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csa
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Posted by boulderbelt 5/6 (My Page) on Thu, Mar 19, 09 at 15:38
| Anyone else doing a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) thing? I am after not doing one for the past 3 years. I did one for 10 years and when it turned into a delivery service and my member had less contact with the farm and us farmers than my farmers market customers I stopped the CSA.
In about 2 weeks I start back up but this time there is on farm pick up only. I have 10 members so far but expect to pick up more over the coming month as people can join for the entire 31 week season or monthly. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: csa
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| We did one for 2 years. Unfortunately, we only got 3 and 2 members. Our members did not help on the farm and 2 members picked up at the farmers market and 1 had me deliver to their place of business. Trying to divide the produce between the csa's and the farmer market will very difficult. We have decided not to continue with the csa side, and continue only with the farmers market. we will be adding a small u-pick and farm stand. |
RE: csa
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| Our CSA has really grown this year. We are planning on starting sometime in April, but are only charging for 28 weeks May through Thanksgiving. Right now one greenhouse is full: we have arugula, basil, loveage, cilantro, 10 different lettuce, 4 different cabbage, 2 different chinese, Brocilli, califlower, Chard, Chives, Mustard, Parsley and Spinach ready to go in the ground. We are transplanting about 5,000 tomatoes tonight, tomorrow and Saturday, then on to peppers and eggplant. It is getting really exciting, on average we are having 2 people per week sign up. Next Tuesday there is a big meeting with most of the CSAs in Utah in SLC and it will be presentation with public invited and discussion/sign-up. For our 1st pick-up we will have spinach, 5-8 types of lettuce, carrots, and 4 inch kitchen herbs. We have added so many new things this year and are starting so early is has been tiring. Bryan |
RE: csa
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| Our first pick up should have lettuce (a bag with 2 or 3 kinds), spinach, cilantro, chives, d'avignon radishes, arugula, parsnips, leeks, dried basil (or perhaps some other dried herb) and popcorn. I will be supplying 8 to 12 items every week in the shares. I have never had a problem with dividing produce between farmers market and CSA. I guess because I have harvest days for the CSA members and harvest days for the farmers market and the store gets the extras. I suppose if the Farm Share Program (what we are calling our CSA so we are not confused with the Confederate States of America crowd) gets up to 30 members than we may have some issues. But at that point I will always short the farmers market in order to supply the FSP members, if we start having shortages of produce. We should not as for the past 10 years we have easily supplied food for 200+ people a week |
RE: csa
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| I think our problem was not enough experience. We were asked at the last minute to take over another CSA that had went out of business. We were only doing market gardening for 2-3 years, and did not get the members that we thought we would get. Since we tried, others have established CSA's in our area, but their Farmer's Market was not as large as ours was/is. One has also added a website for "pre-ordering" to be delivered to the Farmers Market. I just don't have the time/knowledge to keep up a website or blog. My time is spent in the garden and cleaning area getting ready for markets. Our Farmers market is 3/days per week. |
RE: csa
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We are also doing a CSA after taking a break for 2 years. Our farm has moved in the meantime and we did not want to do a CSA ever again, but we are doing half the amount as before and pick-up on farm only too. We were aiming for 20 members and are full. The CSA is 22 weeks. We are aiming to have for the first week in mid-may salad mix, one herb bunch choice parsley or chives or cilantro, radishes, green garlic, green onions, spinach, arugula and rhubarb.
We also have a farm stand, do farmer's markets and sell to restaurants |
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