If you have ever eaten a tomato fresh from your garden that is still warm from the sun, you know that its taste is unequaled and that store bought tomatoes taste like cardboard in comparison.

But not everyone has the space or the time to devote to nurturing their own garden.

That’s what makes Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) great. If you’re not aware of what it is, this is how it typically works:
- a CSA sells shares of their upcoming harvest of vegetables, fruits, herbs, and sometimes things like fresh eggs, honey, bouquets of fresh flowers, etc. (depending on what that particular CSA grows).
- members then receive a box of freshly harvested produce from the farm, usually on a weekly basis, throughout that area’s growing season.
- the box contains whatever ripened or matured that week.
- the amount of produce and variety depends on what each CSA grows and also on weather conditions that particular year. A drought year is going to mean smaller produce boxes but a great growing season will mean overflowing produce boxes because the CSA shareholders share in the success and risk of the farm csa produce box
Why should we support community supported agriculture and buy a share in a local CSA?
- the food quality is high; it’s fresh and is often organic.
- it’s environmentally friendly because it cuts down on the amount of food trucked around the country because food on store shelves in the United States travels an average of 1,300 miles from farm to supermarket (the number of miles may seem high but it’s because about 40 percent of the United States fresh fruit and 17 percent of its fresh vegetables come from outside the country).
- the food is healthy; fresh fruits and vegetables are the best things we can eat to maintain our health and vitality
- the food is unprocessed and free of added substances. That means the cucumbers will not have that waxy junk applied to their skin like their store bought counterparts.

To learn more about CSA’s and to find one in your area, visit LocalHarvest.org