Growing up, my daddy always planted a backyard garden, and we delighted in homegrown tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, peas, beans, melons, and squash all summer long. There is nothing better than a tomato sandwich or BLT made with fresh garden tomatoes or strawberry shortcake or pie made with strawberries that you picked yourself :)
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Now that I've moved far away from home and live in an apartment with very little sunlight (even on the porch!), I can't enjoy homegrown produce so I've recently started thinking about alternatives to the home garden. Several of my friends have joined CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) arrangements at local farms where they receive a full or half-share of seasonal produce picked by the farmers every week or two weeks. I can see the benefits of supporting a local family farm and getting produce delivered, but CSA's seem a little pricey to me, and I'm not sure that Peter and I would actually eat all of the produce offered. We're not picky eaters, but there are a few vegetables that we just don't like at all and I'm afraid we would just waste them if they appeared in our CSA share. I also really like making recipes that I find in magazines, cookbooks, blogs, etc. as I find them, but if we had a CSA, I would be restricted to making only recipes using that season's produce. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad change to make to my cooking habits, but it would be quite a big change.
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There are also farmers' markets and produce stands to consider. I've visited our local farmers' market a few times, but I have to tell you, I don't really enjoy getting up extra early on Saturdays to make it to the market by 9:00 before all of the best produce is sold out :( The closest nice produce stand to us is a good 30 minutes away and their hours aren't the best either. And the produce at these places is also on the pricey side. I wouldn't mind paying a little extra if I knew for sure that it was worth it, but since we're on kind of a tight budget, I don't want to pay more for no good reason. As you can see, I have a lot of questions about this stuff, and I would love some help figuring all of this out!!!
So where do you buy summer produce? CSA? Farmers' market? Produce stand? Grocery store? Organic or non-organic (which is another big question for me!)?
