Summer favorites

Someone recently asked me about the cost of a CSA v what I'd spend at the grocery store.

We pay about $14 a week, which is slightly more per week than we paid last year, but our farmer this year grows more "backyard garden" kind of stuff, which is a bigger hit with the fam. This cost obviously differs among farmers, regions, items grown and how organic the farmer is.

One green pepper; two onions; two tomatoes (yeah! tomatoes); three cucumbers; three pickling cucumbers; four banana peppers; one eggplant; three Japanese eggplants; up to four zucchini (I only took two because, frankly, I don't want any more zucchini); one head of leaf lettuce; one bunch of basil; one bunch of carrots; one head of garlic.

And music please.

A dozen ears of corn!!!
After several months of the constant mantra "I don't like it" from my super-picky 2-year-old, this was indeed a welcome addition to the dinner table.

(note* I checked at Meijer yesterday and calculated $14 without counting the zucchini, garlic or tomatoes. I definitely feel like I got a deal.)

Summer starts.... NOW

Our CSA started today. Hooray!

Today, the girls and I went over on the bike (it's a long haul and through some pretty busy sections of town so my husband will generally pick up after work but he couldn't today so, in the words of our beloved heroin Dora, "Lo hicimos.") and picked up our bounty of lettuce, spinach, radishes, green onions and Japanese greens. Even with a crappy, cold spring, we got a pretty nice supply of green leafies.

Belonging to a CSA is about the best thing, other than giving up a car, we've done to go green. It's a bit of cash all at once (about $300 at the beginning of the season) but you get a nice supply of veggies each week and you get the freshest of the fresh. This means eating in season and not having to stand in the grocery store produce section for 30 minutes deciding what to buy.

And it feels so awesome to support local farmers. This might have been our first pickup, but they also had a surplus of asparagus at the beginning of the season that they gave to their members, for free. Two pounds of unexpected asparagus! You just can't beat that.

Long live community supported agriculture. And summer.