Thursday, May 17, 2007

We got a CSA Share!

Across the city, farmer's markets are opening and Kevin and I have been pretty keen on trying to wake up early on Saturday to hit them up. The key word is 'trying'. After our exhausting work weeks, and trying to relax with friends on Friday night, and needing a break from the annoying alarm clocks, it has been pretty hard for us to get up early enough on Saturday mornings to head down to the farmer's market.

But all is not in vain! Fresh local vegetables are now within our reach, because we signed up for a CSA share! CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Participating farms divvy up their crops into shares for consumers like us to purchase. By signing up, we get to have fresh vegetables delivered weekly (for about 5 months) to convenient pickup locations. We also guarantee the farmer a more stable income despite what Mother Nature may have in mind. The vegetables arrive at their peak and when in season. CSA shares are a great way to support local farms, eat more local foods and get the freshest produce. More and more farms are participating each year, so look in your local area for listings.

If you're in the DC metro area, here are some helpful links.

Northern Virginia CSA Farms
DC CSA Farms
Maryland CSA Farms

Our share is with an organic farm in Virginia called Bull Run Mountain Farm. This is our first foray into the world of CSA, and we're very excited. We're hoping that having all these fresh vegetables available to us will help us eat more healthily, and surely these foods will affect the recipes that we blog about here.


ps - Even with all these veggies, we still want to wake up and get ourselves down to the Farmers Markets eventually!

2 comments:

Rachel said...

That's really cool. I am going to have to look into it in the Baltimore area. I love the farmer's market, but we live in the outer reaches of the city now and rarely make it in.

mai + kevin said...

rachel, I'm sure you can find a convenient CSA that will drop off close to you.
let us know how it works out!