As regular readers of Coupons, Deals and More know, hubby and I are big proponents of buying local and one of our “buy local” weekly purchases is our CSA.
After a lousy start to the CSA year due to all the rain the northeast experienced in June and July of this year, the CSA really came on strong. Our weather has been outstanding since August 1st so they were able to salvage the season. We’ve had tons of leeks, onions, squash, cabbage, lettuce, kale, kolerobi, turnips and beets. We received little by way of beans or tomatoes this year. Apparently there was a tomato blight that really hit the organic farms.
Our CSA is starting to concentrate heavily on the CSA and starting to slowly edge away from the commercial markets. In our last newsletter today they again said how much lower the orders were out of NYC and NE (they are big suppliers to those areas).
So, while what we received this year was less than last year due to the quasi-late start, overall it was again worthwhile! For us, it worked out to approximately $13 per week for organic vegetables and a few fruits. Oh! THAT was big news this year! Apparently they purchased some organic orchards so we’ll be able to buy fruit shares within the next few years. I so look forward to that!
Obviously I love our CSA and we’ll be back again next year for more!
Recent rains in the Midwest did in much of the pumpkin crop that goes into Libby’s canned pumpkins.
npr.org
I read that yesterday, Kas. It made me wonder why they did not buy from around here… believe me, we had anything BUT a pumpkin shortage this year. The CSA gave us at least six, we bought on the side of the road for cheap, and you could see them unharvested because they were so inexpensive. Maybe the type of pumpkin was not quite right?
Ann
Supposedly Nestle/Libby buys from only one grower and yes that is weird. A few years back, I saw a crew out harvesting pumpkins at one of the few farms left in St. Louis County. My guess was that all the workers were Hispanics. Perhaps there’s shortage of cheap labor to get those pumpkins out of the muddy fields.
I witnessed someone turn a gourd into pies. Too much work and beside my slice of pie was stringy.