The CSA

Well, today we picked up our first box of produce from the CSA farm we bought a share in. We actually bought a half share, so we could test it out and see if we like it and to see how much you actually get in a share/half share. The farm is an organic farm down in Merced, and it has eggs available, too, but we didn't get the egg subscription (I'm not sure what it would take to get John to agree to pay $5.75 a dozen for eggs, even if they're fresh and the chickens are free to roam the farm, as chickens should be, but we'll see).

The half share is about $15 per week, and I spend a lot more than that a week on produce. I do think that I would have spent about that amount on the same amount of produce at the store, and that's not even the organic stuff at the store. So, just on bulk alone, it's a good price, but then if you take into account it's organic and fresh picked, it's a real deal.

I definitely think a half share will not be nearly enough. A half share is supposed to be enough for two adults for a week. Hm, maybe, but it's definitely not enough for us. It might last through the weekend.

But, we did get some good-looking stuff! The box had in it:

• Radishes of various colors, with greens attached (so, for me that counts for two different veggies)
• A big bunch of spinach. I think we can do lasagna and still have some left.
• Bell peppers. They're small and there was one orange, two green and a purple one.
• Cherry tomatoes. A green basket-full. Very tasty. I'd be more excited about them if I didn't have a rabid tomato plant in my garden still. But we do like tomatoes.
• A head of garlic
• A just-right sized head of red cabbage. We never seem to be able to use the whole head of the big giant ones they have at the store. This one is perfect in my opinion.
• A huge gigantic head of red leaf lettuce. It has to be twice the size of the leaf lettuce heads in the grocery store. I bet we could get a couple salads at least. The outer leaves are nice, too, so we don't have to toss them.
• Some yukon gold potatoes. Just enough for one side dish. Might be small portions for all five of us.
• A pomegranate.
  

This stuff was all picked fresh recently, most of it this morning. It smells like garden-grown produce. Which is how food should smell.

We steamed the radishes for dinner tonight and the kids ate every bit of them. They don't like them raw, they think they're too hot. I had them each take a nibble off of them before we cooked them and they all hated them. After steaming, they tasted a lot like broccoli and cauliflower, but none of the heat. Perfect. Two of the kids also had lettuce on their sandwiches.

I'm thinking we'll have stir-fry with the peppers and the lone radish that escaped (found it in the box after dinner) and maybe toss in some spinach and some of the cabbage.

This weekend they're having a open house down on the farm so you can meet the farmer and see the farm. They're also serving lunch. We're going. Soup and salad made from their produce and homemade bread? Can't beat that. John was hesitant until I mentioned the lunch. It's going to interrupt our applesauce marathon planned for Saturday, but how often can you visit the farm and see where your food grows? Well, for this farm, twice a year, but aside from that.

The pick-up location for the produce is at a health food (vegan/vegetarian/natural remedy) shop downtown. Turns out, we know the owners of the shop from church. They have a huge shelf about six feet high and 10-15 feet wide packed with jars of every imaginable powder, herb, spice, etc. in glass jars. It's like an old-fashioned apothecary shop! There's also a yarn shop that shares part of the store, but it's an independent shop, and I bought some double-point needles so I can finish the hat I'm working on. I'm learning to knit in the round. But that's a story for another blog post.

The kids and I went apple picking this afternoon, so in addition to the CSA box, we have three 40 lb. boxes of pink lady apples that need to be made into applesauce this weekend. We'll see how far we get with that.