If You Can’t Grow Your Own Food, Invest in a CSA
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Are you choosing organic, buying local, and doing your best to support your local economy during these times? Why not invest in a CSA?
Victory gardens were encouraged during World War II to help alleviate the strain on agriculture during war time. It also boosted morale, built resilience, and was a cheap way to feed a family nutrient dense foods. Today, victory gardens are making a comeback. This is because “non-essential” work has been postponed, people want to avoid the grocery store more than ever, and families are social distancing in their own backyards.
What better activity than planting, growing, and harvesting fresh nutritious plants to cook up and enjoy at home? However, not everyone is blessed with a green thumb. If you can’t grow your own food, invest in a CSA.
What’s the next best thing to do if you can’t grow all your favorite veggies this season? Buy as local as possible, and this doesn’t necessarily mean your own grocery store. I mean we’ve all bought bananas and avocados. Bananas are definitely not native to the Pacific Northwest, nor are avocados, but we buy them “locally” from our grocery store.
Buy Local and Invest in a CSA
Instead, pay attention to what veggies and fruits are grown locally and adjust to the season. An easy way to do this automatically is to buy into a local farm’s Community Supported Agriculture program or CSA. I was totally unaware of what veggies could be grown and harvested locally. It’s a delight to see what may be growing at your local farm this season. Many heirloom tomatoes, types of micro greens, herbs, and root vegetables that are not offered in a grocery store can be bought from your local farm. There are also many other benefits from buying directly from a farmer.
5 Benefits of Investing in a CSA
- Decrease Transportation Costs on Environment – Remember those bananas and avocados? How did they get into your grocery cart? A long journey from farm to table, with excess carbon paying the price to our environment.
- Less or Zero Pesticides – You can be sure, based on the practices of the farm you are buying from, that your family will consume less or zero pesticides. If you live local to Vancouver, WA Flat Tack Farm uses “no harmful pesticides, chemicals, or synthetic fertilizers.”
- Rare and Unique Varieties of Produce – In smaller local farms you can find interesting varieties of your favorite veggies and fruits. Cooking becomes an adventure for your pallet.
- Support Sustainable Farming Practices – The produce we buy in the grocery store is far from local to your community. We really don’t know what the farming practices are when we buy a head of romaine lettuce, or a stalk of celery. If you buy directly from a local farm, there is transparency. You can step in the soil, meet the farmers, and see with your own eyes their farming practices. Many small scale farms like Flat Tack Farm local to Vancouver, WA focus “on improving the land to a healthier state using holistic, organic practices.”
- Support Your Local Economy – Instead of paying multiple large corporations to harvest, transport, and display in a grocery store, buy directly from a farmer – a valued and involved community member.
Where to Buy From?
Here are a few organizations that can help you find farms near you. If you are local to SW Washington, Slow Food SW Washington is a great resource. I honestly found Flat Tack Farm, from Slow Food SW’s Instagram account. Turns out the farm was only 3 miles away from where we live!
Another closely related organization is Local Harvest. You can search for CSA’s, farms, and find your local farmers market locations.
Speaking of farmer’s markets, checking out your local farmers market is a great way to see what farms are serving your community. Many farmers markets show which farms produce, and link to websites where more information can be found on their specialties and farming practices. Here is the link to our local Vancouver Farmers Market.
Is it Less Convenient?
Great strides have been made to help farmers compete with the convenience of a grocery store. In fact, Flat Tack Farm uses a platform called Harvie. On this platform you actually vote on what veggies you want the most, and what veggies you never want. This way your weekly or biweekly shares are catered to what your family will actually consume. You can also search for farms from the Harvie website.
Many farms have multiple pick up locations, conveniently located close to where you live. Sometimes your shares can be bought right from the farmer’s market.
Yes, it’s less convenient than going through the drive through, but you didn’t want to feed that to your family anyways. You want to save money by cooking at home, relishing in new and exotic ingredients, and supporting your local farmer who is giving back to the environment and economy you live in.
What about Food Waste?
If you’ve been following Literally Simple’s Instagram account, you know I’m on a mission to eliminate food waste for my family this year. I made this goal before the pandemic, but now eliminating food waste is even more important for our community and my family’s budget. One of the main arguments against CSA investing is that it provides a lot of produce that you can’t quite manage to eat before it spoils.
What’s great about CSA investing now is that you no longer have to commit to a full share each week, and scramble to eat up all the veggies before they spoil. You can choose biweekly pick up for half shares. This is what I chose because I don’t know how much my family will consume, and I want to avoid as much food waste as possible. Less bounty may mean more seasonal cooking for your family, and ultimately less food waste.
Save Money by Telling your Friends
If you’re interested, and live in SW Washington, this referral link will save you 25$ when you buy into Flat Tack Farm’s CSA. Once you buy in, you’ll get a referral link as well and can share it with your friends and family to save you another 25$. Let’s work together to move the needle on our food system and support local farmers growing nutrient dense foods. Could you think of a better way to make our community happier and healthier during these times?
Final Words
I have been blessed to marry someone with a green thumb. Even with a very small space, we have produced fresh greens, tomatoes, bell peppers, and much more. However, it’s not enough to fully support our family of four. Furthermore, I have become morally inclined to support the practices of sustainable farming. I know too much, and I want my dollars to vote in support of farming practices that give back to the environment, while simultaneously providing nutrient-dense pesticide-free food for our community.
To grow food during the age of processed and convenience foods is essentially to revoke the status quo. It’s a fierce retaliation to our food system, and a vote every time you spend your money at a local farm.
Choose local. Support your sustainable farmer, and do your best to grow your own food. It might be the healthiest choice you make for your family this year.
You might also enjoy these blog posts to help you live well, and eat local.
The Best Way to Live an Organic Lifestyle
5 Benefits of a Produce Garden in the PNW
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Join the Discussion
Have you invested in a CSA before? Tell us your experience in the comments below.
Author
Maria Halcumb is a teacher, writer, reading specialist, and mother. You can find her reading books, being active in nature, minimizing her life, and spending time with family and friends in the great PNW, or Northern Minnesota. If you want to learn more about Maria, check out the About page.