You know what got me thinking about where my food comes from? My electric bill, believe it or not. I was doing energy audits for customers, helping them figure out how to cut costs and waste less power, when I started wondering what other parts of my life were just… wasteful. My wife had been complaining about the grocery bills going up, and honestly, half the vegetables we bought at the supermarket were going bad before we could eat them. Seemed like throwing money away, which bugs me more than anything.
So I'm talking to this customer about his solar installation – nice guy, works for the city – and he mentions he gets a box of vegetables delivered every week from some farm outside the city. Community supported agriculture, he calls it. CSA for short. I'd never heard of it, but the way he explained it made sense from a business perspective. You basically buy a share of a farm's harvest at the beginning of the growing season, then they deliver fresh produce to you throughout the summer and fall. Like a subscription service, but for vegetables.
At first I thought it sounded like hippie nonsense, to be honest. But this guy wasn't some granola-crunching type – he was a regular working guy like me, just trying to feed his family without breaking the bank or wasting a bunch of food. He said his grocery bills went down significantly once they started getting most of their produce through the CSA, and the vegetables lasted longer because they were picked fresh instead of sitting in trucks and warehouses for weeks.
That got my attention. I mentioned it to my wife that night, expecting her to roll her eyes, but she was immediately interested. She'd been reading about all the chemicals they spray on industrial crops, worried about what we were feeding the boys. The idea of getting vegetables from a local farm that didn't use a bunch of pesticides appealed to her, and the potential cost savings appealed to me.
We found a farm about forty minutes outside the city that had CSA shares available. Wasn't cheap upfront – you pay for the whole season in advance – but when you break it down per week, it was less than what we were spending on produce at the supermarket. The farmer, this woman named Sarah who'd been running the farm for about fifteen years, explained how it worked. Every Tuesday during growing season, they'd pack boxes with whatever was ready to harvest that week and deliver them to pickup points around the city.
The first box we got was… intimidating, honestly. Bunch of vegetables I'd never seen before, some I couldn't even identify. My wife was excited, the boys were suspicious, and I was wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into. There was this weird purple thing that looked like a turnip had a baby with a cabbage. Turned out to be kohlrabi, which I'd never heard of but ended up being pretty good when you cook it right.
That was the thing I hadn't expected – how much it would change the way we cooked and ate. When you go to the supermarket, you buy the same vegetables every week. Tomatoes, lettuce, maybe some broccoli if you're feeling adventurous. But with the CSA, you get whatever's ready to harvest that week. Early summer it's a lot of greens and herbs. Mid-summer you're drowning in tomatoes and zucchini. Fall brings all kinds of root vegetables and winter squash.
My wife started planning meals around what was in the box instead of making a shopping list and going to the store. Sounds backwards, but it actually made more sense. We were eating vegetables at their peak freshness when they had the most flavor and nutrients. And we weren't wasting nearly as much food because everything was so fresh it lasted longer in the refrigerator.
The boys took some convincing. Teenagers aren't exactly known for being adventurous eaters, and suddenly they're expected to eat Swiss chard and Brussels sprouts and all kinds of stuff they'd never tried before. But my wife got creative with the cooking, and I made it clear that we weren't running a restaurant – you eat what's served or you go hungry. They adapted faster than I expected, actually started asking what was in the weekly box and helping plan meals.
I learned a lot talking to Sarah and the other farmers at the pickup site. These aren't people who inherited big industrial farms – most of them are young folks who chose farming as a career, treating it like a small business. They care about soil health and sustainable practices not because they're tree-huggers, but because healthy soil produces better crops and sustainable practices save money long-term. Smart business approach.
The environmental benefits were obvious once I started thinking about it. Our vegetables were grown forty minutes away instead of being shipped from California or Mexico. No massive diesel trucks, no refrigerated warehouses, no plastic packaging beyond the reusable boxes they delivered in. The farms used natural pest control methods and crop rotation instead of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Less pollution, less waste, less energy consumption.
But the economic benefits were just as important to me. Our grocery bills dropped by about sixty dollars a month, which adds up over time. We were supporting local farmers instead of big agribusiness corporations. The money we spent stayed in the regional economy instead of disappearing to some corporate headquarters in another state. And these farms employ local workers year-round, not just seasonal migrant labor.
The social aspect surprised me. I'm not exactly a joiner, don't go to neighborhood barbecues or community meetings. But the CSA created this informal network of families who were all getting produce from the same farms. People started sharing recipes, trading vegetables they didn't want for ones they preferred, organizing group purchases of bulk items like grains and beans directly from farms.
My wife got involved with potluck dinners where everyone brought dishes made from CSA vegetables. I was skeptical at first – sounded like forced socializing – but the food was actually really good, and it was interesting meeting other families from different parts of the city who were all dealing with the same challenges of figuring out what to do with ten pounds of kale.
Not everything worked perfectly. Some weeks we got more vegetables than we could use, even with the boys eating constantly. Had to learn food preservation techniques – freezing, canning, pickling – which my wife enjoyed but I found tedious. Some crops failed due to weather or pests, so certain weeks the boxes were smaller than expected. And there were vegetables that none of us liked no matter how we prepared them.
The logistics took some getting used to. You have to pick up your box every week at a specific time and place, can't just grab vegetables from the store when it's convenient. If you're going out of town, you need to arrange for someone else to pick up your box or it goes to waste. Requires more planning than shopping at the supermarket.
But after three years of doing this, I can't imagine going back to buying most of our produce at the grocery store. The vegetables taste better, last longer, cost less, and we're supporting farming practices that make sense environmentally and economically. My boys have learned to eat a much wider variety of foods and appreciate where their meals come from. My wife has become a much more creative cook, experimenting with vegetables and recipes she never would have tried before.
The farms we support are profitable small businesses run by people who take pride in their work, not industrial operations focused on maximizing yield regardless of environmental impact. The money we spend supports local jobs and keeps farmland from being developed into shopping centers and housing developments.
Started recommending CSAs to customers when the topic comes up during electrical work. Not in a preachy way, just mentioning it as something that's worked well for our family. A lot of working folks assume local food is expensive and only for wealthy people, but that's not true if you find the right farms. The upfront cost can be challenging if money's tight, but the weekly cost is actually lower than supermarket prices for the same amount of produce.
This fall I'm helping Sarah install LED lighting in her greenhouse so she can extend the growing season without huge electric bills. Nice to use my skills to support a business that's provided so much value to my family. She's been talking about adding a winter CSA with stored crops like potatoes and winter squash, preserved foods like sauerkraut and pickles. Sounds good to me – anything that keeps us eating well while supporting local farmers who are doing things the right way.
Larry’s a mechanic by trade and a minimalist by accident. After years of chasing stuff, he’s learning to live lighter—fixing what breaks, buying less, and appreciating more. His posts are straight-talking, practical, and proof that sustainable living doesn’t have to mean fancy products or slogans.
