CSA: What's in the Box?

It's CSA time again starting this week - another season of weekly veg boxes and I couldn't be more excited. CSAs, or Community Supported Agriculture farms provide fresh produce on a regular basis to members. Subscriptions generally last for several months over the growing season, and some include access to eggs and bakery goods as well. It's all fresh, local, and usually organic to boot.

This will be our fifth year as members of the Tipi Produce family. Farmers Beth Kazmar and Steve Pincus have been providing goodies for their CSA for, well, for at least the five years we've been members... I know they've been organic farmers for some years before that as well (since 1975 according to their website). We always get the weekly share as opposed to the every-other-week option. Some fruits or veg have such short seasons, and the harvests might skip a week, and we don't want to miss out on anything. We won't be sharing our box halvsies with anyone this year either - our first year going solo. Once the season is in full swing, we will receive a full bushel box of mixed veg every week. geekMan and I love our veg, but it's a lot for two people to get through (even with occasional help from younger family members).

Starting Fridays for the next 26 weeks of the CSA season, I plan to share with you what we get in our box each week and what we manage to do with it. Waste will not be an option. My goal is to either eat or preserve everything we get in each box. What we can't eat will be shared with as-of-yet unsuspecting co-workers (most of which are poor and often starving graduate students willing to accept the handouts). We know the pace of veg consumption might get hectic; we are hungry for the challenge.