The Summer Produce Program

Isn’t it nice to see the word “summer”  and a picture of fresh garden produce in the middle of January? One of the best ways to beat the winter blues is to start bringing together your summer plans now. Here is a sneak peak into one of our summer plans–and get this–you may be able to get involved and make this one of your summer plans, too!

Last year’s summer produce program:

Last year, we successfully ran our first organized program of selling fresh garden produce. We patterned it after the widely known C.S.A. program, meaning that we had our customers commit to buying a weekly box of produce (whatever we had available in our gardens) to help support the farm. This really helped give us a consistent outlet for our produce, and we rewarded our faithful and beloved customers by giving them the best of our produce at lower prices. And they loved knowing that it came right out of the garden, literally hours before they received it. 🙂 The only difference we had with most C.S.A. programs is that we did not require a payment up front, but rather had the customers pay by week as they received their produce bundles. This made it a much easier commitment!

This year’s summer produce program is going to be even more unique, with more modifications made to the traditional C.S.A. We are currently working on our own distribution model based on what we think really favors the customer, and will also allow us to offer the opportunity to a wider audience (think 50 spots instead of 12!)

Here is a basic summary:

-STILL a weekly box of fresh garden produce.

-STILL no up-front cost; rather paying weekly as you get your box.

-NOW with the more variety and input into what you get in your box.

-NOW with more FRUIT–not just vegetables!

-NOW offering produce from other NY/PA farms in addition to our own.

In fact, a great deal of the produce we are offering will be from other farms in New York and Pennsylvania. Instead of being just a grower, we will now also be a produce distributer. We are excited to partner with other farms so that we can expand our program to a wider audience and ultimately provide you with the produce you really like and enjoy, rather than whatever happens to be available from our garden (sorry last year’s folks for all of the beets!)

There will be many more details to come, but hopefully this has whet your fruit-and-vegetable-appetite. If you are interested in receiving more information about this program as it becomes available (more to come in late February!) you can sign up to receive emails about this program here.

We can’t wait for summer and all of the opportunities for health, family, and fun that it brings. The snow may be cooping us up for now, but we will be outside in shorts, munching on fresh vegetables, before we know it.