CSA's - to join or not to join

[springsgourmet9]

We joined a local CSA last year and I was somewhat disappointed in the crop (weather related) and I'm torn whether to join this year or not.

It is a lot of work to clean everything and find we're eating the same vegetable for several weeks on end until the next new vegetable comes in. Of course DH wants to join, but I did all the pick-up, cleaning & cooking.

The tomatoes (which I live for) were horrible last year, due to the severe rains we had.

I did enjoy trying out new vegetables like corabi, purple potatoes, swiss chard & different root vegetables. Also picking our own cherry tomatoes, tomatillos and flowers was fun. I like the fact that everything is organic but the cost is $350. for half a share. It's enough for the two of us with extras.

We do not get eggs or bread. Only vegetables and u-pick flowers.

I'm interested in what others have experienced with their CSA's and the possibilities of continued memberships.

[Grace]

While I love the idea of CSA's (I did it for three years I think), I found I was throwing out too much, and so for us, it just wasn't worth it. I also didn't like being forced to cook with what they gave me each week. While it's true that that's how people have eaten for thousands and thousands of years, they ate what they had, my lifestyle just doesn't fit that model anymore. If all I did was stay home with a couple other women and cook for a family all day every day, I would do it for sure. But it's just DH and I, and our time is filled with our jobs and other activities, and I use cooking as a source of pleasure and stress relief. For me, the sense of obligation I felt to eat all that stuff week in and week out (not to mention getting there to pick it up on the designated day, etc.) only caused me more stress. Since I live in a city where good organic produce is available to me every day, I decided to quit. Perhaps if I lived in the boonies where they don't know what vegetables are, much less organic ones, I'd get more pleasure out of it.

[SDMomChef]

We tried the CSA for one year, and like Grace, I found that we were throwing away too much - I didn't like being confined to cooking based upon what was in the CSA box, and I also got tired of the same vegetables for a week.

Instead, from May through September, I purchase our vegetables from the local Farmers Market, so I'm still supporting some of the organic farmers in the area, but I'm able to purchase what I want and what our family needs.

[DmOrtega]

Another option for you may be home delivered produce. We get a full bin every other week, which is perfect for us, delivered to our house. The produce is top quality and my kids actually like the produce.

Here's the one that I use: New Roots Organics (http://www.newrootsorganics.com/index.html)

[Canice]

Similar to what DmOrtega linked to, we used Organic Express (http://www.organicexpress.com/vHome.lasso), which delivers to your door and allows you to customize your order. It's not a CSA, though, so may not fill the bill.

[Chelle D]

More of the same here. I loved the idea and it was fun trying new things last year, but I was tired of not getting what I wanted to have. I got a million peppers of various kinds and tons of kale and chard and I am not a big enough fan of all of that. The things I wanted like summer squash and tomatoes were low in number and we only got veggies (with the exception of half a melon a couple times).

We are doing a small garden this year with a few things I want in larger quantities and will shop the Farmer's Market for most of the rest.

[cab321]

I joined the 9 month CSA for my first year. Man, after the growing season is over and you're just left with cold storage/root vegetables you really start to understand the meaning of monotony.

CSA was fun. We tried new things. We got stuck in a horrible rainy year with crappy (and few) tomatoes, too. It was boring at times. We decided to only do the one year. The following year I was supposed to go to the farmer's market once a week, but since it was quite a drive from my house that didn't happen. At least with the CSA I was forced to pick out and eat a nice selection of vegetables.

[gertdog]

We've belonged to a few, on and off over the years. The quality has varied across farms, and within farms (across years). For the most part I enjoy it, though as Grace and others said, sometimes it can be stressful rather than enjoyable to use everything they give you from week to week.

We took the past two years off because I was pregnant and had my son, so I didn't think I'd be up for the weekly trip to the farm or figuring out how to use the produce.

This year we're joining a new CSA- it is quite large (over 2000 members?) and friends who have belonged for many years have only positive things to say. I liked that they have weekend pickup days (none of our previous CSAs did), so stopping at the farm each week is something we can do as a family, rather than something I have to fit into my weekday work schedule. So, we'll see...

[Peweh]

Another option for you may be home delivered produce.
Here's the one that I use: New Roots Organics (http://www.newrootsorganics.com/index.html)

OOh I would love that!! I don't have a CSA close by and also fear I would not use enough of the stuff but your service sounds perfect.

[gracey]

I get home delivery once a month from www.diamondorganics.com and I love it. It is a different fruit or vegetable sampler every month for $59 -- you get an email before it arrives telling you what will be in the box and you can choose a different sampler if you don't like what is offered. Unless it is a box full of blood oranges (like the February choice), it is usually a great variety of seasonal items in each box. There are enough basics included that you don't usually have to go produce shopping just to make a recipe.

