CSA Farm Fresh Food Club
Jan 15th, 2010 by beth
What if you could get a season’s worth of produce directly from a local farmer? You can! Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is becoming a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food straight from the farmer who grows it. Here’s how it works: a farmer offers a certain number of “shares” of the farm’s bounty for sale at the beginning of the season. Typically, the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Consumers purchase a membership and in return receive a weekly share of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.”" – from Troy Farmers Market CSA Fair 
Our 2012 Farm Fresh Food Club Vegetable CSA has several options:
- Full season or fall only
- Full season option of Full size share or Small share
- Pickup Tuesday farmstand style or Thursday pre-packed at the farm,
- pickup in the City of Plattsburgh on Thursdays,
- at the Lake Placid Farmers Market on Wednesdays
- delivery to sites along our travel route from Peru to Lake Placid
Additionally, members may purchase our pastured chicken, duck, eggs, and purchase grass-fed beef and pastured pork from neighboring farms who we trust. New this year, members will be able to participate in a buying club through a distributor of New York farm products to purchase goats milk, non-homogenized milk, grains, and packaged foods.
The Farm Fresh Food Club Vegetable CSA Full Season share will consist of a twenty week season covering the five months of June through mid-October. For those with summer gardens or who are away much of the summer, we offer a six week Fall Share beginning Labor Day week (it is not on the membership form – contact us if interested).
The Full Season share is available in small and large sizes. The Fall Share is only available in Full size (some folks preserve any extras for winter). Our goal is that regular size shares contain ten items a week from a variety of offerings. An “item” is a bunch of carrots or beets, a bag of salad mix, a head of lettuce, a quart of potatoes, four squash, etc. Each week we try to offer some crunchies (carrots, beets, radishes, etc), some aromatics for flavoring (onions, garlic, leeks, fennel), salad veggies (lettuce, salad mix, tomatoes, etc), and veggies that are frequently cooked (snap beans, broccoli, squash, chard, potatoes). This usually more than fills two grocery bags but that depends somewhat on what you choose. The small share gets about half of the amount of the full share. We also put out herbs – a sprig or two is “free”, not counted as one of your items. If you want enough basil for pesto, it counts as one of your vegetables. Your eating pattern will determine how much of your vegetable consumption is covered by a CSA Farm Fresh Food Club Share. Some weeks you may select fresh cut flowers instead of a vegetable or two. Some items (beans and peas, cherry tomatoes, herbs, etc) may be pick-your-own on Tuesdays. These are things that we either can’t predict how many folks will want, or take little time to pick one share’s worth, but a lot of time to pick for all the shares. We will try to have some picked ahead for those who cannot physically harvest or who have babies in the car or are in a time crunch. Frequently some of our members will pick extra for those who can’t pick. We provide a “swap table” for pre-packed share pickups so if your share has something you really won’t use (though a benefit of a CSA is learning new food tricks) you can take that item out and select something else.
Members will come to Rehoboth Homestead (map) on Tuesday afternoons from 3 to 6:00 p.m. to select from a buffet of fresh vegetables or on Thursdays to pick up their prepacked share. Other pickup options include Wednesdays at the Lake Placid Farmers Market and Thursdays at a member’s garage on Draper Avenue in the City of Plattsburgh near SUNY and at CVPH. We also are willing to deliver to sites along our travel route from Peru to Lake Placid on Wednesdays.
Local Harvest has an excellent explanation of CSAs. Here is a video put together by some Minnesota folks explaining CSA participation: Community Supported Agriculture: What to expect when you join a farm. Closer to home, students at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva put together a video about their participation in a CSA.
Why do we offer a CSA? Vegetable farming is three jobs. Most folks think of growing the veggies as time consuming, but in reality harvest, packing, and marketing are even more time consuming. By having members join during the winter, it not only allows us to tailor our plantings toward them, but it moves the marketing into winter when we have more time. As importantly, it connects us with the folks who are eating our food. We can help each other eat better (members often share their recipes). It encourages us to know our products are appreciated and put to good use. It keeps us on our toes to see our farm and food through members’ eyes. We do plant a wider variety of crops for the CSA than we would if we had a farmstand or just went to farmers markets, so we need to know ahead of time how many CSA members to plant for.
A deposit of $100 or more will secure your membership until May 1st, when full payment is due. Full season large shares cost $500 picked up at the farm. Full season small shares cost $300 at the farm. Shares picked up in Plattsburgh or at the Lake Placid Farmers Market cost $550 and $350 since we have to pack them and transport them into town. Add $25 if you join after our early season deadline of January 31st because we have to modify our crop plans for additions at that point. We have been approved to accept SNAP cards for our CSA. Those using their SNAP cards pay weekly.
Fall shares cost $150 if paid before June 1, $175 after that (many of our fall crops are planted in June).
If you want a larger size share than we offer, talk with us and we can come up with a program for you.
More questions? Check our F.A.Q.
CSA Plattsburgh and Peru Pickup Brochure 2012 with membership form
CSA Lake Placid (Jay, Wilmington) Pickup Brochure 2012 with membership form
Please make your check payable to “Rehoboth Homestead”. Thank you. If you use online banking, you may email us your membership form and have the bank send us a check (66 Jabez Allen Road, Peru, 12972, 643.7822).
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