Now that it’s June we are starting to enjoy the fruits (or should we say vegetables) of our labor with CSA pickups for the 2010 season. It’s so exciting!
The first pickup was last week and we received fresh oregano (all you could take), lettuce, spicy mustard greens, spinach, turnips, garlic scapes, and radishes.
So far we’ve eaten most of it, but we still have a decent amount left that we need to eat before the next batch arrives. (Anyone have recipe suggestions for spicy mustard greens? Or for haruki turnips?)
Already I’ve discovered new recipes and vegetables that I would never had tried on my own. We would never have guts to buy Easter egg radishes at Wegman’s, but after roasting them on the barbecue with olive oil, salt, and pepper, they are pretty darn good! I think we might even make them a regular part of our veggie rotation from now on.
Aside from expanding our palates, how is this impacting our grocery spending?
When we purchased a share of Mud Creek Farm we paid in advance for the whole growing season which runs 5 months (June – October). The total cost was $575 or $115 monthly.
As expected, I plan on cutting back my grocery trips now that we are getting fresh vegetables and am hoping to spend $60 or less on all other food items (meat, pasta, and other miscellaneous stuff not grown on the farm).
This brings our average grocery spending down from $250 to $175, ($115 prepaid + $60) potentially saving $75 each month.
It doesn’t sound like much but every little bit helps. Hopefully more savings will result by making the food last through some of the winter by freezing and canning the surplus each week. When you consider $75 savings for 5 months it does add up to a decent amount of pocket change; we could save $375 this season, almost as much as the share cost.
Small savings aside it does force us to learn about and eat a crud-load of veggies, which is just fine by us.
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