Anyone purchase a CSA share?

[greenmonkey1]

Has anyone purchased a CSA (community supported agriculture) share and have advice?  We have a few farms in my area and every year I consider it, but don't sign up.  This year has been tough and I think this would be a nice "treat".  I like to cook and we eat a lot of produce anyways so it's just adjusting my produce budget from the grocery store to a local farm.

Other than price and pick-up location does anyone have suggestions or thoughts?

[phdmomma]

We did one last year and there were a lot of unusual vegetables that I couldn't get anyone in my house to eat, including 70 lbs of squash.....so that was a ton of squash to eat. So if you signup I would say that you need to be ready for adventure and not live with picky eaters.

[campermom]

Yes. Order a half size to see if you like it. Consider the timing too. Mine came on a Wednesday which allowed me to mealplan for the weekend and the following week.

The theme for the family was "try new things" and they had to embrace that. The kids liked seeing all the new stuff like these speckled wax beans. Didn't always help to get them to eat it though.

[2chatter]

It won’t work for us (starch free). But I like the idea!

Another roadblock here, before DD’s no starch thing, was they asked each family to work 4 Saturdays a year sorting. DH said we would do it if he could pay someone to do it for him, but that wasn’t an option. It would have been hard with three in sports plus holidays and vacations to manage four Saturdays per year. That’s pretty much my downtime annually!

[polecat8]

We love our farm share. During CSA season, we don't buy any produce at the store. The cost is pretty reasonable too.

I agree with getting a half share. It will help you figure out how to deal with the produce.

Depending on the time of the season, you could receive an over abundance of a fruit or veggie. DH liked to freeze some stuff for later use. For example, we had way too much squash. So he cubed it, put it in a freezer bag and put it in the freezer for later use. We also got a ton of tomatoes. There was only so much sauce and salsa that we could make. We ended up giving some to family.

The farm gave us a list of produce the week before delivery and DH was pretty good about looking up new ways to prepare veggies. There were some veggies that we didn't like no matter what (i.e. parsnips). But everything else was really good.

We loved the farm that we chose because they would let you customize a little bit. For example, if you were not a fan of something, they would let you take a little more of something you did. Our farm also included some extras in various weeks, such as farm fresh eggs, maple syrup, or cheese.

[twinmomma]

We did it before kids and enjoyed it - but be prepared for crazy stuff, like the others said. Around here, basically all you get in the entire month of June is greens. Kale, lettuce, etc... It got really old really fast. I've found that going to the farmer's market works better for us since we can still explore new things, but pick and choose.

[186momx]

I haven't but we really enjoy going out to our local farms and either u-pick or shopping for what we want. I still have frozen fruit from 2016 in my freezer as we went a little crazy that year. I would be interested in a CSA but you get so many greens and only DD and I eat them so I feel like I would waste too much. We also grow our own garden so have our own produce to deal with.

For lots of tomatoes I love canning my own whole/dice tomato opening fresh tomatoes to make sauce or to throw in to stews/etc. right now is amazing. We also make tomato juice but that is a little more complicated and really requires my mom's special machine.

[sdlaura]

We used to. But it was a lot of work to figure out how to use stuff and I ended up wasting a lot of it. So now I do blue apron and go to the farmers market on Sundays and just buy stuff I think I’ll use.

[greenmonkey1]

Thank you everyone! I think trying a half share is a good idea or I will see if my sister wants to split a full. We garden too (the kids want to try corn this year) so it is a good thing I have canning supplies. We have a deep freezer too so I can freeze as well.

I don't think I've ever been so excited about vegetables. Perhaps I need to work on getting a hobby...

[mommyatty]

greenmonkey1: We are planting a 4x4 garden and I’m ridiculously excited about that!

[kbw]

We talked about it but decided against it and just try to shop at the farmers market instead. A lot of times the local ones have some very odd ingredients or an over abundance of one ingredient. For our food budget we decided to just purchase what we knew we would eat.

[186momx]

greenmonkey1, vegetables/gardening is a hobby. Trust me I've spent way to many hours freezing fruit, dehydrating fruit, and canning veggies. That is on top of the planting, weeding, caring of the garden.