Thursday, December 04, 2008

The CSA Experience

The Post had a writer join a CSA this year, doing weekly reports on her experience. Wednesday she interviewed other participants and posted her thoughts and on the year. She and they are not uniformly favorable:
  • waste happens--too much produce at awkward times (vacations) or which doesn't please (beets)
  • guilt (knowing the farmer creates a personal tie and personal obligations)
  • risk (IMO this year had reasonable weather, though that may reflect poor memory) CSA's aren't uniformly successful--you take your chances.
So next year, her family is switching to a farmers' market.

Seems to me it encapsulates the trade-offs in CSA's. For a rigid personality (like me) who hates the unexpected and change, it's not a good choice. For someone who is more experimental, it may be. (Or maybe it's a question of age--the younger are more accepting but time leads you into ruts.)

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