While I am sure there are all sorts of arguments against paying to fly your produce across country and not supporting local agriculture and whatnot, the reality is that my city is an organic wasteland most of the time. My selfish justification in my head is that I live in Memphis so those FedEx planes are coming in regardless of my produce.

[chipotle]

We've been in an excellent year-round CSA (Los Poblanos Organics (http://www.lospoblanosorganics.com)) for several years. Our CSA delivers to a zillion locations in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and they also offer home delivery. We get produce from various regional farms, including some things that are greenhouse grown or stored in root cellars, to keep the boxes diversified. One thing we can do is to see the list for the following week on Friday morning and then we have that day to cancel the shipment and skip a box for that week and extend our membership another week. I did that last week because it included broccoli, turnips, and arugula all of which DH violently hates. This week, however, it is snow peas and shiitake mushrooms and a bag of roasted green chiles (and beautiful lettuce and cilantro and leeks and carrots and apples and oranges and yes, more broccoli) so I'm in vegetable heaven. We can pay extra for bread, meat, eggs, etc.

I think to be successful in a CSA you have to like greens. We eat lots of salads and lots of cooked greens but I am still grateful we have a pet house rabbit who willingly handles the CSA greens overflow. :) I think the other thing you have to get used to with a CSA is cooking in season. I had no idea so many of my recipes used ingredients that weren't in season at the same time. It does keep you on your toes and I do freeze things I can't use up immediately. I've really learned to like new things as well - I used to be ambivalent about mangos but found a Martha Stewart recipe for mango-cucumber salsa that I like so much that now I actually buy mangos when they're not in the CSA box.

There are so many good things about a CSA - we definitely eat more fruits and veggies, we get to try new and fun produce (lemon cukes, watermelon daikon, all varieties of fresh figs), and I get to cook with items I'd never buy because they are so expensive like fresh shiitake mushrooms or fresh pineapple. And when the tomatoes and strawberries are in season DH and I actually start fighting over them. LOL

[funniegrrl]

I haven't done CSA, but I know a few of them around here have different size boxes for different size households, priced accordingly. Also, most of them have a pick-up spot in town -- you meet them there on the designated day/time -- so you don't have to drive out to the boonies.

So ... you might look around your area and see if there are other CSAs that would suit your needs better.

[springsgourmet9]

Wow, thanks for so many great responses!

I think we might look around to other CSA's to see if their selection is more varied. One thing I didn't like is that we got so much of the same things week after week and if you tire of it I felt so guilty throwing it away.
I thought to give it to neighbors but we're in the country and the few around us eat far less selection of foods than we do.

We love, love salads so there was never any waste with greens and DH & I eat mostly everything. Its just the selection was very limited.

I'm hearing about fruits, melons, eggs, breads, snow peas, mushrooms, none of which we had available. We did however get lots of herbs but since I grow them myself, it was a waste, besides it was mainly basil & dill, again limited. But I realize our part of the country (PA) is limited on what can be grown successfully due to the weather.

Like Chipotle said another important step to making the CSA successful is being organized enough to get recipes for seasonal produce so the dishes are varied. I bought a really neat cookbook last year called "Simply in Season" or something like that and plan to use it more this year. Just finding the time to be that organized when working full time is a challenge.

Thanks again for all the comments. You guys are the best!

[tamawrite]

While I love the idea of CSA's (I did it for three years I think), I found I was throwing out too much, and so for us, it just wasn't worth it. I also didn't like being forced to cook with what they gave me each week.

This was my experience as well. :( We ended up spending a lot more money than usual on produce because not only did we pay for the CSA food, but we also had to buy some variety at the local grocery. Meanwhile, we couldn't keep up with the kale and chard and ended up throwing a lot away.

One good thing -- our CSA delivered to our door, which was nice.

[ADM]

[QUOTE=Grace;Perhaps if I lived in the boonies where they don't know what vegetables are, much less organic ones, I'd get more pleasure out of it.[/QUOTE]

"I assume that to you "the boonies" means rural America? And that only people in large cities, like Chicago, know what organic vegetables are?

Four generations of my family have grown organic vegetables on farms or in rural or city home gardens, (in several states) and I assure you we DO know what vegetables are! There are many gardeners in this area who grow organic fruits and vegetables and do bee-keeping. Not for resale, but for their own pleasure.

[We have talking movies, TV's and indoor toilets, too! :rolleyes: ]

[Grace]

Oh my. No need to take my comments personally. But whether you like it or not, you are the exception, not the rule. Go to any rural grocery store (here in Illinois at least) and I defy you to find me much of anything in the way of produce beyond the typical apples, bananas, potatoes and onions, etc. Carambola fruit? They've never even heard of it.

My cousins are farmers - they farm 1500 acres in central Illinois. They have never eaten asparagus or kale or kohlrabi. They don't even know what kale or kohlrabi are. They eat corn and maybe some green beans. That's a maybe.

