Bountiful Baskets and a Pumpkin Patch

Lately, it seems like food has become a major focus in our blogging. I don't know what it is, but we seem to be stocking up or finding deals all while keeping within our grocery budget. Today we were finally able to try out Bountiful Baskets, a cheap way to get fruits and veggies in the western part of the US. We've wanted to try this before, but all of the spots have been filled everytime we've tried. This week, however, was different.

How it works is: you have a 24-hour window to sign up on Monday and Tuesday and pay for your bountiful basket. Each pick-up location has a specified number of slots, and once they are taken, you have to find another location. I just checked and there are 9 different pick-up locations in our valley. This program has really taken off here!

Once you've paid, you have nothing to do until pick-up day on Saturday. We had a 20-minute window in which we had to pick-up our "basket" at the elementary school we chose as our pick-up location. Each location is volunteer run and most are located at schools.

We brought our own bags to carry our produce home in and were amazed at how much we got. When you sign-up each week, you have no idea what you'll be getting. You only know that you're guaranteed 6 vegetables and 6 fruits. Here's what we got:
Veggies: 3 artichokes, 2 bags of carrots, 1 stalk of celery, a head of romaine lettuce, 1 onion, 3 red peppers, and 2 tomatoes.

Fruits: 9 Gala apples, 1 cantelope, 6 bananas, 1 bag of grapes, 1 carton of strawberries, and 10 kiwis.

That's one bountiful basket! And the total cost? $15 for one week. I'd say that's a deal. What do you think? There are also other add-on options such as bread, tortillas, beans and grains, boxes of tomatoes, etc. We're thinking 25 pounds of dried beans and grains for $22 is a good deal that we hope they offer again another week. Stay tuned for more bountiful baskets, but it might take us two weeks to get through all of this because we still have our organic student farm share for a few more weeks.

Speaking of our organic farm share- we took a trip to the student farm today to pick out our pumpkins from their pumpkin patch. Check out this scenic pumkin patch!

We quickly found our two pumpkins in the patch filled with numerous pumpkins waiting to be harvested. Scott went for a gigantic one while I choose a nice, rounded pumpkin. We'll show them both to you once we get them carved in the coming weeks. What a fun day of new adventures.