"FROM OUR FARM TO YOUR TABLE" 2010 CSA LATEST UPDATE! "Through the Years - A Decade of Farm Life" New Gallery of 300+ pictures of the Farm, taken over the last 10 years. NEW PAGE! What We Grow! The Mission Why organic? Keeping it real...About Us "Hands Across the Table" 2010 Farm Internship Program Exciting new plans for 2010! LINKS FOR 2010 CSA: Why join a CSA? Membership Application UPDATE ON FARMER DAVE Email the Farm Recipe index Just updated! Read Suzy's Blog: Simply Sustainable My Life on an Organic Farm Back to Home Visitors to this website CSA WILL BE SCALED BACK FOR 2010 For the last six years, we have offered our customers the opportunity to participate in our CSA. When we started with the concept back in 2003, it was new to most people around here. Since there were very few farms in the area who offered seasonal farm shares, we had a waiting list for membership. CSA was an extremely rewarding experience for us but the local food economy has changed. Now it seems that every farm around is offering a CSA. Produce buying clubs are springing up faster than weeds and produce stands and farmer's markets abound. This is great news for customers because their choices are no longer limited to just a handful of farms and farmers. So it goes with progress. While we have very much enjoyed our successes with CSA, there comes a time to stand back and look at things with a critical eye. For that reason, we have decided that scaling back our CSA offering in 2010 makes sense. For one thing, customers now have choices and we don't have to feel bad turning people away. Another thing is that CSA is a huge obligation for a farm, if it is done right. The committment to a full season CSA requires a farmer to focus much attention to making sure that his/her obligations to the CSA are fulfilled. This is a full time effort and doesn't leave much flexibility for the farm. Having a meant we had to focus on growing more reliable and productive things to keep members stocked each week. Although we still added a few interesting things into each year's farm plan for our members to experience, most of our specialty crop business fell by the wayside. In 2010, it is our plan to reintroduce that aspect of our business. By shortening CSA to 12 weeks in spring, we will be able to bring many things to our markets that we have been unable to in the recent past. In addition, we may offer a "gourmet" short season CSA this summer, which will be announced at a later date. Another exciting aspect of this new plan is that I will again be able to put much of my attention toward my first love, growing heirlom veggies, all kinds of herbs and antique cottage garden flowers.(Why we love heirlooms.) We put up a small greenhouse last year with the intention of offering plants for sale but too much time and attention was required by CSA and that never came to fruition. I plan on making that a priority in 2010. Hopefully, I will also get to do some education on heirlooms for those who are interested. Finally, thanks to everyone who ever participated in our long season CSA. We couldn't have done it without you! Copyright 2009