This summer we finally signed up for local, organic produce from a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for the summer. I have been hesitant to do so in the past, mostly due to upfront costs. But, when I actually calculated what we normally spend at the grocery store for produce, it worked out cheaper per week for fresh-off-the-farm produce.
The downside of this was (if you can even call it that) was the randomness of the produce received. I'm totally into trying new things, but having new vegetables each week, some of which I could not figure out how to eat together proved rather challenging for my already full brain. One night we had taco salad with a side of roasted zucchini (because there was far too much zucchini to just add to the salad). Another night we had chicken curry (full of veggies) with a side of Greek salad. Often we did just meal salads and threw whatever we had onto it (my favorite, easiest option). We had a ton of tomatoes, which I eventually just ended up dicing and freezing these last few weeks. The only weird vegetable we got was kohlrabi, which is kind of like a cabbage/jicama mixed. I shredded it for coleslaw one time and roasted it another. Just kind of a plain old vegetable! We got plenty of peppers which made me happy. The variety we got looked like a hot pepper (red Anaheim or something, I'm no pepper expert) but tasted like a really good red bell pepper. We ate those almost every day. We should be full of vitamin C!
We always got lots of vegetables with at least 1 fruit. Then I would just stop at a local produce stand and buy a bit more local fruit that was in season at the time and called it good. The kids have fruit for a snack every day when quiet time is over (4 p.m.), so have taken to calling it "Fruit Time". Must have fruit for fruit time!
Our garden did well, but in keeping with the reality of what I can actually accomplish on a having-a-baby year, we kept it pretty small. Just enough to supplement our other produce, not enough to can or freeze though. We plan on expanding our small space (it's maybe 12' square now) this fall, so that it'll be ready for next summer. We're still doing the Back to Eden style, so we have to get our compost (leftover scraps and chicken manure) down and then cover with wood chips for the winter and in the spring it should be good to go.
All in all, a good experience which we plan to repeat next summer. If you would like to find a CSA near you, they can be found at http://www.localharvest.org
