the CSA, she is chosen!

okay, so we went to the CSA open house today, and it was kind of madness. there were tons of people there, and it was kind of like going to a science fair: everyone had a table with a little display, but none of it was "standard" so you had to just visit each one and figure it out for yourself, decide what questions you should ask, and wait patiently for your turn with the farmers. when we first walked in we were told that they were doing "CSA 101" presentations at 1pm and 3pm, and we got there at 12.55pm so we high-tailed it upstairs to sit in on the 1pm presentation. they basically just did an overview of how CSAs began (in japan, apparently. who knew?), what the benefits are, and some ideas about how to decide. it was a nice overview, but i started to panic about halfway through because the presenter said, "some of the farmers you talk to today will probably already be full," and i was all wtf this is supposed to be our early chance omg i can't believe we're going to get shut out of a CSA again!!! panic panic panic. honestly i almost wanted to scurry out the room as soon as she said that, but i kept it under control and stayed put.

once we were done with that, we wandered the two floors of farms and grabbed brochures, looked at displays, and asked a couple of random questions. after we had all the brochures, we sat in a room and tried to figure out some of our main "weeding out" criteria. having never done a CSA before, i was really liking the idea of going with a half-share this year. there are only two of us, and we eat out a fair bit, and i am deathly afraid of drowning in produce (which would also translate to wasting food and money). one or two of them didn't offer half-shares, so we put them in the "no" pile. we also wanted to find farms with drop-off points near our home so that it would be convenient; that eliminated another two farms.

all of the CSAs at the open house were totally organic, so that was awesome. the next thing i noticed was that three of the farms sold meat. ugh. the first one that i noticed had a line that said "chickens $9 each" and it gave me a stomach ache. my husband tried to cheer me up and said, "maybe it's like, you can adopt a pet chicken!" heh. so anyway at that point i looked for any CSA that sold meat and put them in the "no" pile.

last but not least, the egg issue. obviously i would never buy eggs from a CSA, but my husband asked me if i would mind belonging to a CSA that also sold eggs. my gut instinct was to say, "nope, don't wanna," but at the same time i was thinking that they probably ALL had eggs so this would likely be my compromise. i told him i wasn't sure, but that i thought i'd be okay with it. well, as we looked at them more closely, i realized that there were several that didn't offer eggs, which made me happy/relieved, and then i felt myself leaning toward joining a CSA that didn't offer any animal products at all.

in the end we arrived at a short list of three or four farms, which felt a lot more manageable, and we went to visit those tables to talk more with the farmers and ask more specific questions. one of the things i was really interested in was a winter share (because, potatoes + beets + onions = golden in this house!), so i wanted to find out how many of them offered that service, for example.

my husband and i were both drawn to one particular farm for whatever reason, and we visited their table three times as we tried to come to a decision. they were super nice, they do an email newsletter every week to let you know what will be in your box that week (plus a "probably list" of the next week's box), and they cutely try to "organize" their boxes each week so the food you get makes sense together. they drop off at our co-op which is really convenient for us, and they encouraged us to try a half-share to start (and said we could upgrade later if we wanted to). i liked that they didn't try to up-sell us; it felt sincere and friendly. they also have some fruit (melons, berries, yum) and they have a pumpkin patch. we can go to the farm and pick strawberries, tomatoes, and pumpkins during the season if we want to. they don't do animal products. they do have a winter share. we were sold! we walked to the car, got the checkbook, and joined today. the deliveries start in mid-may, and go through early november (plus the two giant winter share deliveries in mid-november and mid-december). now we just have to put on our creative cooking hats and get ready to try some new vegetables this year. we're excited!

Comments

[Billy]

That's great that your area hosts a CSA open house. I'm jealous!

[annie]

I'm excited for you! I am also jealous of the open house idea. I really want to join a CSA, but it just never seems "convenient."

[girl least likely to]

i know, i was really excited about being able to do the open house thing. last year i totally winged it, which turned out to be a horrible idea, so this was much more timely, efficient, and informative. yay!