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Community-supported agriculture
By Carrie | May 17, 2008
I don’t think I’ve blogged about our CSA membership. We’ve always been big on going to the farmers market and getting our weekly load of fresh veggies. Last year when we went on the Piedmont Farm tour, we learned about community-supported agriculture and how helpful it is to farmers. Because people sign up for memberships early in the season, the farms get income when they need it most during their plantings. In exchange for our membership, we get a box full of fresh-picked vegetables from the farm every week!
Our CSA is through Brinkley Farms, and we’re sharing a family membership with some of the 605 crew, though they do individual and couple memberships as well. Monday mornings we get a list of what’s fresh on the farm that week, and Thursdays after work one of us takes a little side trip to RTI (seriously like across the street from IBM), where the CSAs set up their trucks.
Because it’s so early in the season, we’ve been eating truckloads of greens - spinach, chard, lettuces, arugula, collard greens.. and needless to say I’m pretty much religiously looking at Epicurious for recipe ideas. It’s definitely ensuring that we get tons of fresh vegetables in our diets. I’ve never seen Oak eat so much salad!
This week’s loot includes a huuuuge fennel bulb that is now taking over the refrigerator, a delicious head of green oakleaf lettuce, rainbow chard, and a half pint of sugar snap peas. Unfortunately they only had enough for 1 pint of snap peas per box so we had to split them up. Delicious though!
We haven’t completely stopped going to the farmer’s market, but it does give us a chance at some items you might only get if you’re an early bird (which I most definitely am NOT, especially on Saturdays - sorry Oak!).
So, I’ll try to keep taking pictures as the crops get more and more colorful. If you ever get a chance to join a CSA, give it a try!
Topics: around the triangle, cooking, food |
May 17th, 2008 at 6:11 am
I never got to try a snap pea… so sad. It’s okay. Also sadly, I’m not going to be able to try the chard. Ugh, silly travels.
May 18th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Wow this is awesome. I wasn’t aware of this!! Good for you!!