There are many practical reasons you’d want to join a CSA (community supported agriculture), beyond being a do-gooder. Here’s a list of things you should know if you’re a farm share holder, or even thinking of buying a share at a local CSA.
- You’re probably going to get more food than you can eat in a week, especially in the middle of summer. If you can swing it, plan on purchasing a chest freezer so you can cook and save food rather than tossing it in the garbage or compost pile. Saving and eating all the food you can makes the farm share even more valuable.
- Talk to share holders at the farm you’re thinking of joining, before you buy the share. It’s a good idea to get the opinions of a few people, especially about how much food to expect each week.
- Following up on that, you might want a half share even for a 3 person family, depending on how much food you can expect.
- If you’re a family of 4, you eat out a lot, and you don’t think that lifestyle will change much even with a farm share, then buy a half share. Again, it depends on how much food comes each week, but wasting food doesn’t make sense.
- There isn’t anything that says you couldn’t join a couple of different CSAs. Depending on where you live, there are food shares of produce, dairy, eggs, bread, and seafood. Often times, your local CSA farm will advertise complementary CSAs in the area.
- If you want to be creative, in advance choose some new recipes for your food. For two reasons I make that suggestion: 1) it’ll save time to know what you’ll do with that kohlrabi before it comes, and 2) if kohlrabi is new to you like it was me, it’s intimidating to be introduced to food you’re not familiar with. Getting the most from your farm share means taking advantage of opportunities.
Throughout the year of my farm share I’m gathering information, creating videos, writing blog posts, and in general thinking about CSAs. All that material is gathering on the farm report page.
What else should people know? Leave a comment below and I’ll update the post.