The long awaited first post...who what where when why how

This growing season, my husband and I decided to try buying a share in a local CSA program.
I could go into what Community Supported Agriculture is, but I'm afraid I wouldn't do the topic justice. In light of my deficiency, here's a link that will do a  much better job than I would: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

I do feel confident enough to describe the type of CSA we're in, though. You pay money at the beginning of the growing season, when you sign up. You select a pick-up day, then wait for the e-mail telling you when first pick-up will be. From what I gather, they usually have a good idea of when first harvest will be but (as always) this can be changed based on the whims of the weather.

The CSA we chose is Broad Branch farm out of Wyoming, IL. (I really don't know what it is about The U.S. reusing/repeating city names. Some of them weren't so great the first time around. How about some imagination? :) ) Here's their website: http://broadbranchfarm.com/
The pick up location closest to us is the Naperville Tennis Club, with pickups on Fridays from 3-5pm or Saturdays 10am-12pm.

We picked based on:

• price
• location of pick-up
• history of selection of veggies
• size of share
• plain gut instinct. :)  
• Oh, and online presence. Yeah, being geeks ourselves, we wanted to participate in a crop run not necessarily by geeks, but at least who have a grasp of modern communication methods and networking. At the very least we figured that showing they had a usable presence online also showed they were as into 'clean, responsible farming' as much as they let on. Dealing with a farm that needlessly advertises/communicates only with hard copy seems a tad hypocritical. We also wanted to see online, clearly, how much a share was (bushel or 1/2 bushel) as well as variety of crops (with names of varietals if possible.)  Transparency is a good thing when you want to see where your money's going. (Hear that Wall Street!)

At Broad Branch Farm, a share is $484 this year, giving us 22 weeks of 1/2 bushel boxes, starting the first week in June and going until October. At first this seemed like a lot of money. We considered the following:

• We had recently adopted a more veggie-rich diet, with less red meat and more whole grains/gluten-free grains (Hubby is a pastaholic and I'm a bread-holic with a slight sensitivity to gluten. Genetics are a cruel Mistress. :) )
• I was now cooking breakfast at least 2x a week and sit-down dinners 5-7 times a week to cut down on low blood sugar levels, urges to buy junk food and eating out so often
• We were really getting fed up of going to the grocery store and buying basic ingredients (lettuce, peppers, cabbage, etc) that were produced and shipped in from California, Mexico, Texas...but yet we know are also produced locally. 
• We were tired of succumbing to the lure of out of season produce being brought in from who-knows-where (S. Africa, Chile, Argentina, The Philippines are just a few places I've seen on labels, off the top of my head.) Though our local Dominicks (owned by Safeway) has a 'locally grown' area in their produce section, it's a tiny fraction of the available space, offers only a tiny handful of veggie variety, and RIGHT NEXT to them they have the shipped-in/out-of-town varieties displayed, at half the price! 
• -Finally, and this is my own beef (I won't speak for hubby here): I HATEHATEHATE that grocery store chains are in love with their damn sprinkler systems in their produce departments. HATE IT!!!! Dripping water on the produce does not Thing One to keep the veggies fresh and cool. What the water *does* do is
•  promote rot and/or freezing (if the coolers aren't calibrated right and the back gets much colder than the front) 
• add unnecessary weight to the produce before check out, which in turn costs the consumer more money (it may only be 5c per veggie, but imagine all the veggie purchases at the store in a year...it adds up!)
• gives a false illusion of fresh, even if the produce is anything but (also why the spritz veggies in commercials. Do you actually think that's dew on the leafy greens in the Burger King commercial??)
• causes a slip/fall hazard on the floor as there is never anywhere absorbent to blot the veggies before moving them from shelf to car, leaving your hands, the cart, the produce bag (if you used one) and all places in between covered in water
• WASTES DRINKING WATER!!!!!!!!!

Some might say that we over-thoughts things, and (being geeks) perhaps we did. Fact of the matter is that we really thought that going with a CSA was a good way to do our part to stop contributing to factors that we felt were directly having an impact on the community at large. Yes, we are only 2 people, but a crowd/audience/army/mob/revolutionary force is nothing but a group of individuals who all just happened to make the same choice...even if for different reasons. 

Anyway, that's it for now. 

Next post: Things to consider before you sign up for a CSA