Veggie Trader to the Rescue!

I’m really sad and a bit embarrassed to say that I didn’t sign up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share this season! I had all sorts of reasons at the time sign-up time came along – I wasn’t the happiest with my CSA last year (the one I had the year before made it a difficult comparison – everything was beautiful, delicious and grown without the use of any chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizers), picking up a CSA drop isn’t always convenient (especially during the summer), sometimes there were too many vegetables for me to handle, and on and on.

Now that CSA season has started, I’m disappointed that I’m not scrambling to pick up my not so perfect vegetables and trying hard to eat/preserve/give-away everything. So now that it is obviously too late to change my mind (CSAs are often “sold out” by the time they open in March!), I’m trying to create a produce strategy that will fulfill my loss.

Getting to the farmers’ market on a regular basis is going to be a treat this year. With all of the vegetables I received in my CSA last year, there was never a reason to get to the farmers’ market, so this year I can buy without guilt. Last year I caught myself wandering around the farmers’ market just for fun and buying items that were unnecessary, considering what was waiting for me after my CSA pick-ups.

A new addition to my vegetable “getting” this season is Veggie Trader. They are a service, very similar to Craigslist, but specifically to get rid of your “overstock” of tomatoes or lettuce or zucchini… anything that you have an abundance of from your garden! Since I have no garden, I can log on to Veggie Trader (it’s free to register), and type in what I am looking for – tomatoes – and my zip code, the distance I’m willing to go to get those tomatoes, and my search will bring up people in my area with extras and what they want in trade. Hopefully cash in my case, but if you also have a garden, and an overload of lemons, you might be able to trade those lemons for the tomatoes that you need. Clever.

The website is new this season, so they need help spreading the word. If you have a garden, check it out, or if not, pass it on to your friends. You can see how the whole thing works and read more about their idea of cooperative gardening. But more importantly, log in and check it out. I bet in a couple of months there will be ripe tomatoes waiting for me in Brooklyn and your favorite vegetable in your neighborhood too!

From the folks at Veggie Trader:

Veggie Trader is our pilot effort to see if we can help more families eat well, make the most of the environment, and put more backyards to work for the benefit of neighbors, community and country.

We think knowing where your food comes from and supporting your
local economy are more important these days than ever. And saving money (or making a little extra) doesn’t hurt either.