I miss my farm

With fall in full swing and the first wisps of winter in the air I'm already starting to miss the summers bounty of fresh vegetables.

After going on a bike tour of several Northfield CSA (community supported agriculture) farms last autumn I found a farm that I really enjoyed.  The farmers were friendly and answered all kinds of questions as the tour wandered around their farm, they had a nice plot of land and a cute little tractor.  The farmers were very knowledgeable about what they were growing and about the business side of running a CSA and were very open about sharing their experiences and struggles running the farm.  It was readily apparent that a lot of thought and attention went into making the operation a success and that the farmers were committed to raising good produce and improving the land they were growing on.  The size of the operation seemed sustainable and had a nice family farm feel to it.  Plus it was close to my work on the edge of town so it would be easy to bike over after work and pick up my share.

The farm I joined was Spring Wind Farm and after a year of being a member I have to say I love it even more than when I signed up.  I am not a very picky eater, so I have no complaints about mass produced store produce, but it certainly doesn't compare to food fresh from the farm.  Plus knowing how and where my food was grown, where the money I spend in my grocery budget is going, and that the food is grown, harvested, and distributed with sustainability and care for the environment in mind are very much feel good bonuses for me.  The farm also sends out a weekly newsletter with what will be in the share, what is going on around the farm, and a recipe for the week.  They have a website with many more recipes too.  They also have a couple potlucks over the course of the year so all the CSA members can get to know each other, swap recipes, and just hang out on the farm.

Here's how the system works:  Every week I show up and there is a table with produce and a board that says how many pounds of produce each share gets (beets, radishes, eggplant, summer squash, carrots, onions, potatoes and much more).  I could mix and match whatever was available on that table to make the weight I was allowed.  There was another table with greens (mixed salad greens, kale, spinach, ect.) and a volume that each share was allotted.  There were also special items (tomatoes, pumpkins, winter squash, sweet corn, melons) and the number of each per share.  Finally there were fields of herbs, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, beans, peas, flowers, and other things that I could pick myself up to a certain amount (often that amount was unlimited once the season got going).

I got the chance to try a whole lot of foods that I had never had before, and getting them right from the farm meant they would be as fresh and flavorful as possible, plus I could ask the farmer how to prepare them in addition to trusting my good friend Google to provide recipes for me.

So now that the season is over, was the $285 I paid for my CSA share worth it for the 19 weeks of produce I got?  The answer depends a bit on how I choose to value my produce.  Buying produce at Aldi has a lot different price tag than buying it at Cub or buying it at Just Foods coop or buying it at the farmers market.  Since the quality of produce I'm getting is best comparable to what is at Just Foods that is where I did most of my pricing to determine how much the food I was getting was worth.  My note taking was not meticulous throughout the year, but I took mostly the same produce, so I kind of just made a per pound average for the produce and used that every week.  There are some differences too, since I got squash per unit and not per pound, same with tomatoes and corn, so I kind of guessed at how much weight that was equivalent to.  I also didn't add up all the herbs I picked from the U-Pick fields since I didn't really weigh or measure those, but that is another significant plus because fresh herbs are expensive.  If I had bought all my produce at Just Foods it would have been at least $450, so I came out way ahead there.  My bill at Cub is usually about 60% of my bill at Just foods, so I pretty much break even vs. shopping at Cub, which is where I was getting most of my produce.  So for the same price I get fresher and better tasting (because it is harvested ripe and not shipped) that is pesticide and herbicide free (I do still have to wash my CSA food because it is not all dirt free, but I think I actually trust ingesting a bit of dirt more than some of the chemicals sprayed onto commercial produce).

So why put this post up now?  Because today marks the first time that I have had to go through the produce aisle since early spring to pick up lettuce, and also squashes and other things I can no longer get fresh from the farm.  Since I started eating produce I never thought much about when it was in season.  I know this stuff, it just didn't seem that important when I could just go to the store whenever and buy it.  Now the produce selection looks a bit sad all stuffed into bags with price tags on everything, but on the plus side my summer of trying new foods means I have a much better selection of produce that I know how to prepare and eat.  I also have another reason to look forward to summer :)