Ambrose CSA

We joined a Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSA) program!  Starting the first week of April we'll get a weekly 'medium' share of produce and 1 dozen eggs for about 14 weeks.  The program benefits farmers because you pay in advance (a big expense in farming is seed and startup costs) and share the risk (hurricane?  You'll probably lose your whole crop).  In exchange we get fresh, locally grown, mostly organic produce. 

We've gone with Ambrose CSA.  Their farm is only a dozen or so miles from our house.  Unlike Wisconsin (or even Maryland) there aren't a lot of CSA's around here; I've heard of only 2 or 3.  We opted to pick up our share at the Stono Market each week, instead of paying a bit extra to pick it up at a drop point near our house.  I figure it will give me an excuse to get out to the market and see what else they have on hand and maybe partake in some of the 'pick your own' specials at the farm (some things are just too labor intensive or fragile for them to include in the shares).  Yesterday we got a notice that they have pick your own strawberries available for $2.50/pound.  Farmer Pete at Ambrose farms plants a huge variety of produce and it will be fun to try some new things.

We've signed up for the 'spring' harvest - April through about July.  They also have a 'fall' (October-December) and 'winter' (January-March).  I think it's funny that there's nothing in the summer - too hot!

I can't wait to see what's in our first box.  And I need to start thinking of ways to eat eggs...a dozen a week will be a LOT.  Maybe we can find people to share them with...