Need a nudge to order some Vrdnt Veggies? Do you read our emails, follow us on social, but not yet eat our vegetables? There is no better time to try our produce than RIGHT NOW. And in case you need some convincing, here are 5 reasons our bio-intensive, local, and delicious vegetables are worth it.
1. Spring Season
Central Texas has two main growing seasons: fall and SPRING. During these mild months, we’re able to grow an incredible variety of vegetables at Vrdnt. If you buy one of our veggie boxes right now, you’ll form a relationship with the farm at the sweetest spot of the whole season. There are carrots, cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce. Onions, potatoes, herbs, and squash. In a few weeks, tomatoes and melons. In the dead of winter or heat of summer, eating seasonally can mean a more narrow crop availability. But now? Right this very instant? The bounty and variety are unparalleled. If you’ve been wanting to cook more, a spring CSA share is a wonderful conduit to get inspired in the kitchen. If you cook a lot, we recommend getting orders, in consecutive weeks, to truly experience the array of vegetables we’re currently harvesting from our fields. What are you waiting for?
2. Transparency
In the industrialized food system, there are lots of question marks, and lots of opportunities for abuse - both of the land as well as of farmworkers - to occur.
There are no secrets here. We grow our vegetables using only organic inputs and are conservative in what we spray. Your Vrdnt produce isn’t coated with chemical residue, and can literally be eaten straight out of the fields… though we usually do rinse off the dirt for you :) To boot, we’re transparent about our small (and mighty!) farm team… which is currently made up of all women. (Women-owned, woman-run!). Becky is the farm owner and head grower. If you’d like to see the farm, we even allow camping, and as our schedule permits, we have occasional farm tours and on-farm cooking workshops. Got a question? We’re an open book. Know your farmer, know your food, as they say.
Veggie storage tips here, and info on our planting practices here.
3. Value & Convenience
Our CSA shares are kinda a steal: $25 for a big bag of veggies, that will last you the week, if not longer. For the cost of one average restaurant meal, you can get vegetables that will allow you to cook many restaurant-quality meals, right at home. Because CSA veggie boxes are a direct-consumer model, there is no middle person tacking on extra costs to the vegetables. You’re getting the highest quality vegetables for the lowest possible price.
And did we mention our CSA is pretty convenient? Unlike most programs, we don’t operate on subscriptions (though you can get weekly boxes if you’d like). Instead, you can use our Flexible Pick Up option to get vegetables, when you need them.
4. Taste
If you’re not accustomed to eating local or homegrown veggies… be prepared for a gustatory epiphany. At the risk of sounding too braggadocious, we’re just going to say it: our veggies taste better than those you would buy at a grocery store. The main reason? Freshness. Whereas grocery store veg is often picked weeks (or months) before they get to your kitchen, and often are shipped from thousands of miles away, our veggies are picked just a couple of days, sometimes only one, before they end up in your salad bowl. Your CSA vegetables are closer to their harvest date, closer to being truly alive, and this freshness really does result in better taste. This, my friends, is why eating seasonally is so delicious, why our carrots are so “carroty” and why our melons are so sweet. When you’re cooking with such high-quality produce, it simplifies things in the kitchen, too. Often just olive oil, salt and pepper will do the trick.
Another note on taste: because we’re a small farm, we’re able to choose seed varieties for taste and intrigue versus varieties based purely on performance and yield. We can grow heirloom tomatoes and our favorite variety of eggplant… something that doesn’t make sense for a 1,000-acre vegetable farm that needs to mitigate risk in the fields.
5. Good for the environment.
When you purchase your vegetables directly from our farm, you’re supporting mindful growing practices that seek to regenerate and preserve soil health, versus deplete it. At our tiny parcel of land near Bastrop, we maintain a small wooded area where pileated woodpeckers nest and songbirds sing. At the end of every farm row, we seed a diverse mix of flowers for the pollinators (as well as our farm team) to enjoy. We lean heavily on farming techniques like cover cropping, which helps build up our soil, prevent erosion, and suppress weeds, and use tools like flame weeding to reduce the amount of tillage (and back-breaking labor) needed to grow healthy crops. For us, farming is a form of land and community stewardship. We care for the land, cultivate an environment where vegetables will happily grow, and in turn, we hope these vegetables will help nourish you, our precious community.
Not to mention, when you buy our vegetables, you’re shortening the supply chain. Food miles and transport emissions, begone.
Here’s what a few customers have to say about their CSA experience:
“My husband and I have been CSA members of this farm for 10 weeks now and we are thrilled with the amount and QUALITY of the veggies we get every week. Supporting local, organic farms by committing to buy a share of the crops every week is very important to us, and BONUS it's woman-owned and operated. We just couldn't be happier.”- Marlene Fridley
“We've been using VRDNT for about 4 months now and are enjoying the quality and variety of veggies and especially the flexible pickup option. We've been with other CSAs where skipping or rescheduling pickups can be a hassle, and VRDNT's more on-demand model really works for us. Love supporting local, woman-owned business!” - Karla Waples
“I started my CSA subscription with VRDNT Farm during the pandemic and it's become a favorite weekly ritual to pick up my veggies. Every item is fresh and delicious, and it's encouraged me to experiment with cooking new veggies, such as shishito peppers, pea shoots, and kohlrabi. Their heads of lettuce are like a beautiful work of art :) Subscribe to their CSA - you won't regret it!!” -Karen A Weems