Garden of Eden Organics

TRULY local organic produce. Don’t get one of those big business ‘farm boxes’ advertised everywhere now. Support local farmers and the lovely couple who own GOE Organics. The farmstand is small, but the produce is fresh and organic. Pastured eggs, Pastured chickens, local honey and a few other non-​produce goodies available too. CSA boxes are delivered to your door. Soapbox moment coming… Eat local. Drink local. Shop Small. YOU CAN AND WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE in creating a better food system in the U.S.

Family owned and fantastic. Fresh, organic produce. Delicious and great customer service. Cute little shop and they even have great activities!

Friendly owners. Amazing produce. Can’t wait to try the eggs. We ate most of the samples!

I got tot try Garden of Eden at the Unilocal elite event FIT Club, on ⁵⁄₃₁! I was drawn by their clean platters of samples, and upon tasting peaches, strawberries, cherries, salad with feta cheese and pine nuts.
The owners were nice, and explained the layout of their business. They passed out little fliers that indicated where they would be at certain times to do drop offs, and I thought it was really cool they went to UCSD campus! It’s a shame they can’t be at the Farmer’s Market on Tuesdays, but nonetheless, I’m not aware of a locally grown fruit/​vegetable business! Yay for fruits that taste just as amazing when it’s organically grown.
Keep up the great work and I would definitely visit next time if I am in Escondido!

Best place to get your organics! The variety is amazing! You won’t find that with other CSA’s. Best tasting fruits and veggies. Totally worth the 40 minute drive I make every weekend! So happy I found this place!

This owner cowboy takes great pride in offering the best produce around. The oranges are to die for BTW! Thanks for sharing the love at last night’s Unilocal event! I look forward to trying your box!

I took a class at Garden of Eden and was so disappointed. The idea was great but they were so disorganized. The main chef seemed very knowledgeable but was clearly not used to teaching. Some of his helpers were licking their fingers or testing the temperature of the food by dipping their fingers into it! Then we were eating the food. We were told to bring our aprons and we didn’t do any cooking. We just stood around and watched the food being prepared. The people were friendly, the produce and food was good — but you need to get your act together if you’re going to charge for a class!

Super friendly owners. Pretty good selection of local organic fruits and veggies. The quality of the produce is very good and I feel great supporting the local farmers.
Location is ideal for us as there isn’t much to choose from in the Deer Springs/​15 area.
Prices were reasonable and they have free samples so you can taste before you buy which is always nice!

I am so glad we found Jennifer and Paul! Their CSA is wonderful. The produce is spectacular and tastes absolutely amazing. I look forward to getting our new box every week. We get the individual box (there’s 2 of us) and it’s plenty of vegetables to last us one week. We arrange our pick-​up at the farmstand in Escondido so that we can buy some extra fruit. And boy oh boy is their fruit delicious!!! They truly have the best produce I have ever tasted — AND it’s organic and fresh! Regarding the people who have complained about the pricing: firstly, the prices are comparable to other CSAs and secondly, you get more produce than you would at the grocery store! As far as the amount of food sometimes being less than other times, keep in mind that harvests can be affected by weather and time of year, etc. Most of the time your box will be overflowing, but sometimes it won’t! Not a big deal! Anyway, we highly recommend GOE CSA and know that any new members will agree!

We are in visiting from AZ and what a gem this place is! They were so friendly and warm welcoming us to sample the delicious organic fruits and veggies they have to offer! Also gave us some dining suggestions near by. This place is amazing!

Hi My name is Anne and I am so Happy with Garden of Eden Organics! My pick up is super close to my house and the produce ive been getting is Ahh-​mazing! I have always been into food but this has opened my pallet to try and cook new things !
I have a box for 1 and honestly i find myself cooking for my friends so i dont waste my food! This weeks box consisted of :
Strawberries
Green onion
Butter leaf lettuce
Golden beets
Apples
Blood Oranges
Avocado
Spinach
baby Carrots
Dino Kale
Itilian Parslely
I had some fresh lemons from whole food i made blood orange strawberry lemonade!!!
Im so in love with this whole situation i couldnt be anymore Happier!

