Over the summer a lot of our peers participated in a local farms CSA program. I am not sure why I didn’t get in on it, probably because I have an extremely bad habit of forgetting things.
In California a lot of families on base got the CSA boxes from our local farms at like $35/ week and you could pay weekly or what have you. Here you pay the one seasonal fee and get your produce for 12 weeks. After one of our friends left town for a few weeks over the summer and had us pick up her box so it wouldn’t go to waste, we were hooked.
The quality of the produce from Pinckney Produce far exceeded that of our local supermarkets that really aren’t that local.
Here’s how it works:
1)You sign up online for the plan that fits your families needs. We chose medium because I consume a mostly vegetarian diet and wanted to receive enough produce that I could stop buying at the supermarket all together.
2) You choose your pick spot and date. Ours is a FREE location and date so there are no additional charges.
3)You pay for the whole season. Our price averaged to be $25 a week for the Medium box, At the super market I easily spend twice as much for half the quality so this is really saving our family money.
4) On your selected day, you pick up your produce at the time that’s best for you and you are on your way.
Pick up day is my favorite. Its like Christmas. You don’t know what is in your box until you get there. For us we aren’t that picky and are willing to try anything so this is really exciting to see what new things we can try. Over the summer we had so many different varieties of squash it was a lot of fun to look up new recipes or even to see things that weren’t that familiar.
If you are on the pickier side, no problem! they have a SWAP BOX where you can trade out what you don’t like for something you do. This time I swapped some of our pepper for another eggplant.
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- Our first box of the Fall season
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- I threw the disc down as scale.
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- I will have to comparison shop but between the eggplant and sweet potatoes I am sure that would be $15 or better at the store.
I have no doubt that this is something my family will continue. I highly encourage you to check out your local community supported agg programs.
Check out this awesome video made by another local model and her hubby a dynamic branding duo, The Lills Design.
travelswithminis 
Thanks for writing about this, Starla. It totally inspired me to research CSA options in Austin!
Thanks Emily! I highly recommend it. I am sure Austin has even more options year round. 🙂
That box looks awesome! We didn’t sign up this season because I ended up wasting too many veggies last season. 😦 I figured with a baby it might be even harder to incorporate new veggies, but I still really like the idea of doing it.