But that doesn’t mean you have to settle for what a grocery store has to offer! If organic, locally sourced, in-season produce is important to you, consider signing up for community shared agriculture (CSA). Read on to learn more about what to expect from a CSA and why you should consider joining one.

Our weekly CSA box keeps getting bigger and bigger and I’m thrilled with our investment. This week was heavy on the greens, and I’m totally fine with that – we go through a ton with mason jar chopped salads.

This week was heavy on the cucumbers and summer squash, lighter on greens. I welcome buckets of squash, especially with our Inspiralizer working overtime, but I’m going to need more ideas for using up the cukes. We didn’t get anything new-to-us this week except for some cutie purple sweet peppers.

CSA Box number 2, coming in late after the holiday weekend! In the spirit of transparency this was an off week as far as meal prep went. I wasn’t feeling well the afternoon I picked up our CSA and was pretty much down with a tension headache-migraine until the following afternoon. So I didn’t clean and store everything right away (key!) and that made cooking time less-efficient.

As much as I love wandering the stalls I’ve always wanted to try a CSA box to streamline our trips, eat in season, and (best of all) support a local farm. I realized I was spending between $20 and $30 on produce each market trip, which is the same cost of a weekly CSA.