Local Specials
(2008-09-22)
Two members of Barefoot Gardens walk through the CSA.
A winding gravel road leads you in to Barefoot Gardens. It's early on a Monday evening. For members of this CSA, it's time to stop by the farm and pick up their produce. At Barefoot Gardens, members don't just pick up their goods and leave. Most of the members stick around to socialize, sometimes for hours. Their children run around the flower and vegetable patches.
You get the sense of community, or even family. "We have so much fun coming out to see everybody, and you get to be outside," says Becky Morrow a member of the Barefoot Gardens CSA. "It's nice to be here where everything is fresh and beautiful and twice the size and half the price." This is her first year as a member of the CSA.
Morrow enjoys bringing her son to Barefoot Gardens. He can pick berries, play with other children, and learn more about gardening. Morrow became interested in community supported agriculture after the tomato recall a few years ago. Like other members, she wants to know the produce she eats is fresh.
That's basically why John Curtis started Barefoot Gardens six years ago. He became fascinated with the idea of an edible landscape. "In 1997 I built the house. The first year I started a compost pile around the back of the house. The second year I started another compost pile and planted into the first compost pile. The garden just got bigger, and bigger, and bigger," says Curtis.
Community Supported Agriculture farms are small-scale operations. It's believed the concept originated in Switzerland and Japan in the 1960s. In the U.S. they began sprouting during the 1980s. Members of a CSA typically pay up front to cover the farmer's costs. In exchange for their share, they receive fresh, seasonal food every week during the growing season. In other words, the local community supports the local farmer.
The food at Barefoot Gardens is grown organically, though Curtis says the farm is not organically certified. He says that's not important, because members of the CSA know who is growing their food and where it's coming from. "They've learned to trust us and know we are doing everything we can to keep their food safe and healthy and to grow it the best we can."
CSAs vary in size. Some are as small as 10 members. Others sell hundreds of shares. Barefoot Gardens has 50 members. Another Western Illinois CSA is Good Hope Gardens. It has 34 members. The produce is delivered directly to members' homes every week in ten-gallon totes. The CSA also sells its food at the Macomb Farmer's Market, which is where Good Hope Gardens' Mary Jo DeCounter could be found on a rainy Thursday morning.
People walked up to the blue pop-up tent to look at the corn, beans, peppers, pumpkins, and other produce. DeCounter brings produce to the farmers market because she enjoys it and does not want anything to go to waste. "You never know when you're gonna have a crop failure, so you have to plant more so you have enough for our members," says DeCounter. "Our first overabundance goes to our shop in Good Hope and the rest we sell at farmers market."
DeCounter says her CSA is geared towards people who want fresh food, but do not have the time to plant their own garden. DeCounter says Good Hope Gardens is not organically certified. A minimal amount of pesticides and insecticides are used on its crops. "We wanna keep our farm as clean as possible, because we have grandchildren," says DeCounter. "There's nothing that's any nicer than the grandkids going out and picking something off the tree without saying wait, wait, wait. You've gotta wash it."
DeCounter says the philosophy of Good Hope Gardens is "Buy It Today, Eat It Tonight, and Come Back Tomorrow." In fact, that could sum up the philosophy of just about any CSA, whether it raises vegetables, fruits, or home grown meat. Of course, everyone has their own reasons for wanting food from a local producer. Community Supported Agriculture is a growing trend. There are now at least 1,000 such farms located across the U.S. More and more people are finding they desire safe, fresh, local food with that extra burst of flavor.
© Copyright 2009, wium