When my DH played a professional sport we had to go to regional tournaments each week. They were in places like Cedar Rapids Iowa or Alton Illinois. I couldn't find a green vegetable in a restaurant to save my soul. Canned corn was about it. And iceberg lettuce. And I'm not exaggerating. And it frustrated me to no end, because I was in FARMLAND, where the stuff is actually grown!! And when I'd ask the waitress for anything green, they looked at me like I had three heads!!! :eek: I guess if I lived in the "boonies", I could grow my own stuff, but as far as being able to buy it, there's no way you'll be able to convince me that I would have the same access to the variety of organic produce that I get from going to Whole Foods and my local produce market.

Again, no offense intended, and I'm sorry if you took offense, and I'm very glad that you can get good organic produce, but I don't think that's typical. At least not typical in rural midwest. Perhaps you live in rural California or something.

[Canice]

....Like Chipotle said another important step to making the CSA successful is being organized enough to get recipes for seasonal produce so the dishes are varied....

I highly recommend this Web site, for Capay Organics (http://www.farmfreshtoyou.com/fftoyou_info.php), a local farm and CSA - they have loads of great recipes. (Just looking at what's in this week's box makes me want to sign up! While some folks -understandably- don't like being forced to cook with what they get, DBF used to enjoy watching his own live Iron Chef, lol.)

[ADM]

Perhaps you live in rural California or something.

Rural mid-west, I live in Kansas. I've travelled through Iowa and Illinois many times and I've never once encountered the situations you speak of. We grew our own vegetables in Washington DC, and that's not exactly "the boonies", is it? :)

[Grace]

I think you want to misunderstand me. I didn't say that living in the city, one couldn't grow one's own vegetables, heck, even I grow some of my own stuff. I'm just saying if I lived out where the grocery stores carried nothing, as an alternative to never getting anything, I could choose to grow my own stuff, have my own bee hives, etc., or I could join a CSA and let someone else do it and I could just buy my stuff from them instead. If that was the only place to get it besides growing it myself, then I'd reconsider joining a CSA. That's all I meant. Sheesh.

[ADM]

Sheesh.

I think what you were really saying was: "People living in "the boonies" don't know nuttin!" :D

We're both OK. :) OK?

[DmOrtega]

I have to admit that while traveling around the country and the state where I live, I have been surprised by the lack of variety available. I think it comes from growing produce for mass production and export. So, probably the areas have their specialties that is mass marketed. I've seen a steady change towards eating locally grown produce and meat, so the variety is now expanding to what the farms can grow and sell locally. Overall it's been a nice change. I like to eat seasonally because I don't get tired of the produce. I know that the next season is right around the corner and have come to really look forward to the next season as much as enjoying the current.

[clairea]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I really like being in a CSA. When we moved this year I debated for a while about whether or not to join a new one since there is a very nice farmers' market here (to me, one of the advantages of living in a more rural area -- we are a bit closer to where things are actually grown). I did go ahead and decide to join, primarily because I like the fact that having that big basket of produce every week forces me to find ways to use it up, and I think we definitely eat a bigger variety of vegetables than if I was just picking things up at the farmers' market. Also, I like the idea of helping to support a small farmer. I do not find that I throw a lot of produce away, although I do find that I have to be willing to spend a fair amount of time "processing" the produce we get each week (parboiling and freezing things we won't eat right away, making zucchini bread when we get tons of zucchini, etc.), but I am a SAHM and usually do this with my kids so it fits into my weekly routine a lot better than it might for others.

[Grace]

I think what you were really saying was: "People living in "the boonies" don't know nuttin!" :D

We're both OK. :) OK?

A lot of them don't. That's why there is little demand for such things there in general. And yes, we're both ok! :)

[clairea]

Having lived in both, I don't think people in rural areas no any less about nutrition (or anything else) than people in large cities. It is harder to find more "esoteric" things in rural areas, but that may be because of the overall lower population numbers, not because there aren't people who would be interested. If you assume (for the sake of argument, I don't have any basis for this number) that 20% of the population wants at least some organic produce and more "unusual" products, then in a large city that produces a number that is sufficient to support a business. In a rural area it doesn't, so you make do -- picking things up when you can find them, using things in season, and generally trying to be creative. It still drives me nuts when something happens like this morning -- I wanted ground turkey breast (not ground turkey, ground turkey breast). 3 grocery stores, none to be found. My guess is that around the same percentage of the population here actually cares about whether they get ground turkey breast instead of ground turkey (or 20% fat ground beef for that matter) as they do in a large city, but in a town of 25,000 people that is such a small actual number of people the stores just don't always stock it. When I do find it in the store I buy several pounds and keep it in the freezer.

Ducking back out, because I know better than to get involved in this;) .

[schuh]

Back to the CSA question...

I just wanted to say that this thread made me feel so much less guilty about the fact that I threw a lot of CSA veggies out during the past few years ... not that it's a good thing to do, but at least I know I'm not the only one.

I'll probably do our CSA again ... every year I think that this year will be the year I use them all!