Quote Originally Posted by Owlie View Post
... I don't think I could afford to eat.
This is one of the reasons I belong to a CSA.

One of the biggest costs in fruits and vegetables is the costs to pick/process/ship, etc.

But at my CSA (1.5 miles from my house), the members do the picking and bundling. (Each member is asked to volunteer to pick/bundle twice during the 29 week season). Members pick up their veggies at the farm each week.

29 weeks = $800 = $27.50 per week.

I picked up my share today. I got:
1) 2 heads lettuce
2) 1 bunch Kale
3) 1 bunch basil
4) 1 bunch parsley
5) 6 cucumbers
6) 5 zucchini & summer squash
7) 1 bunch purple carrots
8) 1 fennel
9) 4 tomatoes
10) 5 red potatoes
11) 8 green apples
12) 2 onions
13) 2 garlic bulbs
14) 1 head cauliflower
15)
16)
17)

I'm having a brain fart on the last 3 things, but I know there were 17 items, because they number them up on the dry erase board each week. It's probably going to drive me crazy until I remember them...

As members of the CSA, we share in the success of failure of each crop, so some weeks or seasons, there's less and others there's more. This season has been pretty good so far. But even in weeks or seasons when the haul is lighter, I still feel like I'm getting a lot of food for the money being spent, especially compared to the costs of organics at the grocery store. Our CSA is *not* ceritified organic, but it's quite small - feeds less than 100 families - and we know the farmers. We know that while they do use fertilizers, they use everything as natural as they can (manure, etc.), don't spray nasty pesticides, etc. We buy fresh eggs from them every week as well, and sometimes cheeses that they make from their goats.

I feel very fortunate to live someplace where I can get my vegetables from people I know, just down the road a piece. And one of the reasons I choose to do it is because like GLC and Veronica, it seems to me that the more people support it, the more common (and therefore less expensive) it will become as more farmers move to a healthier, more sustainable way of farming.