This week marked the start of our seasonal CSA shares, and to the left is a sample of what our members received in their share bags. The whole bag included a dozen eggs, for our egg members, a head of red butterhead, purslane, a salad beet, three large radishes, horse radish greens, spinach, broccoli raab, 2 small heads of romaine, oakleaf lettuce, simpson lettuce, red leaf lettuce, 1/2 lb of peas, 1 lb of strawberries, dill, tarragon, rosemary, thyme, citrus thyme, and lavender.We've kept the CSA very tiny this year and probably won't expand all that much next year, to be honest, because our goal is to make it work for us, not the other way around. We currently have 2 annual members and 4 seasonal members. I think the most we'd ever take would be 10, at least the way our lives are now.
At this point, I'm still figuring out the different packaging options, how long it takes me to harvest, and how to best keep items once they've been harvested. Trial and error, basically.
4 comments:
Wow! It all looks awesome. I wish I lived close enough to be part of the CSA.
how cool, if you don't mind, how much do you charge? we belonged to a csa in california but have never thought about being one. i guess we always thought that CSAs were huge. what a great idea. we have a bit of surplus which will probably continue. we currently give stuff away but this might be a great way to share the bounty.
I think you should still be able to access our csa agreements at our csa page as pdfs. All the details are there. *g* I prorated this year's annual subscription because we didn't have a hoop house in the spring—our plan is to build one this fall, which will hopefully create a four season garden able to support our family plus our two members with fresh produce, plus a dozen eggs each week.
I'm suprised, honestly, by how much work it is to harvest for 6 extra people each week, and I go back and forth between panic that I won't have enough and panic that I'll have too much.
All in all, though, I'm really enjoying having the csa, and I like keeping it small. It's been enough to give us an operating budget and allow us to purchase things like the electric netting without taking over our lives, and I imagine that I'll settle into a routine as the season progresses. I'm hoping that meat sales will eventually offset the money taken from the csa, but right now, everything's getting put back into infrastructure.
I'm happy to chat more if you want to email me.
we bought seed to broccoli raab this year, having heard of it but never had it. And laughed. It is mustard! Everybody here eats mustard greens! It bolted so fast we let it go to seed and will make raab mustard probably.
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