Anyone else have a CSA? Are you disappointed this year?

[nomad100]

This is the 3rd year we have purchased a CSA share. Has anyone else had a less than positive experience with their CSA? Felt like they weren't getting their money's worth?

The first year (their first year offering CSA shares) it was great. Last year there were pretty small baskets because the weather was deathly hot and all the local farmers had a hard time. Sadly this summer is more like last summer even though the weather has been fabulous. It is the end of August and the bulk of the veggies we get are kale, chard and herbs.

I seriptiously (sp?) checked out their stall at the Farmers Market and they had all kinds of produce. Stuff that we aren't getting in the baskets (like corn and tomatoes and peppers).

Am I wrong to be disappointed? I get that part of the CSA is to help the farmers but I don't think it means we have to figure out some Kale dish every week of the summer. DH thinks that the CSA folks are getting the "leftover" produce that isn't being set aside for selling at the FM. (And our summer share isn't inexpensive. It is $400 for the summer which works out to be almost $20/wk.)

This is what was in our basket last week 2 small potatoes, 1 small yellow summer squash, choice of 1 small eggplant or 1 small pepper, 5 stalks kale, 5 stalks chard, 1 small tomato, handful of parsley, handful of basil and 1 pt of blueberries. Does this seem small to you?

[badgr]

I do know that around here (upper Midwest) that the summer has been really cool and a lot of veggies are doing poorly. My MIL is a master gardener, and her peppers and tomatoes are tiny and taking forever to ripen.

[badgr]

Usually she shares a ton of stuff with us and this year she hardly has anything.

[nomad100]

badgr If I hadn't seen all the produce that we aren't getting in our baskets in their Farmers Market stall, I probably wouldn't be so frustrated.

Maybe it will get better in September.

[adhdfashion]

I like the CSA in the winter but in the spring and summer, I always find better deals at the FM.
This year, I just doubled the size of my garden and have bought basically no produce. I trade with a bunch of my neighbors and picked fruit at my parents.

[eddy]

We are not getting much for tomatoes, peppers etc. too much cukes and zuchinni lol.

[cutecloud]

I forget how much our summer crop share was, but our fall is $170 for 8 weeks, so $21.25/week. I think summer was a similar price. This is our first time getting a crop share and I liked it pretty well but I hated how one week would be almost all vegetables and like, 2 apples, and the next would be a shit load of apples, peaches, nectarines, a canteloupe, etc. and practically no vegetables. I know there were things we were "supposed" to get because they posted recipes using those ingredients on their blog, but we just never got them, maybe due to supply/quality issues. I believe spinach was one of them and maybe a type of lettuce too. We barely got any kale but got a lot of peppers, a fair number of tomatoes, and a few eggplants.

Jury is still out if we'll be signing up for fall or not. We pick up our boxes on Fridays and we'll be out of town at least 2 Fridays during the fall season.

[nomad100]

Aug 26, 2013 14:45:42 GMT -5 eddy said:

We are not getting much for tomatoes, peppers etc. too much cukes and zuchinni lol.

So far I have gotten 1 zuch and 5 cukes.  I actually want more zuchs because I have a delish  chocolate zuch brownie recipe that freezes like a dream.

Yeah, I am thinking that we won't do this next year.  It just isn't worth it. 

Better to spend the $20 a week at the FM o stuff we want versus the CSA share + $20 at the FM because we aren't getting what we want. 

[eddy]

They don't sound like a good csa. I mean even in terrible weather you wille always have a ton of zukes and cukes.

I love our csa.

[kirra]

Aug 26, 2013 14:49:28 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

So far I have gotten 1 zuch and 5 cukes.  I actually want more zuchs because I have a delish  chocolate zuch brownie recipe that freezes like a dream.

Yeah, I am thinking that we won't do this next year.  It just isn't worth it. 

Better to spend the $20 a week at the FM o stuff we want versus the CSA share + $20 at the FM because we aren't getting what we want. 

This is why my H and I haven't done a CSA. We talked about it, but my friends that have it say sometimes it's great and sometimes they don't get much and what they can get at the FM is much better. Our budget just isn't big enough to take a gamble on the CSA. 

[cutecloud]

I would have to ask H to be fully sure but I think the most recent box we had: a large eggplant, a head of cabbage, 2 potatoes, 2 ears of corn, 2 nectarines, a small bunch of basil, a head of broccoli, a small thing of mushrooms, and maybe a bulb of garlic? I'm not sure on the last one, it could have been from a previous box. So this week we got almost all veggies.

We have had almost no zucchini this year which is sad because I love zucchini. I will have to check for it in the store next time I'm there.

[nomad100]

Aug 26, 2013 14:54:42 GMT -5 kevin arnold said:

Mine had a distinct lack of Funions and Swedish Fish.

I wish it had Swedish Fish.  (A head of) broccoli just isn't the same. 

[PinkSquirrel]

I switched farms this year to give another local farm a shot, but I got an email last week from the farm I had been with the 3 previous years saying that the weather had been rough on crops in the Northeast and things were either behind or just not growing, but he had hopes things would get better. This was the first time in 4 years I've received an email like that and I have no idea how their shares have been, but I do know that they intentionally take on fewer shares than they can handle in the event the year is bad. The farm I switched to I've been pretty pleased overall. Around me, if you aren't happy with your farm, you do some research and find another one, but I probably have 10+ choices that are either located within 15 mins of me or have pickups in that range.