CSA Confession

I just wasted an hour watching a new program on my favorite TV channel, TLC. I caught a few seconds of the next show while I was picking up my dinner dishes and grabbing the remote. The show - Hoarders: Buried Alive - kind of freaks me out. In the four minutes since I watched the intro and sat down at my computer, I have forgotten the exact wording of the lead-in, but it was something like "this isn't an apartment, it's a garbage dump." The words resonated with me. Even though I'm feeling under the weather and could easily veg out in front of a show that holds no interest (and a little bit of disgust) for me, I had to turn the tv off because I have bigger fish to fry tonight. Er . . . bigger vegetables to process. While my house could be tidier and my kitchen floor needs to be mopped, the phrase struck a chord because I feel like my fridge is turning into a garbage dump lately. And I don't particularly care for the feeling. So after I finish this quick blog, I'm off to do something with all of this produce.

This morning I took some moldy grapes out of the fridge from a farmers' market trip two (?) weeks ago, as well as a quarter of a tomato that I really don't think I'm going to eat - because there are still more than a half-dozen sitting on my counter getting old - there is a small bag of beets in the fridge, two tiny bags of radishes, and two large bags of green beans, plus assorted bags of greens that have been collecting for three weeks now, and a large bag of tomatillos that I really thought I'd use for salsa, but I never found the time to make it. There is celery that is one week old and wilting, which I desperately want to make chicken stock with, but my schedule is unpredictable right now and I am not sure when I am going to have the four-plus hours it will take to make it. I have three bags of potatoes, and several shallots that should be cooked as well. Don't forget the four pumpkins sitting on my kitchen counter - I can't decide if I should cook them and freeze the puree for pumpkin pie, or just let them sit here until I need pumpkin for something.

I went apple picking with a friend on Monday and brought home several pounds of windfalls that need to be made into applesauce and apple pie filling soon! (I was proud of myself on Monday night because my mom gave me some pork chops she had thawed out then realized she and my dad would not eat before going out of town on Tuesday - I served them with 12 baby red potatoes - microwaved for about 12 minutes - and apple slices (from 2 apples) sauteed in a little bit of butter with apple pie spice and maple syrup for seasoning.)

On top of the produce I already owned, I brought home another bag full of CSA produce today, including one sweet pepper, a baggie full of tiny hot peppers, a bag of peas which I actually can't wait to eat, three large turnips, a small bag of potatoes, two large bags of greens, some dill, and a few other things I can't remember right now.

At this point in the season, I am vegetabled out.

Some of these vegetables that are wasting away were free-to-me because they came from seeds/plants my dad bought for our garden. Others were very cheap. I bought my zucchini and pumpkin seeds, and am satisfied with the harvest, although one zucchini went to waste and a second one is on its way in that direction. I bought the grapes that went bad at the farmers' market - they seemed like such a good idea - and they were tasty, but my husband didn't like them and they made my mouth itchy, so they sat around for too long while we ate apples instead.

I enjoyed having the garden this year, and, as I have mentioned in previous posts, I have big plans in my head for tweaks for the garden next year. As long as someone loans me a yard, I will be happy to put in the work myself towards making a garden productive and useful.

But I don't think Michael and I will join a CSA again next year. This is a hard decision for me to make because I like our farmer a lot, I think he uses good farming practices, and at one time I had big plans for getting more out of our CSA for next year - in addition to the veggies we signed up for this year, the farm does egg shares and members have the option of "adopting" a chicken (or more likely a rooster) who will come home at some point as Sunday dinner. It is hard for me to think about telling Farmer John that we won't be coming back next year. I'll tell him the truth - it's not you, it's me.

Some of my friends have been impressed by my ability to go to the farmers' market and buy a bunch of seasonal produce, then bring it home and turn it into dinner. I don't go with a recipe in mind, I just buy what looks good and figure something out when I get home. But the thing I like about the farmers' market is that I don't have to buy things I won't use - like tomatillos and hot peppers. At our CSA I don't have the option not to bring home things I won't use. Okay, I guess I could just leave them at the farm for some other member, but I believe in giving most things a try. (I did use two or three hot peppers in the salsa I made while canning tomatoes.)

I have read (I don't remember where) that farmers' markets are actually the least profitable way for farmers to sell directly to the public. I suppose part of this is because there are costs associated with opening a stall and making sure someone is there to sell the vegetables. Also, there is no guarantee that food will sell at the market. A farmer may grow a bumper crop of zucchini and bring the most beautiful specimens to the market, only to discover that it won't sell - for whatever reason (no one in the whole city likes zucchini; other farmers have a superior product; other farmers have a cheaper product; all the home gardeners grew too much, etc.). Likewise, the farmer may lose business because she did not grow carrots and everyone wants to try the new carrot cake recipe they read about in Midwest Living.

