of the time they will just throw those in since they are so light. Comes out to about $17/week for us. DH is worried we are going to have produce coming out of our ears so no garden after all. That's OK with me..next year perhaps.

[PAfirsttimemom]

I'm thinking of joining a CSA, too. There's a very small one near our house. I think it'd be fun for the kids (especially my older son, a four-year-old) to see where his food comes from. We don't have a garden yet, but I would like to. Maybe next year.

[infomama]

Forgot to mention...the chickens lay all different colored eggs (the Araucanas lay green eggs!) so that is going to be a hoot!! It's the little things ;)

[Ceepa]

Good for you for starting a garden! I haven't gotten anywhere near that point yet. I LOVE our produce co-op, though! Ours doesn't require a subscription or a membership, which is awesome for us because we travel a lot during the summer. We can order each week only when we want it.

This is what we picked up today for $15. 5 Mangoes, 3lbs of apples, 8 bananas, a bunch of clementines, lettuce, 5lbs of potatoes, a huge bunch of broccoli, some small zucchini, 4 large tomatoes, 2 large celery bunches and 4 artichokes :
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v609/daniele_ut/DSC03418.jpg

That's a nice variety. Last year when I checked the offerings here weren't varied enough to justify the cost for us. It wasn't a matter of what they harvested, I know that can vary from season to season, it was more of what they planted in the first place, KWIM?

This year we may just go the farmer's market route again. Also that way I don't have 10+ pounds of produce nagging me to get used every week. :D

[daniele_ut]

That's a nice variety. Last year when I checked the offerings here weren't varied enough to justify the cost for us. It wasn't a matter of what they harvested, I know that can vary from season to season, it was more of what they planted in the first place, KWIM?

This year we may just go the farmer's market route again. Also that way I don't have 10+ pounds of produce nagging me to get used every week. :D

The co-op I use isn't strictly CSA, though, so we aren't limited to what is grown at a certain farm. They buy as local as possible, but it's primarily about using the buying power that comes with a co-op to save on the produce. The bananas, for instance, come from a very small grower in Mexico.

[fumofu]

$15 for all that?! I am so jealous! We got 6 packages of CSA produce sent to us, as an awesome wedding gift, sent every other week. It was very convenient; price was comparable if not better than buying organic produce at the market; and it taught me how to use some veggies I never buy, or even heard of.

We stopped the service after our gift expired, plus we were out of town for a while. I'm thinking of starting it again.