Earlier this week we received our very first community share agriculture (CSA) from Johnson's Backyard Garden. I was so excited that this was happening that I couldn't wait to get home to look inside the box and started pulling items out in the backseat of my car. Lame I know. For those of you who do not know what CSA is I'll give you a brief overview of the goodness that goes on. It is a local farming organization that grows organic produce and delivers the produce directly to your door or at a designated drop off location in your neighborhood each week. Additionally, Johnson's Backyard Garden (JBG) visits Farmer's Markets for those individuals who have not setup a CSA membership and would like to supplement their conventional grocery store produce from time to time. JBG started out as a small backyard garden here in Austin, Texas which was later transformed into a working garden and has been so successful that they now have a 20 acre farm and use regular volunteers each day to help get the produce picked, tagged, and boxed. When JBG first introduced a community share agriculture program in 2006 they only supplied to 30 families and now they supply to over 1000 families in Austin. That is amazing.
Additionally, JBG has added more farms in other Texas cities to provide fresh local crops to Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. They have relationships with individuals and restaurants and from what I can tell seem to be just a good and down to earth awesome group. No pun intended but you must admit it is kinda cute.
So back to my CSA box! I'd always pondered about having food delivered. And... I've always been pretty skeptical about having full meals sent to my door step but then realized that produce was something that I could get behind. I'm not gonna lie, I'll admit that I can be pretty cheap about some so called luxuries and was definitely not so sure about a weekly commitment. Well, CSA ran one simple promotion for the New Year (a free bag of oranges) and I thought what the heck, let's try one 4-week commitment. It was super easy and I was super thrilled that I could justify the ORGANIC produce in my grocery budget. Just go to the website
and select CSA Membership. Choose your box size, how often you'd like for that box to be delivered, and whether you'd like it delivered to your home, office or neighborhood stop. There is a box for everyone. JBG offers individually sized boxes which are good for one person and large boxes which provide enough produce for up to 6 people. The boxes start at $21 per week and you have the option of adding on items like organic pasture raised eggs, coffee and various items like grapefruit.
Enough of the details, it's time to look at my box!
February 2, 2015 Small CSA Box
