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A couple of years ago I was first introduced to the idea of CSAs – Community Supported Agriculture. I thought it sounded like something I might like to join. Instead I quickly forgot all about our conversation (I probably got distracted by a change in conversation topic…or a shiny object. You know, those things happen often when you’re me.)

Fast forward a year or two: more people were talking about CSAs. This time there must not have been any shiny objects around, because I started researching local farms, and decided I wanted to buy local. I liked the idea of supporting the local economy, getting fresher food, and not supporting transporting food thousands of miles which is what I end up doing when I shop at the grocery store. It was late summer and tomato season, and I wanted to give canning a try, so I stopped by several farm stands, buying tomatoes while getting a feel for each farm. I found several great farms, with excellent quality produce, but all too far away to visit weekly as a CSA member. I visited one farm stand in my town, but was unimpressed with the quality of the produce for the prices. By this time it was late fall and I stopped focusing on fresh produce.

Last month, a friend mentioned CSAs again, and told me she was looking into Garman Farm in Middletown, RI. I had found them last summer and was interested, but hadn’t had a chance to visit or try their produce. I investigated a bit more and liked what I saw. This week, on Garman Farm’s Facebook page, I saw that they’re advertising sign-ups for their 2016 summer/fall Farm Share/CSA program.

What is the cost to participate in a CSA?

Everything looked great, but something was still holding me back. Maybe because it seemed expensive? $499 for 20 weeks, 7 items per week, comes out to $3.56 per item. $25 per week. At a glance, that seemed like a lot. I can buy a head of lettuce or some peppers for a couple dollars or less. But fresh fruit (watermelon, berries) is often much more than $4 per unit. And at Garman Farm, everything is organic. My comparisons were to mostly non-organic foods, since I am still in the process of shifting to organic. Ok, thinking about the price tag on organic, this is looking more cost effective. Next, I looked at how much I was spending on groceries in an average week. I was guessing about $25. So if I spent that $25 just on produce through this farm share, everything else I bought would be additional money out of my pocket that I wasn’t currently spending. I was starting to lean away from the CSA again. But because I am a nerd, I track all of my purchases, so I was able to find out the real answer. I was actually spending over $50/week on average. And I can’t tell you the last time I brought home 7 different types of produce in 1 week. So if I spend half of my current weekly grocery total on the CSA produce, I still have $25/week to fill in with other food. Plus, if I fill up on all this produce, maybe I will actually be able to spend less on other items. I was still hemming and hawing about whether or not I should join.

What made me decide to join a CSA

A few days ago, after snacking too much on unhealthy treats (hey, it’s Girl Scout cookie season, how am I supposed to say no to Thin Mints!?) I decided that I needed to get back on a whole foods healthier eating plan. I went to the grocery store and bought a big bunch of “grown in USA” kale. Neither organic nor locally grown kale was available, but I took the best I could get. I chopped it all up and tossed it in a huge pot with an inch of water and some garlic, simmered for a while, then dumped a big pile on my plate.

I added some lemon juice and dug in. Oh. My. Gosh. It was delicious! Crunchy, slightly sweet. What? Kale, sweet? No, it’s supposed to be bitter, and a little tough. Maybe stringy too. How did I like this stuff in the past? All I had ever eaten before was pre-chopped, sold in a plastic bag. And I used to think that crap was good. But now I know what kale is supposed to taste like. It was good!

And at that moment that I decided that I needed to join a CSA. I need to have that field to plate fresh food. It’s worth the extra time to prepare, the extra time to drive a little farther away to the farm, and the higher quality food is worth paying a little more per piece of produce. On top of that, by joining a CSA, I am supporting something I believe in – helping to support the local economy, supporting locally and organically grown food, and supporting my health. This year, I am trying out Community Supported Agriculture. My registration for Garman Farm’s 2016 Farm Share/CSA is in the mail!

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I’m going to be nice and give you the recipe right from the start 🙂

Update 12/1/2016: I now make my liquid soap using potassium hydroxide lye and am much happier with that product. You can see how I make that improved liquid soap here.

