CSA Shares Are Here

What is a CSA? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It is a great way to eat more locally and support local businesses (mainly small farms). I love to buy stuff at the farmer's markets but they are all about 45-60 minutes away down in Houston. I found a way for the farmer's market to come to me (well near to me). There is a local farm in a small town 20 miles from here called Cleveland, TX. I actually work in and around this town doing home health. They produce all kinds of produce and normally sell at farmer's markets in Houston. But this year they have decided to start a CSA. You "buy" a share of the crop and you pick it up at a prearranged time for the period of the subscription. Our pick-up is about 7 miles away and we subscribed for 10 weeks. I bought a "half share" since Logan eats almost nothing and I didn't think that Charles and I could eat a whole share (although that would have been more economical). Our pickups are on Wednesday evenings. They do get a few things from other local farms when the share is small.

So our first share was really nice and as of today is already half eaten. We got 3 heads of broccoli, a large bag of lettuce greens, about 25 button mushrooms, curly leaf parsley, a bunch of green onions and a small box of micro arugula. I was surprised at the micro arugula. I never had it before (the micro type that is) and it was my favorite thing. A very wonderful taste that I thought would be hot like the full sized version but it was more "warm" and very tasty. I mixed it in the salad. I also don't typically use fresh parsley but again I found things to put it in that made the usual a bit different. That's great because I like trying new things and when it is sitting on the counter and your hungry, you find a way to use it. I am hoping that they have more surprises over the next 9 weeks. Yum! We will be away for one of those weeks and plan on giving it to a friend and they can pick it up. They are also supposed to have the usual garden veg like tomatoes and squash so it should be fun to see what we get.

You can find out what your local area has in the way of farmers markets, CSAs, and local farm stands at Local Harvest. I looked at many of your zip codes and found that there was something in everone's area, although some had lots more than others. Some had everything imaginable and others only had local honey. So go out and eat your vegetables!

And my garden is shaping up well. We have been eating kale, salad greens, spinach and radishes. The first blooms are out on the sugar snap peas. We are still a month off before cucumbers and squash and probably two months from tomatoes and peppers. We are still battling the squirrels for the strawberries and they are winning! The netting is hopefully coming out this weekend and I will finally get to eat some.

I am still recovering from my sinus infection and on my third antibiotic. The third is because I had a bad reaction to the second one. Levaquin. I will never take that one again! I hope to be doing more painting and organizing this next month. We will see. I am really behind! Hope everyone is doing well! Have a great weekend!