This story was corrected on April 15, 2009

Each week, the tiny two-car garage at Victor Landa's quiet home on East West Highway in Chevy Chase turns into a bustling marketplace.

More than 100 residents from across the county visit Landa between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Wednesdays. They sweep the floors of his garage, stack boxes they borrowed and use hanging scales to weigh products.

Landa, a lanky Peruvian with long hair and earth-toned clothes, oversees the entire operation, occasionally receiving checks from visitors and engaging in friendly negotiations over his products.

Landa runs a community supported agriculture program, Spiritual Food CSA, where his customers come to get their fill of organic food as part of a community, not just a food service.

"The quality of the food and the fresh taste is completely unique," said Bethesda resident Marielle Arsac, who, because she doesn't own a car, drags a suitcase to Spiritual Food and fills it with the week's offerings in produce. "I care about my health and I also care about the planet.

"This market respects and cherishes Mother Earth," she said.

Montgomery County residents looking for fresh produce at affordable prices have found refuge in Spiritual CSA and other county CSAs, which provide weekly shares of locally harvested food to a community of customers.

Going local and green

The average distance food travels between the farm and your dinner table is 1,500 miles, says Woody Woodroof, owner of the Red Wiggler Community Farm on Orchard Drive in Germantown. For the 100 households involved in Woodroof's CSA, however, the average distance is about 11 miles.

Most of the produce is harvested at the seven-acre farm where customers pick up their shares once a week for 18 weeks during the summer harvest season.

"What families are finding is they're disconnected from their food source and one great way to connect people to where food comes from is to bring them to the farm where the food grows," said Woodroof, who has run the CSA for 14 years.

By seeing where there food comes from, CSA customers know their produce doesn't include synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Most CSAs employ self-sustaining farming strategies using seeds and fertilizers recycled from previous harvests.

"The taste of having something that was picked on Tuesday and you eat it on Wednesday, it's totally different from eating something that has been in the grocery store for two weeks," said Vanessa Strunk, a coordinator for the Sandy Spring CSA.

Landa picks up his produce every week at a farm in Kimberton, Pa., where the animals are fed solely by food grown there and the soil is prepared during a three-year "spiritual" enrichment process, where different minerals are added by hand to the soil.

"The human effort is tremendous, but the human benefit is the food is exceptional," Landa said.

On pick-up days, customers at Spiritual CSA follow what is basically an honor system: They use hanging scales to weigh out their items, return all jars and boxes they use and pay Landa directly if they take any items not included in the weekly share.

At the nonprofit Red Wiggler, many of the CSA customers volunteer with the operations, from helping with the annual silent auction to actually picking and planting the CSA produce.

The Menare Foundation CSA at Button Farm in Germantown is beginning its first CSA season in May and will allow customers to pay off their CSA costs through work on the farm.

"It keeps our costs down and it keeps people involved with the farm," said Tony Cohen, president of the foundation.

Defying the current economy

CSA farmers say the main reason their operations are growing in the face of nationwide economic problems is the awareness of and demand for locally grown food. In January, just before annual registration for the Red Wiggler CSA opened, people were waiting outside the farm to get in, Woodroof said. The CSA moved to a lottery system to handle the demand.

Comparing CSA farms to corporate farms is "apples and oranges," Woodroof said, because CSA farmers don't have lengthy distribution channels and can limit fuel costs while still offering high-quality food.

"What's coming from California and Chile and China, that system is so dependent on oil," said Woodroof, who spends $400 on fuel the entire year. "Our system, where food is produced locally for local people, is a model for the future."

The one-acre Koiner Farm in Silver Spring does not have a CSA but spends about $300 in expenses on its farm, said Lynn Koiner, who owns the farm with her 89-year-old father, Charlie. The Koiner Farm has a weekly stand at the Silver Spring Farmer's Market and customers can buy produce directly from the Koiner's farm on Easley Street.

CSA customers benefit from the low costs as well. For instance, a CSA share at Red Wiggler is $525 for 18 weeks and $600 for 22 weeks at the Menare Foundation.

"You can buy things for half the price," said Silver Spring resident Candice Sinai, a customer at the Spiritual Food CSA, which offers CSAs year-round for $30 to $45 per week depending on the length of the share. "You can't get that quality at any health store."

Bethesda resident Sarah Thomas-Golden said her family of five gets a third of its groceries from Spiritual Food CSA.

To alleviate the confusion of introducing new food into the diet, Red Wiggler offers recipes along with their shares, while the Menare Foundation offers coupons to cooking demonstrations at its farm for customers of the CSA.

Iris Norman, who helps run Norman's Farm Market CSA for 115 customers, said her CSA is hoping to include meat and dairy into shares to accompany the typically vegetarian menu. Norman's Market, which has run produce stands for more than 20 years, already has a distribution service that delivers local meats to restaurants in Georgetown, a service Norman says Bethesda and Chevy Chase could benefit from.

Since opening in 2007, Norman's CSA has become so popular – it had 40 customers its first year – the Normans' five-acre family-owned farm in Woodbine is now used as a storage facility for the CSA and produce stands until the business becomes large enough to hire full-time farmers.

"[The business has] never done as well as it's doing now," Norman said. "… A lot of people are learning about it and once they taste the produce I think they are sold."

Sandy Spring CSA: Runs May 13 to end of September (21 weeks); costs $545 per share, plus $50 fee for first-time customers; contact Vanessa Strunk at vandiva@comcast.net, call 301 424-9142 or visit sandyspringcsa.com; pick-up locations are in Rockville, Sandy Spring and Kensington.

Norman's Farm Market: Runs May through October (24 weeks), with week-by-week subscriptions in November; cost for a full share is $200 per eight weeks, with $50 discount if purchase all 24 weeks. Half-share is $120 per eight weeks; contact info@normansfarmmarket.com or www.normansfarmmarket.com; pick-up locations are in Potomac, Bethesda and Chevy Chase.

Menare Foundation: Runs May through October (22 weeks); cost for full shares is $600, half-shares $300; contact Farm Manager Steven Gillick at 240-393-9873 or Sgillick@aol.com; pick-up is at 16820 Black Rock Road in Germantown.

Spiritual Food CSA: Summer registration is closed. Winter season runs from December to May and registration opens in September; cost varies by season; contact Marika Torok at 202-246-5113 or marika_torok@msn.com,Teresa Duncan at 240-676-0861, or visit sites.google.com/site/spiritualfoodcsa;

pick-up is at 4217 East West Highway in Bethesda, Arlington, Va., Takoma Park, Washington, D.C. (Capitol Hill and Washington Waldorf School).

Red Wiggler Farm CSA: Summer registration is closed (registration for 2010 begins in December); cost is $525 (18 weeks); contact 301-916-2216, info@redwiggler.org, or www.redwiggler.org; pick-up is at 23400 Ridge Road in Germantown.