Thinking about joining our CSA? Great! But please think about these points –
Members of a CSA sometimes find that they need to develop a different mindset about food and food preparation. In this country we are generally used to planning the meal that we want to prepare and then going to the market to buy the ingredients, whatever the season. Obviously a CSA farm is not like the grocery store. When you get your veggies and fruit from the farm, you plan your meals around what you pick up at the share-out. Food is harvested when it’s ready. You’ll often get the same vegetable several weeks in a row. We will try to give you some advance notice about what’s going to be in your share, but that’s not always entirely possible.
Sometimes you’ll get more of a vegetable than you’re used to dealing with and sometimes you won’t get as much. For example at the height of tomato season (in a good tomato year), you could get 15 tomatoes. You’ll want to freeze them. Or maybe we’re having a long spell of rainy or very dry weather, and you’ll get one squash instead of three. You’ll have to pop that into another veggie dish. We try to combine items onto a choice table if there isn’t enough for everybody, but sometimes the math just works best to give each share one squash. Sometimes a share-out will be relatively light and sometimes very heavy. Our farmers try their best to make it fair for everybody. That’s the way of a CSA.
At some time in the season you will get a vegetable that you think you don’t like or don’t understand. This will happen. You can give them to a friend or try something new! Or if you really can’t use it you may leave it to be donated. Members can share recipes and preparation hints on our blog, and there are printed recipes at the distribution. We have to plant a diversity of crops so that if something doesn’t do well, there’s something else to share out. We plant lots of braising greens – they grow fast and wonderfully in our climate. So learn to prepare them and learn to eat them. We’ll have a cooking class in one of the first weeks of our season. You’ll see how delicious they are, and then you’ll be thankful that they are so abundant.
You might feel foolish about not knowing how to do a task or handle a tool when you’re working at the farm. It’s fine – Brenda and Alani are patient teachers and welcomes all questions. Ask the question more than once if you need to. We’re dealing with living creatures here – plants, insects, mammals, worms, birds, fungus, arthropods, soil microbes, humans, amphibians. All need care and our full attention.
Please consider whether you can make this commitment. You will need to do the work expected of you, but you are also committing to pick up your share on time. When there are extenuating circumstances, you commit to letting us know ahead of time that you cannot pick up or will be late. A CSA is a shared commitment. We would love to welcome you into our community.