CSA: A community approach to local food in Alberta

A community approach to local food in Alberta

BY LEXIE ANGELO

f you’ve ever trekked through a busy farmer’s market on a Sunday afternoon, you know how popular local fruit and vegetables are in Alberta. But you may not know about CSA’s, or Community Supported Agriculture programs. John Mills, owner of Eagle Creek Farms near Bowden, AB says, “When I heard of the CSA idea, it was a really good way for me … to get into farming and to overcome some of the challenges of starting a farm.”

The model of the CSA is simple. You purchase a share of the crop in advance, and in return, get 12–16 weeks of fresh vegetables typically between late-June and early-September. But there is an added advantage for the local farmer as well. “The cool thing with the CSA model is that by partnering with shared families, you have that capital up front to foot the cost of the overhead … so the farming can get going,” says Mills.

Each CSA farm is different. Eagle Creek Farms originally started as a cattle farm,

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whereas Tam Andersen, owner of Prairie Gardens and Adventure Farms, near Edmonton, explains that her operation was originally a tree nursery. “It has evolved over time from growing trees to growing all sorts of vegetables,” she says. “We have over 25 acres of gardens that we grow 150 different types of vegetables in.”

Andersen, who has run a CSA program for over eight years, says that CSA’s are more than just shares in a harvest, they are “a wonderful way to get reacquainted and connected back to the land and where your food is grown.”

A surprise in every harvest box When you join a CSA, you may recognize familiar items in your harvest box such as lettuce, carrots and radishes, but you may be surprised with local vegetables you’ve never considered cooking with before such as kohlrabi, Swiss chard or mustard greens. “The kohlrabi is more of an odd vegetable that people don’t normally eat,” says Mills. The cartoonish-looking bulbs taste like a cross-between a turnip and a radish and grow particularly well in southern Alberta.

When deciding what to grow each year, John Mills says he aims to offer a wide variety of vegetables, but also considers how much of the selection in the seed catalogues he thinks he can successfully grow. “We have some challenges here in Alberta with weather that really cuts down our short growing season for peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes,” Mills explains.

“The fun part of the CSA is trying to help educate people, whether it’s through our emails, or the one-on-one interactions with me, or my staff at the CSA deliveries,” Mills says. One of the highlights of running a CSA is to “help educate people on how to use those odd and unusual crops and try to introduce different stuff into everyone’s diets and daily eating.”

Tam Anderson started experimenting and growing “all sort of unusual vegetables” after working with Chef Blair Lebsack from RGE RD in Edmonton ten years ago. Lebsack shared his expertise on what looks great and colourful on a plate, and Andersen says, “We really learned a lot from the chef as to the harvesting times and windows of things, and what works most beautifully on a plate rather than in a bag.”

Through their collaboration, Andersen discovered that Edmonton-area gardens “can grow all kinds of Asian vegetables.” Now, she grows herbs and greens that aren’t found in mainstream grocery stores or restaurants, such as scarlet frills mustard, red mizuna, and komatsuna, which is a Japanese mustard spinach.

Operators know that some items may not appeal to everyone, so often you will see trade boxes where you can swap those unusual garlic scapes for zucchini, or unwanted brussels sprouts for cabbage. Some CSA’s also offer add-on packages, such as eggs, flowers, or a selection of BC fruit. Winter harvest boxes are also popular, and typically contain root vegetables like turnips and potatoes, as well as hardy greens like spinach, arugula and kale.

vegetables in your harvest box each week, joining a CSA helps with sustainable farming and reducing food waste. Once he started his CSA, Mills knew exactly how much food to grow in his first season. He explains, the share families are a “stable market” and take the guesswork out of the first year of farming, unlike attending farmer’s markets where it’s difficult to predict how many people might stop at your booth and how busy the market might be.

Andersen says Prairie Gardens is more farm-focused and doesn’t attend farmer’s markets. Instead, she limits her CSA to “fifty families a year so, we can do a good job for everyone.” Through community shared agriculture programs, Mills says the advantage is knowing “the vegetables you’re growing are going to end up in people hands, and not going to be composted.”

Early registration helps with crop planning The key to a successful CSA experience is to register early. “The real beauty of a CSA from a farmers perspective is if people sign up early—that allows us to plan, and purchase the seeds that we need to purchase,” explains Andersen. Prairie Garden and Adventure Farms opens for registration in the spring and offers a family share for $850 and a couples share for $550, as well as bonus Halloween pumpkins and a Christmas winter CSA basket. Anderson also hosts workshops, long-table dinners and cooking classes, and delivers herbs and greens year-round to local restaurants such as The Butternut Tree and Biera.

Eagle Creek Farms changed their CSA model two years ago. “We still grow vegetables on the farm at the same scale as before,” Mills explains. However, he sends his vegetables such as carrots and potatoes to the YYC Harvest Box and offers 45 different varieties of seed potatoes for local gardeners. He encourages people to come visit the farm as well. “We also have a U-pick and a sunflower maze on the farm. You can come out here and see where we grow our food, and how we grow it organically.”

The YYC Grower’s Harvest Box program is a cooperative effort of fifteen local farms, including Eagle Creek Farms, and offers weekly and biweekly programs for $29.95 per share in the Calgary area. Visit yycgrowers.com or prairiegardens.org for registration details.

Lexie Angelo is a food and lifestyle writer in Calgary. She is a traveler and adventurer always in search of the hottest trends in food and drink from around the world. Follow her on twitter @angelolexie