speaking of farmers' markets

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

My husband and I just signed up for a CSA (aka farm share) through Parker farms, to be delivered to Davis Square weekly, and I was wondering if anyone else has used them, or if they use anyone else for a CSA, and what your experience has been like?

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

There's an LJ community for Parker Farms-- http://community.livejournal.com/parkerfarmcsa/

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

cool, i didn't know that.... i'll keep an eye on it and see if it gets more traffic as the spring approaches

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

Parker Farm is awesome, my wife and I were in their CSA last year and we're doing it again this year. The LJ community was a good source for recipes and discussion.

If you haven't done a CSA before, the trick is to adapt your meal planning (if you do any) to accommodate seasonal produce so that you're ready to use what you get. We had some challenges (like beets being in season at a time when our kitchen was far too hot for roasting beets), but overall we really liked it.

[jadelennox]

I use Brookfield firm which gets dropped off weekly in Arlington Center, and I love it. I've been doing it for years now. I've had to change how I cook, learning how to adapt to what's available instead of planning recipes ahead of time from the small amount of ingredients are already know how to use, but that has actually been a fabulous experience and, I think, made me a much better cook. And the quality of food is far superior to anything I get accepted the farmer's markets, and very cheap if you look at the season price.

There are always disappointments. Some years there are too few cucumbers and too many cabbages, or too little spinach and too much eggplant, but those get balanced out by the unexpected surplus of melons or tomatoes. The farm being in Amherst means I only get to go up and get pick your own about once a summer, which is disappointing (I'm carless), but it is still well worth it.

And that's just the quality and diversity of the food, and not even counting the good feeling that comes from supporting local small farms.

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

We belong to Waltham Fields, which is a great nearby CSA (but I've heard there are no shares available this year because everyone from last year re-signed this year). It has all the advantages of any other CSA, plus it drops off in Davis Square, and it is close, which makes it easy to head over there every week to pick your own. Picking the veggies is the kiddo's favorite aspect of the program. She will eat off the vine food she will not eat off the plate.

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

I'm a huge fan of Parker Farms. Steve's great and Little Steve is adorable.

green, leafy

[wolftone.livejournal.com]

CSAs are great if you like kale. Lots and lots of kale.

Then again, maybe not: meat CSA (http://www.stillmansfarm.com/meatcsa.html)!

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I was moderately happy with Parker Farm for the past three years. It's a really small operation and I liked that I was supporting an individual farmer. I didn't re-up for this year because I felt like I was being constricted too much by what I got, and not able to take advantage of the greater variety of local produce available from the many farmer's markets in the area. It was a great learning experience and I may go back and do it in 2009 or beyond.

Tip #1: get a salad spinner, you'll need it.
Tip #2: learn to like beets.

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

Tip #3: Get one of those handy choppers they advertise on TV.
Tip #4: Chop and freeze anything you can't eat right away. Then you can have tomatoes and beets and kale in the winter.

Re: green, leafy

[nungnung.livejournal.com]

Oh, my. I think you just changed my life forever.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Tip #5: Befriend the other members of the CSA, especially the ones who like the veggies you dislike and vice versa.

[bettyw.livejournal.com]

Tip #6: if you drive to the pickup and do not have a Somerville parking sticker, go one block further down and park on the Cambridge side. There's an enterprising Somerville metermaid who knows the pickup schedule and show up just as everyone is in line at the truck...

[cutieperson]

there weren't enough tomatoes, beets, or kale with Parker Farms to have any to freeze. turnip greens, carrot greens, mizuna, and parsnips on the other hand...

Re: green, leafy

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

omg, o_0 that's awesome!!!

My family used to get together and buy a cow each year. they'd have it butchered and packed up and we'd have beef in the freezer all year. It was great.

I wish it were just a little less expensive, as the per lb cost is still a little higher than I would want to spend... but it's very tempting....

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I still have some mustard greens in my freezer!

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

we're pretty good at cooking and freezing things, but do you have any tips on how to freeze produce? (we usually do sauces and soups, and meat).... can they just go in a ziploc?

[ron_newman]

Sounds like something to tell 311 about -- ask that the city not interfere with the CSA this way.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Another happy Parker Farm csa customer here. True, we got a lot of stuff we didn't like, and a lot of stuff that we liked but got very tired of -- but overall it was a positive experience and we barely had to think at all about whether to sign up again this year. My 4-year-old really enjoyed it too -- just the other day he asked me when we're going to go "get the vegetables from the man in the truck."

As a bonus, at the end of the year after he stopped doing distributions, Steve invited us out to the farm to pick as much as we wanted of what was left. We went twice and got a ton of great stuff. My kids really enjoyed picking carrots, it was a great lesson for them in where food comes from, and we are still eating the carrots even now.

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

I put them in the freezer ziplocs (or actually, I use Heftys). Sometimes I actually label the bags, but usually I'm squinting at frozen cubes in the winter trying to figure out what the heck is in the bag--parsnips? potatoes? turnips? eggplant? squash? Finally, I decide that whatever it is, it will do, and I throw it in the pot.

Re: green, leafy

[tlluria.livejournal.com]

we got lots and lots of swiss chard.

but we loved them for all the other stuff they gave us to cushion the heaps of swiss chard with.

[tlluria.livejournal.com]

and swiss chard

meat CSA comments

[obie119.livejournal.com]

re: the meat CSA, the meat goes a long way - plus the cuts are really nice cuts of meat a lot of the time, where the equivalent woudl be more $/lb than what you are paying. Plus, when there's a chicken in the share (seems like every other month) I feel like we end up getting over 10 lb in our half-share. (this is with Stillmans)

We've made a bunch of changes in our eating/buying habits so it's hard to attribute cost differences to any one thing, but our food costs have gone way down since we joined the meat CSA (and our produce comes from markets when in season) - I think a bunch of this is that we're cooking and/or entertaining at home more, as opposed to going out to eat as much. That's where the biggest cost difference is coming from.

And, the meat always comes frozen, so you never have to worry about it going off before you can use it (which is why I prefer the markets over a CSA for non-meat items)

Oh, and it's really sort of fun doing the "clandestine meeting at a truck" thing for pickup. :)

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

I have saved the beets in my freezer for a special occasion. But we scoured the fields at the end of the season to find any possible beets, and that's where these beets come from. It depends on the year -- 2006 was excellent for beets, 2007 merely moderate. In my opinion, anyway, as someone who loves loves loves beets. :)

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

Cook's Illustrated had a good article this past fall on which bits of produce should be prepped which way for freezing versus canning, etc.

Also, hi! The Porter Square dropoff is at my house. I'm a huge fan of Parker Farms. :)

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

A better solution would be to allow short-term nonresident parking in all resident zones.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Loved Parker Farms. Lots of greens, as folks have said. That's not a bad thing, of course.

[nomacmac.livejournal.com]

I was a member of Waltham Farms for one year, but decided not to renew. Way too many greens for my liking, and everything was much dirtier than the stuff at the farmers market. Now, I know this is what homegrown veggies are all about, but I prefered choosing my own stuff at the farmer's market. I also ended up going to the farmers market anyway, for fruit, cheese, flowers, etc, so the farm share pick-up was an extra trip each week.