Farmers: A great place for contacts

Hello, I have been a part of the Local Harvest website since its inception a few years ago; I think I was the 5th person to sign up. It is a great site and is free. You can make a donation, if you'd like, but that's up to you.

If you have something to sell or are looking for something, are involved in a farmers' market, or sell from your farm....anything; if you need another form of contacting people or them you, this is a great site.

We get many emails, sometimes phone calls, some letters from people that have accessed the site. Check it out and sign on.....it can't hurt.

Sorry it took me so long to let y'all know about it, but it just occured to me that some of you could benefit from it too.

Here it is: www.localharvest.org

Happy Day,
Kathy

This message was edited Mar 23, 2004 7:55 AM

I signed on a couple of years ago & never went back. I better go check it out!
Bernie

This message was edited Mar 23, 2004 7:28 AM

For free, it is a another site to put your name out there. Go for it! Check out ours....Misty Meadows Farm. I even have a picture of our farm on there. :)

What a great link!
Thanks so sharing!
Ep

Kathy,
What a great site! Thanks.

Another thing they will do is if you have listed something in coming events, they also have customers that are on a mailing list and they will send an email to all in your area of your upcoming event.....doesn't cost you a thing for advertising. Also, they have done newspaper articles. We feel so strongly about this site that we are sponsoring members. I'm glad you guys have enjoyed it and I hope that many sign up. :)

Nice picture of your veggies! Where the heck are the WEEDS?
LOL!
Tell us more as to how your CSA thing works.
Bernie

The weeds are there, believe me...:) They are just afraid of us so when we come around, they bend down.

Our CSA, also known as Community Supported Agriculture has been going on since 2000, we are starting our 5th year of distribution. We average around 36 members each year, although we would like to get to the point of having 100 members.

There are many ways to run a CSA. Some do it as a group effort or a Coop. We do ours as a single farm.

We take on applicants starting in December for the upcoming season and try to get our applicants in around the time we start buying seeds (January) so that we can plan accordingly. Of course, we also buy our seeds for the market and a little extra, because we have people wanting to join all year long, which we prorate. Our delivery starts Mid-May and goes to Mid-October, sometimes later as Mother Nature is not always so cooperative. We like to spring a surprise Thanksgiving delivery on our members and they get so excited because most of what they need for their dinner, we have (including free-range turkeys, which they do order ahead of time). We deliver to one spot each week and they come to us to pick up. We tell them how much they can get of each item and then they pick and weigh themselves. Some have likened it to picking their own veggies from the garden :) We have boxes and bags for them, boxes we ask to be returned for the next week. (I think we are going to get laundry baskets this year, keep costs down somewhat).

So a member pays an annual fee, we allow payments or in full :) and then they get approximately 22 weeks of produce/fruits, whatever happens to be ready to harvest. We found out that the best way to do it is to figure how much for two and four people. Our shares feed an average of two (half), and four (full) people.

We also offer USDA inspected beef, lamb, pork...certified baked goods, free-range eggs....all at an additional cost. We bring them and if our CSA members need them that week, they are available.

We hope to be able to offer milk, cream, and butter at some point. We can sell these items without inspection (as well as the others) because the concept is that members have basically bought a share of the farm and therefore we can sell to anything to them.

We have some members that have been with us the whole 5 years and others move out, suggest us to a friend, etc.

I hope this answers your question about the CSA. It is a great concept and up and coming. It is work, but I would recommend anyone who does market farming to consider this as another way to boost their income, also it helps out a lot in the winter when the market is down. It's what gets us from one place to another. :)

The concept actually started in Gt. Barrington, MA (my home county) and there is a USDA CSA site you can check out. It lists CSAs all over the country (who choose to be listed), we are there :) And coincidentally, that's how Local Harvest found me. Yes, they sought us out. :)

Like I said, this is just one concept. You can do a CSA many different ways and that site is a great source of information.

Check it out :) Kathy

This message was edited Mar 23, 2004 11:26 AM