Time to buy a CSA share

This is the season for purchasing CSA shares, and last weekend the Portland convivium (chapter) of Slow Food, along with the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners' Association and the First Parish UU Church on Congress Street sponsored a fair bringing together consumers and farms offering CSA shares this year.
A CSA share is a prepaid voucher for locally grown produce from a nearby farm--CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.

I bought a share from Rippling Waters farm in Standish, which is offering the perfect deal for a home gardener. While most CSAs require you to take a bag of groceries selected by the farm each week, Rippling Waters allows you to buy what you want, when you want, from the Portland Farmers' Market or Rippling Waters' own retail market. For me, this means I can grow salad and stirfy greens, tomatoes, garlic and herbs in my own garden on North Street, and buy the crops I don't have space for--squashes, corn, root vegetables--from Rippling Waters later in the season. And I can buy a box of tomatoes for canning in the fall. Check it out.