The CSA thing has been interesting. Overall, I've enjoyed it. It is fun to see what we are going to get every week and we've gotten a lot of new things (for us). I have felt a lot of pressure to figure out what to do with everything we get. Some of the things I've really been stuck on. I've discovered that Mark is pretty picky on how he will eat veggies, they can't be soft at all! When I read the description for this fall CSA they said it would be things like potatoes, brocolli, sweet potatoes, califlower, your traditional fall veggies. Of those things, brocolli is the only one we've gotten. I will admit to be disappointed by that because we really like all those fall veggies here, much more than the traditional summer ones. We are getting so many greens and I didn't expect that from a fall CSA, but I should have now that I know greens love the fall.
I'm not sure if I would do a CSA again, we really are just too limited in what we like. I think we are better off growing it ourselves or visiting the farmers market and getting exactly what we want and will eat. I hate to admit some things have ended up in the compost because it took me too long to figure out what to do with them.
6 comments:
I'm glad you posted this. I feel the same way. I love the idea of a CSA, but what's kept us from joining is the fear of wasting it. It's different when I buy a packet of seeds for $1.79, plant some cucumbers and then let half of them rot, than it is if I've paid for a farm share and wasted it all, because I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I've been waffling about growing a winter garden or buying into a farm share. I think I'll just get out my stuff and get that silly garden going ;).
Thanks for the comment Wendy. I was a little reluctant to post about my CSA experience, it feels anti-localvore or something to me. I'm looking forward to following your winter garden adventure!
I think these are important observations and definitely represent the difficulty of CSA membership. Not all the produce will be familiar or even tasty to every member, and sometimes familiar, staple crops will be the crops that fail. I know we're really missing our potatoes and onions—their loss was a crushing blow, but I feel better knowing that the story was the same for most farmers in our area.
Realizing that growing your own favorites or buying from the farmer's market better suits your family's needs isn't anti-locavore at all. Both are still focused on growing and buying and eating locally.
Your experience has also helped me realize how important it is for CSAs to provide recipe ideas for members, something I'll be focusing on more myself.
Danielle - I think including recipes would be a great addition, also just letting them know what is in the box could be really helpful. We've gotten a few things and we don't know what they are. If we had a list we could figure out through process of elimination what is what. It is really hard to figure out how to prepare something if you aren't sure what it is!
They don't tell you what's in the box? That stinks!
Each week I have our list written up on a chalk board for on-farm pick ups, and I post it on our newsblog every week for our off farm deliveries. I've also done a newsletter nearly every week that lists the share, offers some photos and happenings around the farm. I've posted several descriptions of lesser known items on the blog along with recipes that I've found and that our members have submitted.
I'm really surprised that your CSA would send you home without a basic listing of the share contents. I'm sorry that your CSA experience wasn't more positive.
My CSA provides a weekly newsletter that I think helps the members with their share. The front page generally has farm news and short articles on what to do with new or unusual portions in the share. The back page is all recipes. The website lists the expected harvest. Actual harvests are kept online as an archive so that one can peruse what might show up in different seasons. 'Course it can change depending on what the farm plants and whether they have problems. All in all, though, it's fairly user-friendly.
That said, it can be time-consuming to figure out how to use new veggies and people have dropped out due to tight schedules.
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