Thursday, August 2, 2007

CSA: Community Supported Agriculture

This year we bought a CSA share. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. We have a share in Busa Farm (http://www.busafarm.com/) in Lexington, and the idea of the CSA is basically for the farmer to have a more stable income. Particularly for small farms close to the city, it is very difficult to compete with larger farms far away from Boston. It's probably much more complicated than that economically, but this is my simple understanding of it. Below are some pictures of the farm-- the stall, some lettuce, and the farm in the 1930s.






Although we haven't bought as much as we would have liked with our "Busa bucks", there's still time. We're not the eat-vegetables-raw-every-day-every-moment type of people, so it's been, and will be, pretty great for making us find ways to eat better. I really recommend it. The additional advantage is that you have to slow down a little, go to the store and buy the produce (or the herbs, plants, etc). For the farmer, I think it's helpful and also means we're eating vegetables that have not had to travel far to get to our plate. Using space nearby to grow small amounts of food (subsistence farming) makes so much sense to me.

A side note: Our pepper plants are from Busa, and I just got some thyme plants named Thy and Me who I am hoping will survive the winter inside
with a little help from...)

Coming up soon:
1) Getting free trees from the National Arbor Day Foundation (10 flowering trees which will apparently land up on our doorstep!). To be posted when the aforementioned free trees arrive and I take pictures of the beautiful little things in our one bedroom attic.
2) Making bland vegetables taste good.

But first: cooking for the long term, how to use freezer space to eat better and cheaper... I know, exciting stuff!! Thanks for reading.


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