Not Up For Gardening, Join A CSA

Last year I learned about CSA’s, Community Supported Agriculture, from the lovely people who own Willow Pond Farm.

A CSA is sort of like a farmers market except that all the fruits and veggies come from one farm. Sometimes those farms also deal with other smaller farmers and there will be items from them as well.

How it works is that you basically buy a share of that farm, then once a week you go and pick up a basket full of great goodies. Sherrie, from Willow Pond, told me that when they put together their CSA baskets they add the best fruits and veggies and by buying it that way you actually get a better deal then buying each thing individually from the farm.

Since it was too late to join a CSA when I learned about them at the end of the summer, I was bound and determined to join one this year. I loved the idea of not having to worry about if I had enough time to make it the farmers market to get what I wanted. Or worry that if I didn’t get there early enough all the best produce would be gone, which definitely happens.

I went over to Local Harvest and checked out the CSA’s in my area. It turns out there are actually quite a few. Some even offer the choice between a full share or half of a share. A full share seemed to be for a family of 4 or more and generally broke down to about $32 a week for 20 weeks, while a half share would be for just 1 or 2 people and broke down to about $18 a week for 20 weeks for the ones in this area. To me both of those seemed really reasonable.



But as so often happens, between then and now things have changed. The gardening bug bit me hard and when this spring rolled around we decided to start our own gardens here on the patio and at my grandparents house.

I thought about still doing a half share CSA and talked it over with Todd and my mom but we’re all a little concerned about getting stuff that we’re already growing. The other thing about CSA’s (most of the time) is that you get whatever’s growing and if there happens to be a lot of zucchini one season, you’re going to get a lot of zucchini. Generally there’s no picking and choosing, it’s all picked out for you. The fun part of that though is that you can also get foods you may never have tried on your own and end up finding a new favorite.

Both of the CSA’s I was looking at, Willow Pond Farm and Sacred Paths Farm, are also open for you to purchase individual goodies. We bought a lot of our produce from Willow Pond last year because all of their produce is organic (which I believe Sacred Paths is also). Willow Pond also sells items from other small farms, like sundried raisins, eggs and really raw almonds. I wrote about Willow Pond last summer and how much the whole family liked going there.



So as much as I’d like to join a CSA I think that with growing some of our own fruits and veggies, the farmers market here in Placerville and the 2 farms, we’ll once again skip joining a CSA. I’ll just have to support the farms with frequent trips to make sure I’m still getting the good stuff. ;)