CSA - Community Supported Agriculture

The seed catalogs are arriving. In the cold of winter, those of us who garden are thinking of what we want to plant in the warming days of spring.  January also brings the first notices from farms who have CSA's that its time to think of buying a share so they know how much to plant.

The basic premise of a CSA is that a household helps support the farm by buying a share in the harvest. The farm then provides a weekly or bi-weekly delivery of vegetables, herbs, fruits, eggs and sometimes meat throughout a sixteen to twenty week harvest season. By becoming a member, you agree to share in every farmer's risk - the harvest may be bountiful or poor depending on the weather, pests and other factors that affect yield.All the CSA's we know about provide organic produce at a fair price. Ridgeland Harvest has been our CSA since we came to town.

We support CSA's for a number of reasons. For us, knowing where our food comes from is important. Equally important is directly supporting nearby farm families who are caring for the land. We love to buy locally and organically. We appreciate the concept of investing now for a reward later. We have been treated fairly and respectfully in our relationships with our CSA farmers  both here and on the eastern side of the state.

We also love the crazy kismet of opening the box and seeing what we get to cook with for the week - we commit ourselves to using everything in our meals. We have discovered and come to love many vegetables we never tried before (rabid collard green fan!). With all the produce, we simply eat healthier - less meat and more cooking to the season. It is an great incentive to celebrate the bounty of the harvest that we have right here in Wisconsin.

Besides the newsletter from the farm that has great recipes, a couple of cookbooks have helped with tasty uses for the bounty - our favorite is Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Season Produce from the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition. It is full of recipes for all the fruits and vegetables found in CSA boxes and farmer's markets.  We also rely on Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

We still stop by the farmer's market during the season. We like to browse, see friends, pick up a little extra here and there and support more farm families. But it's our CSA food that truly sustains us, challenges us and that we support our farmers by investing in.