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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Become a CSA-er This Week

The term "CSA" stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It's a great way to get an abundance of vegetables for a season (generally May through November) while at the same time helping farmers by ensuring that they'll be able to sell what they've grown. Basically, individuals and families purchase a share or a half share of the harvest early in the season and receive produce in the summer.

Old City Green is slated to be a weekly drop off location for Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative (LFFC). LFFC is a non profit organic farmers cooperative of 64 farmers in Lancaster County Pennsylvania. They focus on creating healthy high quality foods from highly maintained and enriched soils on small scale family farms. LFFC plans to deliver produce every Wednesday to Old City Green.

By signing up for a share or a half share (we--two adult non-vegetarians--signed up for a half share), you'll get a lot of produce and a pretty wide variety of stuff over the course of the season, from tomatoes to lettuces to peppers to watermelons to potatoes to sweet potatoes to squash to onions and so on and so forth. You can check out a sampling of last years' deliveries here. You can also order fresh meats, eggs, cheeses, breads, and other stuff at any time, which will be delivered with your order. I'm sure arrangements can be made if you're out of town one week, etc.

LFFC extended the deadline to April 23 (THIS FRIDAY!!!) to sign up for the CSA delivering at Old City Green. Please tell anyone interested in this great program to sign up soon to make this central Shaw location a booming success for LFFC. You can buy your share online here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I signed up with this CSA, but was told the pick up was in NE (9th and MD)......

Shaw Rez said...

Anon -- give them a call and tell them that you would like to pick up at Old City Green instead.

When I first tried to sign up, Old City Green at 9th and N was not an option to select in the drop down menu online (it has since been added). As a result, I imagine you are not alone in signing up for another D.C. dropoff location while really desiring Old City Green.



FYI -- Old City Green is teetering on not having enough participants to justify it as a dropoff location (probably due to the above problem), so the more we can get, the better. A dropoff location needs 15 participants. I'm told that a full refund will be given to any who signs up for OCG if they thereafter nix OCG location and the participant doesn't find the other D.C. location convenient. I'm hopeful the few additional people I've recruited in the past 24 hours have put us over that threshold, but want as many as possible so they recognize the need/desire for this CSA in Shaw!

Anonymous said...

I actually live in NE, near the 9th/MD location, which is why I signed up for it - it is so close to my house. I think the 9th and MD spot is close to being a no-go,too, based on the emails I've received. maybe they will condense the DC spots?

Shaw Rez said...

It sounded to me like another DC spot is very close to getting the minimum number of participants (I can't remember, but the location had a name associated with it -- like X and X Center or something? -- and I thought it was somewhere in NW) and that if OCG participation isn't where it needs to be, they'd offer us the chance to pickup there. All to say, a DC location will be made available it sounds like.

But my fingers are crossed that OCG gets enough participants to be a pickup location.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip! I plan to sign up for the OCG location.