How to get it
CSA farm shares, and the season we are planning for
A weekly share of what the farm has, paid ahead, and planted against households who signed up first.
A CSA is the arrangement we are working toward here. You buy a share of the season ahead of time, we plant against a number we can count on, and every week through the season you take home whatever the farm has.
It is the piece that turns a farm from a run of separate sales into something steady, and it is the reason we are gathering names now rather than after the ground is planted.
The share is not open yet. What follows is how we intend it to work and what we are still deciding, and the people on the list get first say on both.
How we intend a share to work
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Paid ahead, planted against
That is the whole idea behind a CSA and it runs both ways. You commit before the season, which lets us buy seed and plan beds against a real number instead of a hopeful one, and in return you get first claim on everything that comes off the ground.
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A weekly box through the season
Most CSAs run a stretch of about twenty weeks across the summer. Ours will be shaped by what this ground can actually carry rather than by a number copied off somebody else's farm, and we will say plainly what the season looks like before anyone commits.
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What the farm has, not a catalog
A share is not an order form. Some weeks are heavy on greens, some are heavy on roots, and every week is decided by what is ready rather than what was requested. That is the trade, and for most households it turns out to be the good part.
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Room for the rest of the farm in it
Vegetables are the backbone of a share, but a farm doing chicken, eggs and storage crops has more to offer than a market garden alone. How much of that belongs in a share and how much is better bought separately is genuinely still open.
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Collected here, alongside everything else
Pickup at the farm already works well, so a share slots into the trip people are making anyway. One stop covers the box, the chicken and whatever else is ready that week rather than turning a share into a separate errand.
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Sized so everyone actually gets one
A first season will be a small and clearly capped number of shares. Overselling a CSA is the classic way a new farm loses the people who believed in it early, and we would rather turn someone away in March than short them in August.
How we plan to get a first season running
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1
Build the list before the beds
Knowing who wants a share, and roughly what they want in it, is what makes the planting plan real. That is why the list comes first. It is the cheapest and most accurate market research a small farm has access to.
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2
Get the market beds producing
A share needs a garden behind it that produces reliably rather than heroically. That means a season or two of market vegetables running properly before anyone is asked to pay ahead for twenty weeks of them.
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3
Add the storage crops that carry the shoulders
Garlic, onions, squash and potatoes are what let a share start earlier and run later than high summer. They also need somewhere cool to sit, which is part of what we are building at the back place.
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4
Open a small first season
A capped number of shares, offered to the list before anywhere else, with the season length and the pickup rhythm spelled out in full before anybody pays anything. Then we grow it only as fast as the ground can carry.
Why a share is the arrangement worth building
A farm that sells one thing a few times a year is a nice thing to have nearby. A farm you see every week for half the year is something else entirely. The share is what makes that second relationship possible, and it is the reason it sits at the center of the plan rather than off to the side.
It also changes what a small farm can afford to do well. Knowing in March how many households are counting on you in July is the difference between planting cautiously and planting properly. Nearly every decision about seed, beds and labor gets better when the number is real.
There is a version of this that is about more than vegetables. Alex talks about food as the thing everything else bottoms out in, and about how much of that a household can take back with a few deliberate decisions. A standing weekly box from a farm you could drive to is one of the simplest of those decisions anyone can make.
The honest constraint is that a share only works if the farm behind it can deliver every single week, in a bad August as well as a good one. That is why we are building toward it rather than opening it, and why the water and storage at the back place are part of the same conversation.
Questions people ask
Can I sign up for a share now?
Not yet, but you can get on the list, which is the step that matters most right now. The number of households waiting is what tells us how many shares a first season should hold and how soon it is worth opening one.
What actually is a CSA?
Community supported agriculture. You buy a share of the season up front, the farm plants against that commitment, and you collect a box of whatever is ready each week through the season. The risk and the abundance are shared.
How long would the season run?
Most CSAs run somewhere around twenty weeks across the summer. Ours will be set by what this ground can genuinely carry, and we will publish the exact season length before anyone is asked to commit to anything.
What would be in the box?
Salad greens, roots, brassicas and tomatoes make up the backbone of most weeks, with storage crops carrying the shoulders of the season. The exact mix is still open, and what people on the list ask for will shape it.
Could I add chicken or eggs to a share?
That is one of the questions we are still working through. A farm running poultry alongside vegetables can build a fuller share than a market garden alone, and whether people want that bundled or kept separate is worth asking first.
How would pickup work?
Collected at the farm, alongside anything else ready that week. Pickup is already how the chicken moves, so a share would use the same rhythm rather than adding a second trip or a separate arrangement to keep track of.
Elsewhere on the farm
Would you take a weekly share?
Your answer is what decides how many shares a first season holds and how soon it opens. Nothing to pay and nothing to commit to yet.
Join the list