CSA Report: Red Earth Farm

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Before I go to pick up this week’s share I thought I should post my picture from last week.

1 bunch of carrots with tops, a bag of beets, a bag of perpetual spinach, three green peppers, three slicing tomatoes, and a bag of white potatoes. From the buying club there’s a block of Oak Shade Jack Cheese and a pound of raw honey and last week was an egg and fruit share week. The fruit was a variety of yellow and white peaches.

Two summers ago I was not impressed by the fruit share. It seemed like I was paying too much for not enough fruit and ended up buying additional fruit through the buying club each week it was available. Last year I decided not to purchase a fruit share, but there wasn’t any fruit available from the buying club which meant an additional weekly trip to buy fruit from the farmer’s market. This year I decided to give the fruit share another go. I’m sorry to say I’m disappointed again. The quality of the fruit is fine, but there’s not a lot of it for the price per week. None of the peaches last week were sweet enough for eating, not even the fully ripe ones. I don’t mind that some of the fruit, like sour cherries, is best for cooking, not eating. But with two small kids I like to have fruit that they can eat right away. We’ve had better luck with the overgrown blackberry bush down the street and the fruit from the local supermarket than with the fruit from the CSA. I hope I feel better about the fruit in the fall when apples, which store well and travel well, are abundant, but I will not be getting a fruit share again. The good news is that we have no complaints about the vegetables.