Community Supported Agriculture- Delicious Food

Remember my first post about CSA?  Well, I had a lot of comments asking what is CSA so here's an explanation:

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  In my case, CSA means a small, local farm down the road from where I live.  It is completely supported by community members, volunteers and interns.  To be a customer of CSA, I signed up for a quarterly subscription that allots me one box of vegetables every other week (weekly deliveries are also an option).  These vegetables are usually harvested (pulled out of the ground) the day before I receive them.  They are VERY fresh!

I consider my choice to sign up for CSA to be the best food decision I have ever made before.  Here's why:  

1-  The vegetables at this farm are organic.  This means that no synthetic fertilizers or bio-engineered crops are used/grown on the farm.

2-  I eat healthier, my kids eat healthier and my husband eats healthier.  We all eat a good more amount of vitamin/mineral rich vegetables than we used to.  I find myself slipping in new vegetables at every meal, just so we can get through the quantity of food from CSA each week.  

Our family also tries a lot of new vegetables; Fennel, Bok Choy and Kohlrabi to name a few.

3-  The price and convenience of CSA is much better for me than what is offered at the nearest, organic store 20 minutes away.

4- CSA is earth friendly.  ie...

                         a-  Rather than use bug pesticides to kill  the"bad" bugs (insects that eat our vegetables), our CSA harvests good bugs that eat the bad bugs.

                         b-  All of the fruits and vegetables come when they're ready in their own season.  (This is also important to me from a faith perspective.)

                         c-  All of the rows of vegetables are routinely rotated in the soil.  

So, there you have it!  That is CSA.  And now for pictures!  All of these were taken on a day I went out to the farm.  The farmers welcome volunteers and subscribers, alike, to come out and see how their food is grown:  

 Carrots.  These things are TASTY.  

Dinosaur Kale.  

Intern.  This beautiful, young woman works on the farm for free, taking time in her life to learn about organic food and how to raise a CSA farm.

Another wonderful intern.

A random jar I thought looked cool.

A variety of vegetables among rows (including resting rows) keeps bugs at bay and the soil rich in vitamins and minerals

 A volunteer, spending his time helping with the weekly harvest.

More vegetables comin' up!

Check and see if there is a local CSA near where you live.  You can usually find such farms on Google.

 That's how I found my farm.

Cheers!

-CK