My family’s walk through the vegetable garden

“Is this all?”

My husband looks up and sighs, lifting the plastic bag a bit, then dropping it in disappointment. In the bottom rest a volleyball-sized squash, two bell peppers the heft of a Dixie cup, a handful of beans, a couple of egg-like tomatoes and four beefy cucumbers.

“But they taste really good,” I say. “And they’re completely organic.”

It’s right here, in this scenario; the dynamic of our relationship. I, the dreamer and poet. David, the pragmatist, who protects the whole family from my artistic flights as they alight, one after another after another.

Two months ago, I was able to talk David into becoming a shareholder in a Baton Rouge-based community-supported agriculture (CSA) project. After a spring of diligent savings, we’d managed to create a financial cushion that allowed a flight of fancy here and there. I was surprised at how easy it was to convince David to pony up $400 for this endeavor. We’d never done anything like this before, and we knew it was a risk.

But romance lives in David’s heart too, and one of the things that can set it off—aside from brand-new bicycles at the Tour de France—is South Louisiana agriculture. David is the pure Cajun grandson of a sugarcane farmer and master gardener, and food pulled from the earth makes his soul sing. It brings the poet out in him. He loves to say words like mirliton and okra. We have a huge compost pile, and every season we put a garden in, even if it’s small and we’re traveling too much to keep it healthy.

We wanted our kids to know where their food comes from, and it felt good knowing that ourselves. We also envisioned huge piles of green you can eat. So we wrote the check for $400 and smiled wide. We were living our version of the American Dream.

Here’s how a CSA works: Several individuals contribute money, or sometimes even labor, to a farm, then everyone shares in the harvest. As we were to find out, everyone also shares in the risk. Those risks can involve nature or anything else under the sun. Our share means we’ll get 20 weeks’ worth of produce at around 10 pounds each week.

“This is $20 worth of produce?” David asks.

“Look,” I say. “This farmer really loves these vegetables. Who cares if the harvest is small? We’re supporting a true local farm.”

“Hrrrmph,” David says, unloading the small-but-precious bounty.

It is the third pickup of our share in the harvest from a farm north of Baton Rouge. Each Saturday, I go to pre-determined meeting spot where that week’s offerings are doled out to me and 30-odd other members of the farm co-op.?I chat with the other supporters, who talk about their motives for joining. They don’t want all the chemicals that can come from other farmers or, God forbid, the grocery store.

This is an important thing, since the CSA model is about as far as you can get away from the grocery store model that I and most of the country grew up with. There are kids everywhere who don’t even know vegetables come out of dirt. So coming around to the orientation that farming can be fickle and that the harvest can be thin is a new way of thinking. We are used to walking into air-conditioned surroundings and plucking the most perfect produce from a line of perfect produce. CSAs bring you back to the ground, sometimes so hard your nose gets a bit of dirt in it.

My first interaction with these harsh realities of farming was more than a bit bitter.

Charlotte and Ryan Alexander enjoy their healthy meals, which now include the newest addition to Mom’s cooking repertoire—fresh-baked bread.

I had shown up the meeting spot we’d agreed upon in late May looking to get my first cornucopia of CSA agriculture, but I found nobody in sight. I’d fired off a more-than-slightly chagrined, terse e-mail that was fueled, in part, by the recent news of Ponzi schemes and a panicky feeling that my family had just lost a handful of bills.

The response to my correspondence was several paragraphs long and outlined a dispute the farmer had been having with a farmer next door. The message at the close was simple. If I expected convenience, if I wanted what I get at Whole Foods Market, then I’d best just march on over to Whole Foods and be done with it. If that’s what I wanted, my money would be refunded in time.

My response? No way. This is much too interesting for me to back out now. I chalked the whole thing up to a $400 donation to be part of a unique way of life. I didn’t expect to see any food whatsoever.

So, a couple of weeks later, when the small bags of fresh vegetables started to arrive, I was pleased as a fat yellow hopi squash. And the food? Well, these were far tastier than any vegetables I’d ever had growing up. We’re talking squash so tender you can steam them whole and eat the skin and all. Cucumbers that are simultaneously crisp and delicate. I literally have to sit down while eating this food. That’s how good it is. My kids, Charlotte, 2, and Ryan, 3, will actually eat these vegetables.

Each Saturday—or at least the Saturdays when Mother Nature or human nature allow it—I head to Circa 1857 to pick up my bag of vegetables from the only people who’ve ever touched the vegetables before me. On a recent trip to get my veggies, I had a long conversation with another CSA enthusiast who said she feels guilty every time she eats anything because something has to suffer in order for us to eat and live. These are the talks that make a city an amazing place, and I am happy to be a part of it.

YOUR HOOK-UP

The Big River Economic and Agricultural Development Alliance lets you buy directly from local farmers, coooks and artisans at various regular farmers market events.

Red Stick Farmers Market: Vendors set up from 8 a.m. to noon at Main and 5th streets where shoppers can choose from a seasonal variety of fresh local vegetables, fruits, herbs and plants, as well as fresh dairy, meat and seafood. Not even rain scuttles this 11-year-old market—vendors simply set up inside the adjacent Galvez Parking Garage.

Tuesday Market: This seasonal market event is due to return in mid-September. Held from 8 a.m. to noon in the parking lot at the Unitarian Church at 8470 Goodwood Blvd., it also features a seasonal variety of local foods. Thursday Market: This weekly market sets up from 8 a.m. to noon at 7248 Perkins Road.

Learn more at redstickfarmersmarket.org.