The beauty of the CSA, from the farmers' perspective (and Farmer John mentioned this in our weekly newsletter recently), is that the buyers/shareholders/members take the risk about what the farm produces, right along with the farmer. I signed up for a CSA that gave me a list of fruits and veggies they might produce. I paid a flat fee in January for produce that would be delivered over the spring-summer-fall. There were no guarantees involved. The farm could have flooded in April and never recovered. The tomato blight my farmer was afraid of could have ruined the tomato crop - but it didn't. I know for a fact that our CSA's bell pepper crop did very poorly this year. To make up for this fact Farmer John planted more radishes and greens, to make sure he could fill our box each week - although there were certainly some weeks that our boxes were only half full in spite of his planting quick-growing crops to make up for the slower-developing crops that did not work out.

This risk does not always work out poorly for the CSA member. This year, our CSA's crop of zucchini also did poorly. This may actually have been a source for some rejoicing in my household, as we were sort of overwhelmed with zucchini from my own garden. And for the consumer who loves salad greens, our CSA has certainly had plenty of those this year!

I think you begin to see my point. At the farmers' market, while I don't always know what they are going to have, I never have to bring something home that I know I don't want to eat. At the CSA, sometimes I'm thrilled with my haul, sometimes I get sick of a particular type of vegetable, sometimes I don't have any idea what to do with something in my box (although my CSA does provide recipes) and sometimes I just plain don't like whatever it is I find when I lift the lid of the box. Whatever I get on Wednesday afternoons, the money has already passed on to Farmer John. He admits he has not made much (if any) of a profit off of the farm since he started a CSA two (or three?) years ago, but he hopes the venture will become more productive as more and more members join. He gets money up front to invest in hoop houses, seeds, and organic certification. We get the hope of tomatoes in August. For many, it works out to be a good deal. Sometimes it doesn't. That's the risk we took.

I know other bloggers who are members of CSAs have posted about bringing home veggies they just don't like. I suggested a red velvet cupcake recipe for someone struggling with beets. I actually like beets - the reason mine are sitting in the fridge is that they are not big enough (and I have too few) to serve as a side dish for two people, let alone the main course of a meal. It seems silly to do all the work of preparing beets only to have about 3/4 of a cup of beets to share between two people. I guess I've held onto them because I was waiting for more . . .

So sometimes I end up with produce I just don't eat before it goes bad. And then I have a really tough situation because my only realistic option for dealing with vegetable scraps and rotten veggies right now is putting them in the garbage. I have not figured out a way to make a worm composting system work in my current house, and my garbage disposal does not work. (I have read that garbage disposals are better for dealing with vegetable waste, so I am operating under that assumption.) Instead of composting or using the garbage disposal, I throw scraps in my trash can, in a plastic bag that will eventually be hauled to a landfill. While the scraps decompose in a landfill they will emit toxic gasses that are bad for the environment. I obviously don't feel good about this! One way to avoid sending these vegetables from the farm to the landfill, after an extended layover in my refrigerator, is to skip the CSA next year and stick with food I will gladly eat and can grow in the garden, supplemented with treats (like fruit and sweet corn) from the farmers' market.

I feel like I'm making excuses for myself. Maybe I am. But I don't think I'm really making a positive difference in the world by throwing away the better part of $18 worth of vegetables every week. (That is approximately what our CSA half-share costs per weeks, over 20 weeks.) Sometimes I think a whole share would be better - there would be more beets so I could make a whole dish out of them - but then I think of the potatoes that are still sitting on my counter, the tomatillos I couldn't find a use for, and the peppers I really don't want - and I realize that it would be unwise to experiment with a larger share next summer.

Not doing a CSA next year does not mean I will be less committed to eating local foods. But I'm feeling guilty because I understand the reasoning behind the CSA so well. The farmer gets a break by spreading the risk. The consumer has a box of fresh produce waiting once a week. I guess I'm not cut out to be that consumer right now, and it makes me feel like a little bit of a failure.

Maybe when I have a family full of mouths to feed I will feel differently, and will relish the adventure present in figuring out what to do with a bunch of random produce. I'm going to stick with that thought and try to relish the adventure of figuring out what to do with the produce currently in my house . . . wish me luck!

(Soon to come - a post about the apples I picked, and whatever becomes of them. It did not occur to me to take my camera to the apple orchard, but there will probably be pictures of the finished products.)