Survey Results Are In...yes!

I always put a survey in the last box of each CSA season. Speaking of the CSA season, we are signing folks up for the 2013 season. If you are looking for info on the up coming season, I'll be posting that soon... here, on the blog. Or you can also e-mail me at eenermachine@gmail.com.

Mabel the Dog looking over a seed catalog.

Anyway, the surveys are a great way to see how the season went and get useful suggestions from the CSA members. I really appreciate these and actually spend quite a bit of time going over them. Thanks to all who filled them out and sent them!

This year I received 14 surveys back; here are the results:

1.       On a scale from one to ten how satisfied were you with your CSA season. One would be not at all and ten would be very much so.

Four members gave the season a 10, one member gave it a 9/10, three said 9, three said 8, one said 7/8, one said 7 and one said 5.

2.       Was there anything in your box that you didn’t use because you didn’t like it?

Several vegetables got two votes on this question, they are: yard long beans, radishes, turnips, kohlrabi, tomatillos and cabbage. Others got just one vote, they are: swiss chard, eggplant, broccoli, beets and horseradish.

I always ask this question and there are never any clear winners. Radishes, turnips, kohlrabi, tomatillos, swiss chard and horseradish almost always make this list. Ironically, they also usually make the favorites list for other members.

 

3.       Was there anything in your box you didn’t use because you didn’t know what to do with it?

It turns out the majority of survey takers had a good handle on what to do with their shares as most replied 'no' to this questions. Tomatillos and kale each received one vote.

 

          Some said they enjoyed trying new vegetables and recipes.

“We always loved your recipes/ideas – we now have new favorites!”

“I consulted cookbooks and the Internet (it turns out many food bloggers also have CSA shares, which helps!).”

4.       Did your box get to you in good shape? For example, was anything squished or wilted? Was anything overripe or under ripe or bruised or excessively buggy or really dirty?

    All survey takers agreed that their boxes generally got to them in good condition. However, a few members said they sometimes had gritty/sandy greens. Two people said their sweet corn was not up to snuff and one person pointed out that the potatoes and garlic were sometimes quite dirty.

It’s true that the lettuce, spinach and other greens get gritty sometimes. This is especially true after a hard rain. I think I’ve gotten better about this over the years…but there is still room for improvement here. I had some problems with sweet corn this year…more on that later. Admittedly we don’t wash garlic or potatoes; they keep better if they are not washed.

 

5.       Do you think you got a fair amount of produce for the price you paid for the share?

Thirteen out of 14 survey takers said yes. Several said they felt they got more than what they actually paid for the share. One member said “Absolutely! Do you know how many potatoes, pickles and tomatoes we have stored up?”

 

One member said no. Here was their explanation:

“Not really. I think it would be helpful to have more of a variety of items in each box and also not fill it with mass quantities of one thing, that no one can use in a weeks time. We really appreciate your efforts and great personal service, but we found that for our family, getting our produce this way didn’t fit in to our eating/cooking habits. Much of the food ended up going to waste, as we couldn’t consume it fast enough.”

It’s very true that CSA shares don’t fit with everyone’s eating habits. It’s also true that we do sometimes run large quantities of certain crops. I’m always aiming to give people more than they can use in a week that way they can store/preserve some or share with their friends or neighbors or send it to their local food shelf.

 

6.       Any major favorites or major dislikes? Suggestions for new things?

Major favorites: Oh my, there were many, many favorites. Tomatoes were the winners with seven votes. Kale, potatoes and tommatillos came in second with five votes. Hot peppers (really??), lettuce, cherry tomatoes, water melon, spinach, garlic scapes and garlic each got four votes. Lots of others got one or two votes each, pretty much everything on the list got at least one vote.

Major dislikes: Swiss Chard, green tomatoes, garlic scapes, yard long beans and tommatillos all got one vote. Sweet corn also got a dislike for quality. This is true. Something happened out there in the corn patch last summer. I suspect two different varieties of corn crossed. As a result, the flavor was not nearly as sweet as it should’ve been. Don’t worry, I’m all over this problem, next year hopefully we’ll have really good corn.

Suggestions: more herbs, more pickle kits, more hot peppers, more eggs. Sweet potatoes, asparagus....good calls. 

 

Some other fun comments from the surveys:

"It became clear how awesome everything was since the boxes have ended and we had to go back to supermarket veggies...we shop at a coop so it could be worse, but realize now how awesome the summer was."

"Great year! Thaks for feeding us so well!"

"Didn't like the tomatillos, but we gave them away to good homes."