First Shipment from Tipi Creek CSA

Last year Lisa and I joined a CSA, which usually stands for community supported agriculture, but at Tipi Creek Farm stands for community shared agriculture.

Here's the skinny. In March we pay a flat fee. Three times between planting in May and the last harvest in September, we go to Tipi Creek and spend a few hours helping out. This may involve planting, weeding, or harvesting. In return for our money and labour, every week from roughly July to the end of September we get a shipment of vegetables.

Last year we received salad greens, spinach, Swiss chard, onions, leeks, kale, radishes, peas, beets, cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, rhubarb, corn, pumpkins, squash, watermelon, potatoes, kohlrabi, beans, basil, and dill.

I learned a lot about vegetables. Last summer was the first time I tried leeks, kale, kohlrabi, and Swiss chard. I became familiar with different varieties of otherwise common vegetables. For instance, on the last harvest day in September we left with Hopi, Buttercup, and Godiva squash. Most importantly I learned about produce quality. Corn that is broken from the stalk, husked, and eaten within a minute (which, by the way, I didn't even know you could do, since we always boiled the cobs at my house) is impossibly sweet. After picking, the sugars in the corn quickly turn to starches, and after a day most of the sweetness is gone.

While there is a certain amount of risk involved (you pay the same amount no matter how well the crops do that year), it's mitigated by the variety of vegetables planted. Last year, you may remember, was very dry, and a few crops, like corn, suffered. However, for some reason the cucumbers responded extremely well to last year's conditions, and we received several kilos worth. This year has been extremely moist, so we are expecting a very good haul.

Which brings me to the quantity of vegetables received. Besides a few heads of lettuce and ears of corn passed along to Judy, and a really bitching Thanksgiving dinner for ten, Lisa and I didn't really share the produce. It's a lot of food for two people. Thankfully most of the items lend themselves to preservation by freezing, canning, or dry storage. Last year was the first time I made natural (fermented) vegetable pickles and the first time I canned and dried food. Honestly it was a lot of work. On shipment nights we would spend almost an hour blanching and freezing vegetables. The vegetables that don't take well to preservation (leafy greens) were a little more troublesome. I made a lot of really bad lettuce soup last year.

Lisa and I renewed our membership in Tipi Creek, and this week we received our first shipment. We got radishes, spinach, green onions, and rhubarb. This year we plan on weighing every vegetable that comes into our home, and finding the cost per weight for comparable items at the grocery store and farmers' market, just to see exactly how much money we're saving. I suspect that our CSA is cheaper than the farmers' market, but much more expensive than the supermarket (though obviously the quality of produce is better...) We'll have to crunch the numbers and get back to you.


Further Reading

Tipi Creek was recently featured in See Magazine. (It's a good article, though I don't remember receiving any "choragi" last fall.)