verbatim: Delivered Right to My Door

A couple of years ago, I heard about a service called Boston Organics that delivers fresh produce to residences and businesses. I contacted them, but at the time they weren't delivering to my neighborhood. So I waited. Then last week I got an email saying that my ZIP code has just been added to their route! Yay!

This service is not a CSA but accomplishes many of the same goals—and with some added benefits. Here's how it works: First you choose to get a delivery every week or every other week—for now I chose every other week, and I'll see how that works. Then you choose what size box you want—I went with the $29 size. Then you choose what ratio of fruits and veggies you want—I opted for 2/3 fruit and 1/3 veg. I can already imagine changing things up in the summer! Then you get to tick off all the items you never want to receive. For instance, the only fruit that no one in this house will eat are pears and honeydew melon, so I put those on my "no" list, along with other things we don't like (or don't like enough), such as fennel, bell peppers, and cilantro. And, as soon as I peeked inside today's box, I added winter squash to that list—I don't mind it but would almost always prefer something else. Every week they post (approximately) what will be in the box, so you can adjust your order as needed.

Boston Organics tries to use as much local produce as possible, but there's not much available in the dead of winter around here, so they move outward from the Boston area until they find something. Specifically:

We buy locally grown produce as often as possible, taking quality, value, and variety into consideration. During the summer and fall, a lot of the produce comes from Vermont and Massachusetts. During the peak of the local growing season (late July - August) 50% of the vegetables that we offer are locally grown. Because of a fairly short growing season and difficult growing conditions, the organic market in New England is limited. As we are a year-round service a large portion of our produce comes from California, Florida, and Georgia. Tropical fruit comes primarily from organic farms in Central and South America.

Anyhow, today I received two different kinds of apples, some bananas, oranges, kiwis, and tangelos, a grapefruit, an acorn squash, a huge beet, some carrots, and a head of green leaf lettuce: