OK, raise your hands if all this talk of salmonella and E-Coli is ticking you off.
What is it with the inability to keep food sources safe?
We are in the middle of our transition from winter to spring CSA, and have had to buy produce at the store. No farmer’s markets in the area yet. Other than Silver Spring, but we were busy last weekend and ended up buying romaine at the store. Which we had to throw away now that the CDC can’t pinpoint the source of the E-Coli.
And people wonder why we buy most of our food from our farmer friends. We know where it was grown. We can actually meet the people who grow our food.
We have eggs from our meat and egg share from Evermore Farm. Yes, we pay more for farm fresh eggs but at least our farmers seem to be able to monitor their products and we aren’t looking for tiny labels to see if what we have is part of that millions of eggs recall on the East Coast of the US.
As for the romaine. Annoying to throw out packages of organic romaine because we don’t know where it originated. I can’t wait until May 1st when the spring CSA begins. And, for mid May when our local farmer’s markets begin. Love Dove has awesome greens, right out of the fields. I hope they will be at Clarksville on Saturdays, but if they aren’t, we can also get good organic vegetables from Earth First. Earth First is right down the road from us, and so is Triadelphia Lake View Farm. Both farms sell at our markets.
For local CSAs, besides my Lancaster Farm Fresh which is adding a second pick up in Dorsey Search, there are at least four other major sources of food right out of the ground.
Gorman Farm. Breezy Willow Farm. Wheeler Farm. Triadelphia Lake View Farm.
No excuses to buy older, less fresh, possibly suspect produce.
As for eggs, again, lots of local sources. Copper Penny. Breezy Willow. Evermore Farm. To name a few.
When I switched from industrially processed foods to locally grown, I found the difference in freshness to be incredible. Thankfully, this also means I have a face to associate with my food. People who eat that same food so they have a vested interest in keeping it safe.
Join me in supporting local farms and producers?
AnnieRie Unplugged 
AWESOME post as always! I wonder how a person starts a CSA and what it all involves…
The co-op that we support is always looking for site hosts. If you can sign up at least 20 members, they will supply you one year. Then they want a 30 member minimum to continue.
It is hard to keep people interested. They find “better” deals. We fluctuate from 30 to 40 members. Thankfully we are on a delivery route for three organic supermarkets that also buy from our co-op. That means the truck is here on Tuesdays year round.
Lancaster Farm Fresh has over a hundred small Amish farms supplying produce, fruit, dairy, meat and eggs. For us, vegetables one day out of the ground are so much nicer, and last longer than store bought.