I love CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), where customers pay for a weekly box of whatever’s fresh from a given farm’s fields. I also love gardening, though, and I especially love regular browsing trips through the farmers markets — and there isn’t room in my budget or refrigerator to do all three.

Consequently, I’ve chosen (2) and (3) instead in recent years, and when people ask for advice on choosing a CSA from the many available, I don’t have a first-hand opinion on the best. Enter Cook Local, which offered a nice overview this week on issues to consider when choosing a CSA (sample questions: Are the goods really grown by the farmer, or are some non-Northwest items, such as citrus, trucked in? Can you skip a week if you go on vacation?) Better yet, CL will be reviewing one or two local CSAs each week, and is offering to answer reader questions — just leave them in the comments on this post. And, to get you started, Puget Sound Fresh has a listing of local CSAs, and here’s a list from the Cascade Harvest Coalition on issues to consider before joining up.

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