Planning Your Garden Around a CSA Share

This year, for the first time, I will be a member of my favorite local organic farm (Oakhill Organics) which starts in February.  This gives me something new to consider when planning my own garden: should I alter what I'm planting in my own garden based on what I will be getting in my CSA share?  My friend Angela is also getting a share in a favorite farm of hers called "Growing Wild" and had the same question.

Here are the things to be considered:

1.  Check with your CSA to see what they will be planting, you can fill in any holes in your own garden.  Not all farms grow all produce that you might want. 

2.  If there is some particular variety of vegetable or herb that is your favorite and you wouldn't want to go a summer without it- you should plant it in your own garden even if your CSA is planting it.  If you end up with too much of what you love- preserve it!!

3.  Go ahead and plant anything that tends to be expensive in the market, it will still be cheaper to have some in your own garden than to rely solely on your CSA.

4.  Think about the vegetables you eat a lot of; the ones you never get tired of and can always build a meal around.  Those are the vegetables you want to be able to pick from your own garden at any time.  Your CSA is going to give you a variety each week of what they grow, but if you always use carrots in your meals and could eat them every day, you should grow extras of your own.

Here are the things I will be growing for sure:

Tomatoes: For me there is no such thing as too many tomatoes.  Here we are at the end of January and I am almost out of my home canned tomatoes.  I still have roasted frozen ones which are so good on pasta, but I use a lot of diced canned tomatoes and tomato sauce in my cooking.  Tomatoes can be canned, dried, or frozen, so something that preserves so well that I use a lot of in my cooking is never wasted in my garden.  Tomatoes are a must.

Winter squash: pound for pound it is much cheaper to grow your own than to buy from any other source.  You have to have quite a bit of space for them to sprawl but I don't mind having them crawl all over the place.  Even if my CSA provides me with winter squash I will try to grow a lot of my own.  If I grow good keepers then I don't even have to preserve them to have them last deep into winter.

Beans: I cannot have enough of these.  I love them.  LOVE green beans.  I love them steamed with vinaigrette, put in salads, pickled, in pasta, or canned in three bean salad.  The only way I don't like them is raw.  I will grow green beans because I get great pleasure from picking them in the early evening and taking them inside to steam immediately.

Fava Beans: I will grow these even though my CSA will absolutely be growing them too.  I love them in pasta.  I could eat a whole pile of them with garlic and herbs.  I don't like these frozen (I've frozen them before) or dried but no grocery stores sell fresh shelled favas here so in order to get my proper fill of them I must grow some myself.

Shelling Peas:  Ditto the entire comment section for favas here.

Summer squash:  There are a couple of kinds I can't get enough of and I must be sure I have a supply.  One variety I love is a Mexican zucchini, another are the round zucchinis. 

Cayenne peppers:  I grew so many two years ago that I didn't have to grow them last year.  I shared my dried red peppers with my mom and so this year it's time to grow another bumper crop of them.  Five plants will do the trick.  They don't get very big so they don't take up too much room.

Cucumbers:  for fresh eating.  Cucumbers with tomatoes make such a great summer salad.

What will I not grow in my own garden?

Eggplant:  I love eggplant.  I can't get enough of it in the summer.  You'd think I would grow it then.  But my favorite local U-pick farm grows a lot of them and always has great prices on the U-pick, so great that it makes no sense for me to grow them myself.  Eggplants freeze wonderfully well if you grill them first until they are just about done- then freeze them using a vacuum sealer.  The quality is fantastic.  Ratatouille also freezes very well. 

Bulbing onions: I can never grow enough to make it worth the garden space.  I use onions in almost all food I cook.  I use hundreds of pounds of them every year.  I will gratefully take what my CSA gives me and for the rest I buy them at .48 cents a pound from a local source.

Celery:  I have tried growing it and it doesn't do very well for me.  I will be happy to buy it.

Crucifers:  I will not be growing cabbage, cauliflower, or broccoli.  I have grown them all successfully but I dislike having to spray with BT or handpicking the cabbage moth worms off of them.  Around here a lot of people grow and sell local cruciferous vegetables that are inexpensive and superb so I don't need to do it.

This may not be a complete list of what I will and won't be growing but it's pretty filled out.  Share your own thoughts on this please!  I'm getting pretty excited about garden planning right now.  I'm lucky I have lots of seeds for what I want to grow and will hardly have to buy andything this year.