My dirty food couldn't be cleaner - how we became locavores

Last year, I wrote about our farmer's market, which unfortunately only runs in the summer to mid-fall.  Every year, I lament the end of the market, when I can no longer get local fresh produce and foodstuff.  Ha ha to all that this year.  In an attempt to live a more balanced, vegetable rich diet even in the grizzly cold of winter, we have signed up for a farm share.  For a bargain price of about $28-30 per week (I am not sarcastic here - it really is a bargain as I will explain below), we get a small box of organic or sustainably IPM grown root veggies, green veggies and citrus.  The box is a mix of produce from Enterprise Farm (in MA, close to us), farms from North Carolina and Florida.  

This box has changed the way we eat. Instead of trying to figure out what to make and then heading to the supermarket for produce, I check the fridge and find a recipe online.  This keeps us in season with the produce that's available, not to mention makes for tastier meals since the veggies are fresh and have great flavor.  Also, it saves on the disappointment of showing up to the store only to find that they have no butternut squash.

It has also saved us money.  First of all, instead of making almost daily trips to Trader Joe's for tasteless vegetables, we make one weekly trip to the pick up spot to get our box.  We have learned in the 3 deliveries we've received so far that this gets us through the week, and our grocery bills have been decreasing since I now go in only for things like butter, yogurt, and pantry staples like pasta and rice.  This has also saved us on the amount of food that we throw out.  Sometimes, I would buy a bag of 4 avocados (all rock solid), soften them in our pantry, use 2 and have 2 go straight to the trash.  Now, I get just one avocado, that I use to make a salad with the tomatoes I get from the farm, and some greens that are in the mix, like baby spinach or mixed meuslin and it's delicious.

The farm also has a buyers club for local staples like pickles and hand creams, yogurt and honey.  That's next on our try-this-out-list.  Now, if I could just find a chicken farm nearby where I could get fresh eggs and poultry year round.  That would be super.

So - check out the farms in your area and see if they deliver and offer farm shares in winter and get on the wagon.