I Don’t Hate Radishes!

A day in the life of a CSA share holder  . . . by guest blogger Gina Sampaio:

I have to admit I briefly considered not really trying the radish and just saying I did. In the end, my inner Girl Scout (did I mention I’m also a Brownie leader?) won out and I begrudgingly tasted the radish. I am very surprised to announce: I don’t hate radishes! I still wouldn’t say that I love them and I don’t know if I’ll necessarily be eating them on a regular basis, but I tried them and they’re okay. Odds that I would have tried radishes again in my lifetime if I hadn’t joined the CSA: slim to none. And now I won’t feel guilty about forcing my kids to try new things since clearly I set such a good example (ahem).

Surely some of the vegetables we get from the farm will be ones we don’t really like. However, I don’t feel like this is a deterrent or in any way decreasing the value of paying for our share. First of all, like I said before, I can share vegetables with friends and family members, particularly those who are helping me by watching the kids so I can work on the farm.

Secondly, by getting vegetables I don’t normally buy, I’ll be introducing myself and my family to vegetables I wouldn’t have bought on my own. I love cooking and I know that instead of letting these new tastes go unexplored in my veggie drawer, I’ll be looking for new recipes to try.

I was planting some seedlings for pumpkin vines in my home garden today and feeling glad that the kids would have their own miniature pumpkin patch to choose from this fall. I never would have wasted my precious home garden space on pumpkin vines before. It made me start to think of other ways I’m grateful for the CSA. Besides the reasons listed above, I came up with this list:

1.    Economic: it’s cheaper to buy organic this way than from the supermarket.
2.    Economic: Our money is going back into our own community.
3.   Environmental: Our vegetables are coming from 10 miles away instead of hundreds. No jet fuel will be burned in the making of my salads this summer.
4.    Environmental: By being able to afford all organic vegetables this summer, no soil will be polluted with pesticides.
5.   Social: We’ll be meeting like-minded individuals and families in our communities by working alongside them as well as celebrating with them at the many planned potlucks and get-togethers.
6.   Social: My kids will be spending a lot more time with their cousins this summer when I drop them off at my sisters’ houses so I can work at the farm without them.

The only drawbacks I’ve come up with (so far, ask me again in week 20) are that juggling kids and getting to the farm to work might start to feel like hassle.

Also, the bunches of produce are sorted into plastic bags. When I go to the produce section of the supermarket, I bring my own reusable produce bags (search for them on www.etsy.com). It may be possible that the future of the CSA would involve reusable mesh bags…but for now it’s plastic. So I remedy my plastic bag usage guilt by thinking of ways to reuse them. I’ll keep them with my other small plastic bags in an empty tissue box (great way to organize them, out pops a baggie instead of a tissue!) and use them for pooper-scooper bags when we walk the dog or to put loaves of freshly baked bread in to give away to friends…or family babysitters.