The BEST produce you can find IN THE WORLD. No exaggeration here. You are first of all consuming ORGANIC produce, what this means is that you are eating food and feeding your children food that doesn’t hold a ton of pesticides. That means this food is actually giving nutrition to your body as opposed to killing it with cancer causing chemicals. If this is the first time you have heard of Organic goods i suggest you go look it up. Second off this place is a CSA. Community Supported Agriculture. That means you are doing something good for your community for once! You are supporting local farmers and not supporting the major corporate companies that try with all their power to squash out every mom and pop organization known to man.
Thirdly, the TASTE. The name suits the company because every fruit or vegetable is like taking a bite of heaven. You thought some ordinary fruit, such as an orange tasted good, just wait until you try THEIR orange, or their apple or whatever else you think is so common and generic.
Lastly, the people. The people behind this organization make the company. They care. They care about their produce, and their people. Some beautiful human beings run this company and are backed by some outstanding employees. They are involved in mind, body and soul. You will not find a better CSA with a more loving community then this one.

I can’t comment on the food because I’ve never gotten any. I’ve been trying to get signed up with this CSA since September, it’s now February. I’ve had several emails with Jennifer, who I believe runs it. I was lead to believe that a pick up location would be starting up in Escondido. Last email was around a month ago and I was asked to be patient. When I checked the website today, guess what… NOTHING about the Escondido drop was there. Thanks for the heads up. The food might be great, but I don’t trust places that are disorganized. I’ll just hit the Farmer’s Markets when I have time. I give up on trying to find a good CSA.

Complete rip-​off, not to mention disorganized mess.
Decided to try the CSA large box, after trying Suzies and before trying JR’s.
This one is the worst. I couldn’t believe they charged me $ 50 for a few measly ordinary veggies that I could have bought at Henry’s organics for about $ 10. They gave me about a ¹⁄₅ of what I had received from Suzie’s CSA just the week before. At Suzies I paid on $ 25 for a trial no fees, no hassels, no problem. Man I miss Suzie’s.
See my pics if you don’t believe me, I photo each of the CSA’s to get a gage and compare them because it’s easy to forget from week to week.
These guys are a complete disaster. It started with me ordering the large weekly box for a one month trial online. On their site it says they will respond withing 48hours. So 5 days later I call and they can’t find my order although I have the e-​receipt. Eventually they find it or at least that is what I am told, I confirm I want the large box just to be sure, and set up my pickup.
When we get to the store, they start to unpack the box, some carrots, a small bunch of brocolli, some greens, some oranges (one rotten) a few other unexciting items like green onions and kale, oh and 2 avos, and that was it.
I was told I could take a few extra oranges if I liked which I did –2 they are in the photo. Oh and I could buy some jam too… Huh? Suzies gave us a beautiful jar of strawberry jam in our box last week, plus tons of more veggies and sprouts too and now I have to pay you more for the box and also buy jam??? I asked if there is a way to use the carrot tops since there didn’t seem to be a lot in the box. They did send out a recipe.
After getting this box I felt like I needed to stop at Henry’s to supplement our weekly veggies because this was not going to cut it. After Suzies where I could barely use all the interesting freshness, with with these guys I felt totally ripped off.
I thought I better call, and make sure there wasn’t a mistake, maybe they gave me the small box instead. Nope. So dare I ask what could possibly be in a small box?
When I called to inquire I was told, yes some broccoli, some carrots, some lettuce you did get the right box. For $ 50? So I told them I was going to have to cancel because this just wasn’t what I was expecting. Then I got the excuse that oh well we had some bad weather — uh didn’t Suzie’s have the same weather? And oh we don’t normally cancel, it’s buyer beware. Finally they agreed to repay me, but not for sign up fees or anything else, so I would pay $ 50 for a week of total crap.
A few weeks later they sent out a spam to all the members indicating that the boxes would be going up in price, I just laughed.
I really can’t believe anyone would use these guys, you could go to the farmers market and get your own organics for a lot lot less.

