Continuing on.....I picked up my first-ever CSA basket today!
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| My goodies in all of their glory. |
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, which means you buy into a farmer's program to receive "stock" on a weekly or bi-weekly basis during the growing season, typically June through November. Most programs offer a half basket or full basket option, and you'll receive a designated amount of goodies based on what's in season at that time. I did a little research for farms offering up CSAs in my area, and I went with Fall Creek Farms. Fall Creek Farms is located in Spencer, Tennessee, about 10 minutes from Fall Creek Falls State Park. They offer up full basket and 2/3 basket options, which are available for pickup at the Main Street Farmers Market on Wednesday afternoons. I've wanted to participate in a CSA for years, but just now got around to doing it this year. I opted for the 2/3 basket, since I'm not sure yet how much of a basket I can actually make it through before stuff starts to go bad.
My first basket contained fresh mint, radishes, turnips, kale, green leaf lettuce, green onions, tomatoes, snow peas and broccoli. The half-gallon container of milk was an added bonus.....Fall Creek Farms also offers cow and goat herd shares for milk, and I was pretty sure I wanted to participate in a cow herd share but wanted to try the milk out first. I asked to buy a half gallon, but they wouldn't take my money! So I came home with it as a bonus. Of course, my kids wanted to try the milk before we had even left the parking lot, so we opened it up and took a few swigs. IT'S DELICIOUS. So I will definitely be buying into a herd share or two to pick up weekly with my basket!
I Googled how to store turnips and radishes, so those have been properly tended to and are in my fridge awaiting their chance to be eaten. I'm not really all that excited about eating them, since I'm pretty sure I don't like turnips or radishes, but I am totally willing to give a good recipe a chance (the farm said they'd be emailing out a few recipes for the turnips, plus I'll Google a few recipes as well). The rest of the basket has been shoved into the fridge as-is (minus the tomatoes) and I'll figure out how to properly store it all in the morning.
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| Turnips and radishes set to go! |
What you DON'T see in those photos is what also made the trek from the farm to my house today:
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| AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! |
A giant Wolf spider with her GIANT EGG SACK (the white ball under her belly) decided to crawl across my stove as I was sorting through the mint leaves. I about peed myself. Luckily, she wasn't moving very fast nor did she seem to try to be going anywhere anyway, so I was able to catch her and chuck her and her babies out into the woods before they could make my house their new home. My first thought was, what if she had gotten away??? The kiddos and I would definitely NOT be staying in my house until she was found. But then I thought.....what if I had never seen her to begin with?? What if she had hidden and then had her babies in my kitchen????
OMG.
But she's gone now, safe and sound in her new woodsy environment, and I picked through everything else (ready to jump out of my skin at any moment) and didn't find any other hitchhikers, so I think we're okay. I may be a little jumpy while I sleep tonight, but we're okay.
I'm excited to figure out what I'm going to cook this coming week, and excited to be picking up a new basket next week! I already know that next week's basket will have strawberries in it. :)
P.S. I've already forgotten who I bought it from, but the first tent to the right when you walk into the Main Street Market sells baked goods, like scones and cookies and such. I bought the kids a brownie to share while we were at the market. The brownie didn't look like much at first glance, but it was SO MOIST that it practically dripped chocolate when you bit into it. So I highly recommend the brownies from this booth!
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| It was moist like this. SO GOOD. |
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