CSA: Sharing the experience of eating in the here and now

On Wednesday when we were getting ready for the Winter CSA pickup later that afternoon, I said to Gene offhandedly, “What a nice farm share this week! Its just how we eat!”

But, that really IS the essence of it all! I just love having our CSA because we get to share with our members how we farmers eat. We rely on the wonderful seasonal abundance of Maine’s growing season to nourish us, which means enjoying what we have when we have it. To me, that is CSA in a nutshell, Community Supported Agriculture. Our members agree to eat what the farm has to offer from July through October in the Summer CSA and then November all the way through March in the Winter CSA.

And of course, we farmers agree to grow it! Yesterday we took a walk up into our vegetable production fields. Working up there all day everyday in the summer, we truly get to know where our food comes from down to the square foot: planting, weeding and harvesting mostly by hand. That first-hand connection to what the land produces and when inspires us to eat in the here and now.

With the recent rains, the snow pack is much reduced and we can see patches here and there of the remaining stubble from the amazing abundance of 2014. I noticed the dried out stems of swiss chard and kale and saw where the deer had pawed through the snow to chow down on the green winter rye cover crop. I smiled. The familiar feeling of “it will come again” welled up inside of me.

We’re not alone in our hope. With Summer CSA memberships flooding in, we know that our wonderful local community is excited to support our small farm again this year. For this we are so thankful and inspired to prepare for another growing season with excitement and anticipation. We are expanding our Summer CSA farm share program again in 2015 to provide organic vegetables for even more local families. We hope that you, too, will join us in savoring the here and now of our organic farm! Check out our “About our Summer CSA” page for more info and sign up today!

Here’s a look back on our 2014 Summer CSA farm shares in photos: 16 weeks of 76 total different varieties of fresh vegetables, all organic, and all grown right here at Ripley Farm! It will all come again…

Week 1: July 2