Super variety of fruit and veggies you would be hard pressed to find with another CSA. sign up and support your local farmers and in the process experience what fresh, pristine food tastes like. Garlic bulbs with the root, various collard green varieties, dates, watermelon, Armenian cucumber, avocados, grapefruit just to name a few of the things you have to look forward to.

Joined this CSA three weeks ago and have loved it so far. All the fruits and vegetables are very fresh. It’s a lot of fun getting things I would never pick up on my own and finding new recipes to use. GoE has a blog which fairly regularly lets you know what will be in the weekly boxes (or at least similar since there are different drop days) and also has some recipes.
As a graduate student I was a little nervous to pay so much money up front, but it is definitely worth it and will be continuing with this CSA next month. Easy pickup at the Irvine Farmers Market on Saturday mornings.
The dates are delicious… I didn’t even know I liked them.

I heart heart heart Garden of Eden’s CSA!
I am on my third box, picked up every Thursday at Java Mama in La Mesa. The individual box proved a little overwhelming for one person — even though I cook a ton and am a vegetarian. I’ve resorted to cooking a lot for my neighbor and/​or splitting my box with a friend and it’s working out perfectly.
The staff are super friendly and always have extra citrus, dates and avocados (for you crazy psychos who like them) to purchase. They will let you swap out your avocado for a couple of fruits if you hate them as much as I do. They have a website with recipes as well as a blog that details what is in each box and other newsworthy tidbits each week.
I will never buy produce from the supermarket again. I love these guys!
I’m off to eat my very first cherimoya… nom nom nom.

CSA’s generally speaking, are awesome. This is my CSA and I love it! So much better then buying your fruit and veg from the local death mart.

locally grown, organic produce! conveniently packaged and assembled for a once a week pick-​up
the thing I hate about grocery shopping is that the fruits/​veggies are always pretty horrible/​bland/​genetically modified to travel well and you need to come up with a menu /​recipes before you go to the store — or you end up at home with pretty much the same fruits and veggies week after week, falling into a rut of the same tofu/​veggie stir-​fry
with Garden of Eden organics — we pick up a small box of veggies/​fruits/​surprises once a week on Sunday in Hillcrest in the morning — that afternoon we brainstorm new recipes/​dishes to make and THEN we go grocery shopping —
the Garden of Eden folks give you a cool variety of fruits and veggies which always makes for interesting menus — last week we made several outstanding dishes, a creamy butternut squash soup with ground cloves, fresh pepper and a vegetable stock base, polenta/​tomatoe/​mozarella dish with fresh pesto sauce —
their dates and oranges are like nothing we’ve ever tasted — like candy! the pomegranates? yum! the veggies? outstanding! food with flavor!
buying local organic produce means that we support local business and help the environment by reducing the carbon emissions required to transport other produce long distances
join a CSA today!

I recently discovered a concept called Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), which is a way that we as the public can create a relationship with local farms in the form of a pledge/​payment for a weekly box of vegetables & fruits. The result of this relationship is that you get fresher food (since it doesn’t get trucked for hundreds of miles), better quality (all organic), and supports the vitality of the local farmers.
At Garden of Eden Organics, i get a box of goodies on a weekly basis for about $ 27. you can pledge monthly, quarterly, or annually… and you can pay more for a bigger box, but mine is just an individual box (see pictures). There are several drop locations where you can go pickup… locally its in Hillcrest, UCSD and Carlsbad. and Jen told me they’re planning on having a drop in Little Italy soon.
Part of the idea of the box is that you always get food that is in season, so you really don’t know exactly what will be offered each week. I like the surprise because then i can try new vegetables that I’ve never eaten before, and make new dishes. they also have recipes on their website for suggesting new recipes. sometimes we also buy food that is not in season, and requires a serious carbon footprint to harvest and transport.
look forward to more, and am already enjoying this week’s batch of strawberries.