CSA Signup Time

Ah... a picture from Week 12 of the CSA last year.

I see watermelon, cantalope, spaghetti squash, cucumbers, squash, 2 kinds of potatoes, garlic, and I see on the board there are tomatoes around the corner from the picture and greens in the fridge.

And evidently I had just brought the cat back from the vet as the cat carrier is right there in the picture as well. If you have a farm, you need outdoor cats, that's just the way it goes.

We break our CSA rules every year, we say we only want 8-10 members and then we end up with 12-14. Oh well, it's hard to say no and it's not as if we can't feed more members- we always have a lot of produce.

This year we said we'd wait till Jan 15th to open up the CSA to new members other than our returning members and we already broke that rule. We have 4 new members already signed up and paid (plus 1 returning member). So we are at 5 CSA shares so far.

So how do you make sure you secure a spot? Send us a check. Quickly. We really do stop at 12-14 and then we start the waiting list and see if we can find someone to work on the farm.

The CSA has 2 options:

Full Share: $800 for at least 20 weeks of produce

$600 for the same 20 weeks but you come volunteer to work on the farm for 2 full days (16 hrs)

Half shares are half the above and you will pick up your share every other week. So 10 or 11 weeks of produce in total.

We love CSA's and if you read the heading of this blog you'll find out that being in a CSA is why we ended up with this farm. If you don't know what all those veggies are in the store and you avoid buying them, this is the way to try them because you are just gonna get them in your box and you'll have to figure out how to use them.

Our pickup days will be Tuesdays and Fridays. You come anytime after 12 noon. If you can't come on Tuesday then your share will still be there on Wednesday. If you miss a whole week, you are out of luck. Most folks give their share to a friend when they go on vacation so you'll make a friend happy that week. The whole process is kind of grocery store "like". I have the list of what you take that week: 1 bag of lettuce, 10 tomatoes, 1 bag of potatoes, 5 squash of your choosing, etc.

We also have pick your own herbs, pick your own raspberries, blueberries and flowers.

This year I'm adding a bunch more raised beds for more pick your own items. Sometimes CSA members spend a few hours walking around the farm eating raspberries or playing with our Border Collies and they then realize "oh yeah, I guess I better get my produce". The good news is that when you are at the farm you can also get an egg share and get fresh pastured eggs and grass fed meat. We are switching to organic feed for our hens, so the egg share is $100 for 20 weeks. Or you can always buy a dozen eggs for $6 or an extra dozen for $5 if you have the egg share.

We don't do a farmers market so all the produce we pick that week is for the CSA and we just divide it up. The shares are pretty big so a full share will supply a family of 4 but those with only 2 in the family and the desire to freeze items will love our CSA as well. Our goal is "all on farm sales" as we want to spend time on the farm with our kids and not at a farmers market. So that means the CSA members get our extras all summer long. Last year we had some bonus weeks where CSA members could try cajeta and some goat cheese. We can't sell it to you- but when we get a good week of milk and we don't know what to do with all that cheese, we share. Plus we want some feedback as we're learning how to make cheese and we need lots of practice and feedback.

So..... sign up now. Questions? email us...