I've bought the farm - in that through something called Community Supported Agriculture (C.S.A.) - each week fresh fruit and vegetables (mostly vegetables) are delivered for me to pick up and put on the table.
Seriously, once I put them on the table, someone else takes care of them until they appear on my plate in one fashion or another.
The concept, while not new, is an intriguing one. The 'buyers' purchase a full or half-share before the growing season starts. The farm (and farmers) have the money up front - taking most of their financial risk out of the equation.
Then as crops grow, ripen, and are ready for harvest - we get to share in the bounty.
If times are tough - like last year's drought or at times with this year's overflow of rain - we see less in our delivered box.
Last week, we received an email from our farm (Wholesome Harvest) that because of the huge amounts of rain, the strawberry crop was affected. Seems the sweet berries absorb water and absorb water until they literally burst out of its skin. So, we didn't see many strawberries this year, and this week it was short on salad greens because at the usual replanting time - it was too wet and seeds were gully-washed away.
In addition to the foray into farming, with the whole sharing the risk idea, the added element for risk in my case was with the vegetables themselves.
You see, I'm not a veggie eater. My long-standing belief was eating corn and potatoes counted as vegetables. I argue they still do, but those nutritionists would say they aren't the kind of vegetables that really do a body good.
I have always been willing to choke down a salad at the appropriate time, and with enough French and Ranch dressing - I didn't mind at all.
Approaching a significant birthday in the future, it made some sense to try to expand my vegetable horizons.
The deliveries started four weeks ago. Kohlrabi (what?), Chinese Cabbage, Broccoli, Lettuce Greens (not Iceberg), Cucumbers, Spinach (that's right), Radishes, Parsley, and varieties of squash have arrived in a 3/4 bushel box.
While the jury is out on Kohlrabi, it tastes to me like it has the flesh of a flavorless apple with a hint of coleslaw, I must say eating salads made with just picked greens is AMAZING! I had never had a salad with such flavor as the ones prepared with the just off the farm greens. Wow, and I didn't need quite as much dressing.
The whole experiment was made easier when I learned in the early winter that joining the C.S.A. was reimbursed by health insurance. That made the idea of eating this food palatable; what I didn't expect was the veggies would be palatable all by themselves.
Maybe with this new infusion of eating some of the right stuff - it will pay off some day in the future.
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