Liquid Castile Soap from Bar Soap

How to make liquid castile soap from a bar of castile soap

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Ingredients

1-4 oz bar castile soap
1 tbsp glycerine
3/4 gallon 96 oz water
Optional 1 tsp liquid vitamin E
Optional a few drops of essential oils

Instructions

1. Grate the bar soap. You can get a good arm workout in grating by hand with a cheese grater. Or you can chop up the soap into 4-8 pieces, toss in your blender and pulse until you have small crumbles. I used the blender.
2. Pour water into a large pot. Ensure there is at least 2-3 inches between the top of the water and top of the pot. Boil the water for one minute (See Note 1). Turn burner to low.
3. Allow the water to cool for a few minutes, then pour in the grated soap. Gently stir to dissolve the soap into the water. It should dissolve in a minute or two unless you had large chunks of soap. Those took about 5 minutes to dissolve. Turn off the burner.
4. Add the glycerine, vitamin E and essential oils if using. Stir to distribute.
5. Let sit several hours or overnight to cool. The soap will remain very watery, but still works like soap! Some of the soap may separate (cloudy at the bottom of the bottle), just give it a quick shake before using.
6. Pour into your soap dispenser and enjoy!

Notes

Note (1): According to the Center for Disease Control, boiling water for 1 minute will make it safe to drink. While I think my tap water it pretty safe (I have been drinking it for 6 years), I boil the water to kill anything that may be living in it, so my soap doesn’t start growing things. If you use distilled water, you can turn off the heat as soon as the water comes to a boil.

Before I started my healthy/natural kick, I had another problem. (Ok, I have a lot of problems. We’ll just tackle one at a time…) It seemed for every gift giving occasion, someone (or multiple someones) gave me some fancy bar soap. Are they trying to tell me something? Do I really smell that bad? Self-doubts aside, my problem was that I don’t really like bar soap. It’s too difficult to keep looking nice and clean next to a bathroom sink, and I don’t like how it feels like it’s leaving residue on my skin when I use bar soap in the shower. I am definitely a liquid hand soap/body wash girl.

Update 4 Jan 2017: I have learned that “real soap” – castile soap and the home made ones without chemicals do not leave that residue on my skin, the sink, the shower…and I now love bar soap.

So, what to do with all this bar soap? Per my usual, I turned to the internet (specifically Pinterest, my weakness). I found a recipe that involved grating up the bar soap and adding it to heated water until it dissolved. I tried it. Worked great! I used this lovely almond scented soap as a hand soap in my bathrooms for a couple months. Then one day I ran out of body wash. Body wash is just glorified liquid soap, right? So why not use this lovely smelling liquid hand soap? BECAUSE YOU’RE ALLERGIC TO EVERYTHING, IDIOT! Well, apparently I forgot about that at the time. Or I thought because it was ok on my hands it would be ok everywhere. But I was very wrong. I got contact dermatitis all over my body (have you ever gotten poison ivy? Yup, it was that reaction). It took over a week for the contact dermatitis to go away. That was not fun, but at least I did this stupid experiment in the winter when it was easier to cover up.

This lovely adventure in discovering a new allergy led me to determine that I needed to get rid of chemicals. I could not handle being allergic to soap. So I turned back to the trusty internet. This time I was smarter, and looked for recipes for fragrance and chemical free soap. And this is when I learned about castile soap. The liquid stuff looked great, but over $15 for 32 ounces? That was not going to be affordable as an every day and and body soap. (I did purchase Dr. Bronner’s unscented liquid castile soap for a face wash and I do really like it.) I immediately went out and bought the first castile bar soap I could find. It was Kirk’s Original Coco Castile, which I found at Walmart.

Kirk’s soap is vegetarian (actually vegan) and contains no artificial ingredients. Ingredients: coconut soap, water, vegetable glycerin, coconut oil, natural fragrance. According to the the FAQ’s page of Kirk’s website, the answer to “What kind of fragrance do you use in your soap?” is “The fragrance is less than 1% of the total ingredients in Kirk’s products. The fragrance is a combination of essential oils from the pine and citrus family and is Phthalate-Free. For those with highly sensitive skin we recommend our Kirk’s Original Coco Castile Fragrance Free Bar.”

Since I have not had sensitivities to and of the listed ingredients, or pine or citrus, I guessed (correctly) that this soap would be safe. It is so gentle that I can, and do, use it on my face.

I use this soap as a hand soap, face soap, body wash, and any time my home made cleaning recipes call for liquid castile soap.

If you’re looking for a super-sensitive liquid soap that is less expensive than liquid castile soap, or just want an inexpensive liquid soap, here’s how to make your own!

