Disappointment looms large on this one. My «bountiful» basket at DeGrazia Elementary on 8÷10÷13 was more like a pitiful package. Perhaps I’m spoiled by the abundance that is Market on the Move but I was shocked when we pulled up and saw what our $ 15 basket contained. We had one personal sized watermelon, the greenest, most unripe pineapple I’ve ever seen, a handful of pears, a handful of plums or pluots, a pint of blueberries, some tomatoes, 2 bunches of radishes, a bunch of small bananas and a head of collard greens. Now, I’m no expert on collard greens but I do know they’re not supposed to be yellowing and limp. Right? Oh how could I forget… a head of red leaf lettuce that literally measured 4″ high with about 8 limp leaves and a head of green leaf lettuce that was only marginally better. Again, how could I forget? Because it was absolutely forgettable! I am pretty confident that I could have bought the same produce at my local Sprouts for under $ 20, my pineapple would have been riper, my greens would have been fresh and GREEN and I wouldn’t have to be there at 6:45AM. Putting this in the been there, done that, won’t be back column. What a shame.
Yvett R.
Tu valoración: 5 Portland, OR
This past weekend was my first time participating in the Bountiful Baskets Co-Op and I’m really happy that it did so. It’s a pretty good deal! So, what you do is go on to their website, sign up, choose your pick-up location & time(my pick-up time was on Saturday morning at 8:00AM), choose the package you want(I chose the standard 50⁄50 fruits & vegetables package), pay and pick it up on your chosen date. The sign up deadline is each Tuesday and pick-ups are Saturdays. I believe that’s the way it works for all of Tucson. So, I mentioned the standard 50⁄50 basket that I got. That’s pretty much all the information you get. You pay $ 15(plus $ 3 for the cost of your basket {that you don’t get to keep} if it’s your first participating, plus $ 1.50 processing) for a basket of fruits and vegetables. It’s whatever is in season and you don’t get told until you’re there. For my haul this week we got: A 5 lb. sack of potatoes, a head of romaine lettuce, a spaghetti squash, an 8 oz. container of mushrooms, three cucumbers, a small watermelon, a bunch of bananas, two apricots, two pineapples, a bag of green grapes and 15 plums. For $ 16.50, I’d say that’s a pretty good deal! They also offer extras if you’d like to purchase them: items such as an upgrade to 100% certified organic for $ 10, loaves of bread(the current offer is 5 loaves of sourdough for $ 10 or 5 loaves of organic 9 grain for $ 12) and 2 lbs. of granola for $ 10. These are the extras this week. I’ve heard they also offer citrus or berry packs depending on the season. You’re encouraged to bring in your own basket, bags whatever container you want to carry your produce in but in case you don’t, they do have a few cardboard boxes there. Everyone had their own container when I went. They also ask that participants volunteer when they can. For this, they ask that you arrive one hour early and help sort the baskets. I didn’t volunteer, so I can’t give you any more deets on that just yet. I arrived about 20 minutes early and there was already a line of about 10 people. They started distributing promptly at 8:00 and from what I could see, there were no problems. I’m planning on participating every other week. The trick is to use everything. They offer recipes on their website in case you need them. What I did was plan my weekly menu depending on what we received. We’ve had omelets with the mushrooms, salad with the lettuce and cucumbers, and cut up the fruit so my kids could snack on. The pineapples are now gone and we only have a few plums left. Tonight we’re having the spaghetti squash for dinner. I think this is going to work out. I’ll update once I volunteer. ..
