Friday, October 17, 2008

Last CSA of the season

Yesterday was my last pick-up of the nineteen week Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) season.

Over the season I have exposed myself and my family to many new foods are recipes. A large portion of the food we now consume has been grown or made locally. The family's diet is now primarily vegetarian..and we aren't missing having meat everyday. In fact, when we eat more than the occasional piece of meet it makes us feel ill.


That last pick-up is my signal that the freezing weather and dark days are before us. Gone are the days of playing outside in flip flops. Gone are the days of endless fresh fruit. Gone are the days shaving my bikini line.

Raise a glass of hard cider to the promise that next spring will come soon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aw, so sad! I have a question though, another blog I was reading discussed the issue of CSA's and waste. Apparently a lot of members end up throwing away the food they get from their CSA's because it's just too much too handle. Do you think this is a problem that the CSA should deal with, or the people within it?

Gruppie Girl said...

GreenOffice~ Waste related to CSA's is a really interesting topic. Thanks for bringing it up!

When someone doesn't pick-up their CSA share, my farm donates the food to the local food pantry.

As for my own waste...I purchased a half share for the first year. The half share worked out perfectly for my family of four. The kids are small and don't eat large portions yet.

The farm incuded recipes with the sahre each week. These recipes were a great springboard to figuring out how to cook the new-to-me foods.

If there was something that I knew that I wouldn't eat, I shared with my neighbors. This was a tough one. Only my older neighbors would accept my extra veggies. I'm not sure why the younger neighbors refused.

Finally, when I had CSA veggies that didn't get eaten, the got tossed into the compost bin. While wasting these foods wasn't the ideal, having them turned back into dirt was better than relagating them the the landfill.

As for your question; I wonder if the CSA should include lists of local food pantries for donations of excess food. Maybe the farm can offer smaller shares. Or maybe the CSA participants should meet a few new friends to share with.