Our CSA

This year Ricardo and I used some of our tax refund to buy a CSA share (community supported agriculture). If you're not familiar with this, basically you pay an upfront amount to a farm, and then every week during harvest, you get a share of what the farm is able to produce. There's no guarantee that you'll get certain foods, or how much you get, it's up to mother nature. But, for about $26 a week for 28 weeks, I get a box of organic produce -- and that seems like a pretty good deal to me.

I chose this CSA (there are over a hundred local CSAs here in DC), because the pick up day & location: Saturday morning in Silver Spring. The Silver Spring market isn't as huge as the one I'm used to in Dupont Circle, but it's not nearly as crowded, either -- and they have lots of the same vendors.

My farm is Spiral Path, a family farm in Pennsylvania. Here's the truck they drive down to our area once a week.

And here are the stacks of CSA boxes. All I have to do each week is check my name off a list, and grab a box. It's that easy - I paid upfront in February. In the box is also a nice newsletter that lets you know what's going on at the farm and a few recipes for what's in your box.

You never know what you'll get each week, and to me that's part of the fun. Here's what we got one week: 2 kinds of lettuce, green beans, heirloom tomatoes, sunsugar cherry tomatoes (Ricardo's favorite), cucumber, zuchinni, summer squash, and swiss chard.

Of course, while I'm at the farmer's market, I tend to pick up some other stuff. I went a little crazy this week. Ricardo loves the scones and baguettes, and I'm partial to the fresh ricotta and mozzarella.

We really love our CSA -- we'll definitely do it again next year. It keeps us eating healthy!