Recipe:

1-4oz bar castile soap

1 tbsp glycerine

3/4 gallon (96 oz) water

Optional, 1 tsp liquid vitamin E

Optional, essential oils

Liquid_soap_1

Instructions:

1. Grate the bar soap. You can get a good arm workout in grating by hand with a cheese grater. Or you can chop up the soap into 4-8 pieces, toss in your blender and pulse until you have small crumbles. I used the blender.

Liquid_soap_3 Liquid_soap_5

2. Pour water into a large pot. Ensure there is at least 2-3 inches between the top of the water and top of the pot. Boil the water for one minute (See Note 1). Turn burner to low heat.

Liquid_soap_6

3. Allow the water to cool for a few minutes, then pour in the grated soap. Gently stir to dissolve the soap into the water. It should dissolve in a minute or two unless you had large chunks of soap. Those took about 5 minutes to dissolve. Turn off the stove.

Liquid_soap_7

4. Add the glycerine, vitamin E and essential oils if using. Stir to distribute.

5. Let sit several hours or overnight to cool. The soap will remain very watery, but still works like soap! I think it could even be watered down more and be just as effective – I’ll update as I experiment with this.

6. Pour into your soap dispenser and enjoy! If the soap appears to settle with time, just give it a quick flip/shake and it should be as good as new!

Liquid_soap_9

I chose not to add any essential oils due to my skin sensitivity. If you want scented soap, add just a couple drops at a time. You can always reheat soap in small batches and add oils to your smaller batch.

My first try, I used 1/2 gallon (64 ounces) water. After the soap sat in a bottle for a month, it was too thick to pump out of a regular soap or lotion pump. I’ve re-made this soap with more water, and I like it much better.

Odds are you have a hand soap pump bottle in your house. I am all about reusing, so go ahead and keep using what you have! Or, get creative: I have found that some lotion bottle pumps fit on glass beer bottles. The threads on the bottle and cap don’t align quite right so it will leak if turned on its side, but it fits well enough to use.

Insider tip #1: Don’t go adding extras to your whole 1/2 gallon batch of soap. I decided to add that Aveeno Oatmeal bath stuff (which I bought to help with that fun contact dermatitis – works great for that application!). To my whole batch. Thought it would make it softer and soothing. All it does is separate and make my soap cloudy, and clog the pump. And it took me over a year to go through a 96 ounce batch.

Insider tip #2: As you’re making your soap, at step 3, you might think it is a good idea to use your hot water to dissolve the soap that is stuck in your blender. If you chose to do this, please use extreme caution! Because if you fill your blender ⅓ with water, and blend, the entire volume of your blender is instantly filled with beautiful white suds! These suds are pressurized! When you open the blender, warm soapy water will spray everywhere! If the water is too hot, you could burn yourself, and I really don’t want that to happen. If you insist on making a mess, please ensure that the water has cooled first.

Cost breakdown:

Water: $0.0075 (My water rate is roughly $0.01/gallon, so cost here is 3/4 of one cent. I’ll round up to $0.01 for simplicity in this calculation. )

Kirk’s bar soap: $3.28 + 7% sales tax = $3.51 for 3 bars = $1.17

Vegetable glycerine: $2.99 for 4 oz bottle, ½ oz used in this recipe = $0.38

Total cost for 96 ounces: $1.56

I had been paying $3.97 + tax for 56 ounces of store brand hand soap

Mine: 1.625¢/ounce

Theirs: 7.09¢/ounce

Where to buy ingredients:

Kirk’s bar soap can be found in a 3 pack in the soap aisle at Walmart ($3.28 for a 3 pack currently), or on Amazon

Glycerine can be purchased from a pharmacy. It is not prescription, but behind the pharmacy counter. I bought my NOW solutions vegetable glycerine on Amazon because I wanted to ensure it came from vegetable sources.

Vitamin E capsules can be purchased at almost and drug store, grocery store, Walmart, Target, etc. in the vitamin aisle. You can just pierce the gel capsule and squeeze the liquid into the soap. Or purchase liquid Vitamin E on Amazon

Essential oils can be purchased on Amazon (I like NOW brand), or from other companies like doTERRA and Young Living. I have used doTERRA with success as well.

Credits: I got the idea for making liquid soap from a bar from One Good Thing by Jillee.