Daughter of CSA

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

Community-supported agriculture is where you buy a share in a nearby farm or group of farms, and every X time interval they bring you - whatever they've got. So sometimes you're buried in Swiss chard, other times you're bombarded with unfamiliar squash, and sometimes there's just not anything you like or aren't allergic to.

Enter Daughter of CSA. (CSAlly?) Would folks here be interested in meeting at, say, Diesel, on, say, Tuesday evenings, to sell your CSA excess to folks like me who have no cars and don't have big enough families to warrant buying a full share? Wouldn't have to be just CSA members, of course; if your back yard has been taken over by tomatoes or zucchini, I'm-a there, paysan.

Anyway, if I get enough nibbles, I'll start a separate community so sellers can post what they're bringing & find out whether any buyers are planning to show up, etc.

Comments

Interesting idea

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

If I'm remembering correctly Tuesday night is already a pretty big night at Diesel, no?

Tuesday night seems to be a pick pickup night for CSAs, so people might not have a chance to fetch produce and swing by Diesel on the same night?. So you might want to take that into account when you deal with picking a day. (CSAs I can think of: Parker Farms (Tuesday in Davis, Thursday in Porter, also has bicycle delivery this year), Brookfield Farms (Thursdays near Porter), Luna Farm (Tuesdays near Powderhouse School)

(It never occurred to me I needed a car to get a share; I just pick my share up in my backpack most weeks, and there are other CSAs

Re: Interesting idea

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

I just picked Tuesday out of a hat - anything but Monday would work for me. Wednesday sounds like it might be good? I'm hesitant to pick Friday since so many people want to par-tay, but maybe Thursday would work later in the evening? I usually don't get out of work until late anyway. Not ruling out weekends either - any opinions on that?

I've emailed Wainwright Bank, who are right across from Diesel and have a nice community room for their customers (like me) to use for things they consider appropriate, so that might be an option as well. I just picked Diesel because I like it, not because I know what the schedule's like - I certainly wouldn't want to pick a night that it was packed! So those are both juicy chunks of information - thanks.

Re: Interesting idea

[turil.livejournal.com]

Alas, the community room at Wainwright is only available to non-profits that have business accounts at the bank, not individuals.

Re: Interesting idea

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

Oh, OK. Thanks for the clarification.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Wednesday is the Davis Square farmer's market, too.

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

OK, Thursdays are starting to look a bit better, then. Thanks! I've been to the Davis Square market a few times when the day job didn't have any work for me, and it's really awfully nice (good variety) for such a small space.

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

Please check with your local CSA farmers before doing something like this. CSA members get their produce for a better price than what the farmers make when they sell at the farmer's market, because they pay up front for the whole season. If you re-sell your produce in the neighborhood, you may be undercutting your CSA farmer at the farmer's market.

Trading with friends or giving away excess produce is pretty standard, but the farmers may not be thrilled if you're picking up your share and then re-selling parts of it. Maybe it's okay, but I would ask around before you got going.

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

Whoa! I'm not a member, so this is news to me. I was sort of hoping that the opportunity to sell off excess would push a few over the edge into wanting to join a CSA. Could folks who actually belong to CSAs please ask their farmers about this?

Thanks!

[moria923.livejournal.com]

I'd be very interested in something like this. I won't be getting a CSA for myself because a) I don't drive and b) we don't eat enough produce to justify it. Being able to buy off others would be a tremendous boon.

[upsidown.livejournal.com]

I worry about undercutting CSA people at the farmer's market, too. That said, I am definitely in the population whose population is too small to buy CSA (and can't always get to a local farmer's market because of work).

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

I've had good results with 2 (or more) households getting together to share a CSA share.

[jennyelfenmass.livejournal.com]

An alternative if people are worried about harming the farmer, they could try to split a share with someone. My house splits our share with 2 of my coworkers. We rotate who picks up and then distribute to the rest of our group each week.

The score at halftime

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

So far I've got maybe two buyers, no sellers, a handful of dire but unsubstantiated warnings, and a solidifying impression that CSA simply isn't efficient below a certain resource level. It's not clear that anything WAS going to waste in the first place, because folks with the wherewithal but not the mouths to feed simply split their shares. Is that the case in your/yinz/y'all's experience?

Re: The score at halftime

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

Splitting shares is what I do! All the shares I've bought have known I did this and no one had an issue with it. I do sometimes hand off either pickups when I'm on vacation or extra produce, but usually I just give it away.

Food Swap!

[turil.livejournal.com]

How about a weekly "food swap" party! Like a used clothing or toy swap, but offering (not so used) food, with people bringing whatever food they happen to have too much of that week, and can take whatever food they want home with them (and no money changing hands, just food, and good company). Not just produce, but anything, including massive quantities of leftover lasagna and pinapple juice from the-party-that-didn't-happen, serious cases of "I live alone and made way more brownies than one human being should ever eat", and the periodic problems of "I just went raw vegan and don't need all this peanut butter and jelly and cans of soup now anybody want 'em?".

Re: Food Swap!

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Intriguing! Food for food. Hubby bought the wrong brand of mustard. I'm pregnant and can't stand black beans any more. Doc told me no more soda pop... It could be hard to find a place to do it (certainly no place that sells goodies would want us carting sacks of cookies in), but it's worth talking about.

Re: Food Swap!

[turil.livejournal.com]

The extra-friendly church on College Ave there might be willing to offer a space for this kind of thing, especially if leftovers were donated to Food For Free or something...

Re: Food Swap!

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

Which church is that? Do you have an in there? We'd probably have to transport the leftovers ourselves, as vehicles and volunteers are in short supply.

Re: Food Swap!

[ron_newman]

Which of the five churches on that street do you mean?

Re: Food Swap!

[turil.livejournal.com]

Also, I think a lot of this kind of thing tends to go on casually at workplaces. People just bring in their garden/CSA overflows for their coworkers.

[obie119.livejournal.com]

That's certainly what we do with excess from our winter CSA - bring it to a social gathering and give away a sweet potato as a prize, or give some to a coworker who is craving bitter greens :)