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... on a number of things. First off, a reminder that the contents of the box change as the season progresses, and that they can be affected by the weather. If a hurricane picks the farm up wholesale and throws it into the Bay, you'll get nothing. (It can happen: in July 2007 a CSA in Texas was entirely wiped out by rains.)
Another factor is the number of people in your household and
how often you eat vegetables. So it's hard to say something such as "A share will take care of the vegetable needs of two adults for a week"
The best thing to do is to show you. So here are details on a few sample shares so that you can form a good impression.
In Week 5 of 2007, members received arugula, beets, cabbage, endive, kale, lettuce, daikon radish, spinach, turnips. Week 5 ended with pick-up on June 16, which is early enough to mean that the share is basically greens and cooler-weather root vegetables. Here's the group shot ...
From left to right, that's
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| two types of kale, |
curly endive and two types of lettuce, |
spinach, cabbage and arugula,
and
beets and daikon radish
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If you were to buy these organic vegetables at a store, this share in total would cost about 29 dollars. So you get your money's worth (a 2007 share is 27.50 per week) and that's before you factor in the fact that these vegetables were freshly picked that very morning, are harvested at their peak and so are most nutritious, and come from local folks you know and trust.
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Here's the share from Week 7 (June 30), which is comprised of basil, beets, bok choy, three cucumbers, red kale, toscano kale, lamb's quarters, parsley, swiss chard, and three squash (yellow and zucchini). (Sunflower not included.)
If you were to buy these fresh! organic! locally-grown! vegetables at a store, this share in total would cost about 31 dollars. |
Here are some more precise details for Week 12 (August 4)'s share:
- 2 bunches of thai basil
- Green beans (1 lb)
- 2 cucumbers (1 Suyo Long and 1 Market More)
- 1 lb eggplant (1 Globe and 3 Japanese)
- 2 heads Romaine lettuce
- 1 green pepper
- Potatoes (2.3 lb)
- Squash - 2 yellow and 2 zucchini (1.75 lb)
- A pint of Sungold tomatoes (.75 lb)
- 1 bunch swiss chard (.9 lb)
As you can see this is a mid-summer share - the only greens are swiss chard and the hardy lettuce - Romaine. If you bought this lot at a store, it would cost about 38 dollars.
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Week 13 (August 11, 2007)
This share, as you can see, has hardly any greens (just swiss chard) and instead is heavy on summer vegetables, tomatoes in particular - two clamshells of miniature varieties as well as a pound and a quarter of slicing-size tomatoes. Also in the share: 4 cucumbers, 1.7 lb of yellow squash, a pint of okra, 1.1 pounds of green beans, a small bunch of swiss chard, a bunch of parsley and 5 eggplants.
We got a more fine-grained scale to measure this share, so this is the most accurate so far. We also found lower store prices on some items. This lot would cost about 46 dollars at a store. We also got some farmer's market price for this week (from Richmond), and at those rates, this box would be about 39 dollars.
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