Wedding Woes

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Has anyone belonged to a CSA? I was thinking about doing it as an incentive to cook more and eat more seasonal and local food.

Re: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

  • Yes I did one this past year. On the whole I liked it, and I definitely did cook more and more seasonally. But it was too much food for one person, even the smallest size box, so more waste than I would have liked, and it was messy! Like, everything came with dirt on it and I’m not used to having to clean my fridge that often. 
  • I've done one the last few years. Once we get in the habit and routine of it, it's great. But for us, I had to be really organized with it. Like, if I didn't pick up the box and then immediately plan something for everything in it and then do the rest of my grocery shopping around it, I'd end up with leftovers at the end of the week or things would go bad before I could use them. It could easily get away from us and some weeks went by so quickly and we'd end up with like 3 weeks' worth of veggies in our fridge and we're running out of ideas on how to use them. 

    For me, I won't say it was a lot of work, but it was definitely more work than my usual meal planning and list making. But it's fun too. Almost like being on Chopped but you have to figure out recipes and an entire week's worth of meals based around these ingredients. 

    I will also say that I am the only person I know who has tried it that has signed up for the second year. The handful of people I know who've tried it said that it was too much and too hard to use up. 
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  • I had one for a couple of years.  Like people said, it's a commitment.  I enjoyed it, but not enough to keep it going.  I preferred going to the farmers market and getting what I wanted or was interested in and could control.
  • I have family friends who are the farmers involved in the CSA with some of their produce.  Ultimately it has to work for you too as the buyer, some things store longer than others (potatoes and root veggies for example), or make great freezer meals that you can stock for the rest of the year if you've got a deep freezer/upright freezer.  If anything, try it for one year then decide.  She offered "packages" instead of every week, some people were once a month, others every other week so it worked out great for everyone.
  • We did one for several years. You have to be ready to process (wash, package, chop, etc.) your stuff that day the second you get it home, at least that's what we found. It was the only way to avoid waste and to avoid a mess in the fridge.  You also have to be super creative. For example, we got 10 lbs of tomatoes for several weeks in a row. We also got tons of greens. What do you do with those? Google was my best friend. 

    A lot of people I know split a share with another family so they wouldn't end up with too many of one thing.
  • maine7mob said:
    We did one for several years. You have to be ready to process (wash, package, chop, etc.) your stuff that day the second you get it home, at least that's what we found. It was the only way to avoid waste and to avoid a mess in the fridge.  You also have to be super creative. For example, we got 10 lbs of tomatoes for several weeks in a row. We also got tons of greens. What do you do with those? Google was my best friend. 

    A lot of people I know split a share with another family so they wouldn't end up with too many of one thing.
    We would be sharing with MIL, so there would be three of us using it.
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