Starting a CSA blog

Happy New Year! Welcome to our blog. We were going to get it going January first, but the rush of back-to-school overwhelmed. But we're still working on the vegetables from the first food box of the year, so we figure this still counts.

We belong to a CSA owned by Taproot Farms, located in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. CSA stands for Community Shared Agriculture - we buy a 'share' in the farmer's crop, and get a weekly food box all year round. We benefit, because we get super-fresh, local, mostly organic vegetables and fruit of a quality (and variety!) that you just can't get a grocery store. The farmer benefits because she gets our money at the start of the year (so she doesn't have to go into debt to buy seeds), and because we shoulder some of the risk - if it's a bumper year, we get bumper boxes (and the price for the farmer doesn't go down because of market saturation), but if a crop fails, we get smaller boxes. Although Patricia and Josh, our farmers, usually manage to substitute if something doesn't work out.

We thought we'd start this blog in part because we're pretty excited about the box, and remain so after almost two years of getting it; and we're proud of the healthy, tasty food we create for our family each week. Patricia also mentioned that some shareholders were finding it a bit hard to use up the whole box, especially in the root-vegetable-heavy winter months. So we thought posting our menus and some recipes might give other people ideas. Taproot shareholders can see what we do with our box each week; other people can get a glimpse of what belonging to a CSA is like, and hopefully be encouraged to join their own.

You can find out a little more about who we are in the 'about us' section of the blog. I (Kathy) am writing this post, but Kenneth and I will switch off posting, depending on who feels like it on any given day or evening. We don't promise to post every day, but we'll try to post at least a couple of times a week so you can see what we're doing with the box.