NOTE 1/16/2012: We’re updating this page right now with details about the 2012 season. Please bear with us and everything should be lookin’ good again soon!
Our CSA program is the heart of our farm. Read on to see how it all works. Please be in touch if you have any questions!
WHAT IS COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE?
Simply put: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a direct, personal relationship between you, the eaters, and us, the farmers. You pay up front for a season’s worth of fresh vegetables grown right here on our farm, and every week we provide you with an ample share of the harvest. The first two CSAs in the United States began in 1986. Now there are somewhere near 2000 of them!
There are many compelling reasons to join the Frog Bottom Farm CSA. Among them:
Fresh, homegrown food just tastes better! We pick all our vegetables at the peak of ripeness within a day or two of delivering them to you. Everything is incredibly fresh. And because we don’t have to transport anything very far, we choose what to grow based on what tastes good — not what can withstand a cross-country journey in a refrigerated truck.
This is by far the most cost-effective way to eat naturally grown, pesticide-free vegetables. Your fridge will be full every week, for less money than you’d spend for the same items at the farmers market or the organic section of the grocery store.
In this age of industrial food scares, you can rest easy knowing your family is eating vegetables grown without pesticides on a small farm. We grow on about 10 acres and we tend to every plant with our own hands. This means we don’t have to rely on dangerous chemicals to keep pests under control. (You can read more about our growing practices here.) And because we’ve seeded, transplanted, fertilized, and picked every plant, we can answer any questions you have about where your food comes from and how it was grown.
When you buy a share in our CSA, you help strengthen the economy here in central Virginia. When you buy directly from an owner-operated CSA like ours, we’re able to keep farming full-time. And the money you invest in our farm is reinvested right here, on everything from worker wages to mechanics’ bills, gas and groceries and compost and chicken feed. Supporting a small family farm does so much to maintain and enrich vibrant rural and urban communities.
Supporting a local farm is also a way of being a good steward of the earth’s resources. We do not use and will not ever use any chemicals that harm the water, plants, or animals around us.
It’s easy! Pick up your food at the farm or at a convenient central location, and learn about what’s in your share and how to cook it by reading the farm blog.
It’s fun! You’ll try foods that are new to you, and learn new ways to cook old favorites. You’ll learn so much about how food is grown, what grows when, and what a real working farm is like! Pick up your weekly share on-farm if you like, meet other like-minded folks at our monthly potlucks, or just come on by for a visit!
A COUPLE OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER
In a CSA, farmers and eaters share the bounty and the risk. We try very hard to provide an ample share every week, and we’re usually successful. But some things are beyond our control – namely, the weather – and you should expect a light share from time to time.
Also: our happiest CSA members are those with a sense of adventure and creativity in the kitchen. They’re willing to try vegetables that are unfamiliar or unpopular: beets, hakurei turnips, and kohlrabi are good examples. And these same members are also always on the lookout for new ways to prepare old standbys. Crops like squash, tomatoes, and greens have long seasons, and you’ll see a lot of them.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
This year we’re offering our traditional vegetable shares, a limited number of prepaid farmers market shares, and egg shares.
Our traditional vegetable share is a subscription program for vegetables. You sign up now and starting the first week in June, you’ll receive fresh, in-season vegetables, herbs, and some small fruits, every week for 26 weeks, through Thanksgiving week. Pick up your share at the farm, or at a convenient drop site in Richmond, Lynchburg, or Appomattox. Learn about the produce, get recipes, and follow the farm season right here on our website, at the Farm News & Blog section. Two share sizes are available; see below for more details.
Prepaid farmers market shares are new for 2012 and come at the request of several of you. They work like cash and are good toward anything we sell at our farmers markets: produce, eggs, pastured pork. Available in two sizes. Full shares cost $497.13 and get you $565 worth of credit. Half shares cost $297.25 and get you $325 worth of credit. Pay now and debit out of your account anytime between the start of June and the end of October, at any of our farmers markets. $40 spending limit on any given day. A good choice for those of you who travel often or who want more control over what vegetables you get every week. This is a pilot year for this type of share so we’re offering a limited number.
Egg shares are new this year as well! Our flock of laying hens lives outside on mixed pasture and woodland. They eat a conventional grain ration of corn, oats, and soy meal with a calcium supplement and an organic kelp-based vitamin/mineral supplement called Fertrell Nutri-Balancer. Their diet is supplemented by a steady forage of grass, plant seeds, bugs and grubs, and vegetable scraps from the farm. Our egg share season is the same as our traditional CSA season — it begins the first week in June and runs through Thanksgiving week. Choose a dozen or a half dozen eggs per week.
WHAT’S IN A VEGETABLE SHARE?
We offer full shares and half shares. In a full share, we aim to provide the bulk of the vegetables every week for a family of four, or two vegetable enthusiasts. A half share is half as much food.
Our approach is to grow honest, delicious food — to provide your family with lots of staple vegetables, with enough diversity to keep it interesting. You’ll find information about your share on the farm blog every week, along with recipe suggestions. The exact contents of the share depend mainly on the time of year: different vegetables grow at different times!
Here are three real examples of what a full share looked like at different points during our 2011 growing season. The same weeks in 2012 won’t contain exactly the same items, but this should give you a good idea of how the season evolves and how much food to expect. (Remember, a half share is half as much food as this.)
A week in mid-June: 8 beets, 10 scallions, large bag basil tops, 10 cucumbers, 2 1/2 pounds summer squash and zucchini, 1/2 pound arugula or 10 sweet Hakurei salad turnips
A week in mid-August: 5 pounds tomatoes, 2 pounds eggplant, 2 bunches basil, 1 pound shallots, 1 watermelon, 1 muskmelon, 2 sweet peppers, 2 poblano peppers, 2 jalapeños
A week in late October: 2 winter squash, 1 bunch parsley, 1 bunch cilantro, 3 pounds sweet potatoes, 1 pound lettuce, 2 bunches celery, 2 pounds onions, 2 pounds cooking greens (choice of kale, collards, or braising mix)
To give you a more comprehensive look at the whole season, here’s our anticipated harvest schedule. Remember that variables like temperature and rainfall can change things.
Early summer possibilities (June – early July): beets, carrots, chard, cucumbers, eggplant, fennel, fresh herbs, garlic scapes, lettuce, radishes, scallions, summer squash, sweet salad turnips, tomatoes
Late summer possibilities (late July – early September): cantaloupe, chard, cucumbers, eggplant, fresh herbs, garlic, onions, sweet and hot peppers, potatoes, shallots, summer squash, tomatoes, watermelon
Fall possibilities (late September – November): beets, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celeriac (celery root), celery, collard greens, cucumbers, eggplant, fresh herbs, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard greens, onions, sweet and hot peppers, potatoes, radishes, rutabagas, summer squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, turnips, turnip greens, watermelon, winter squash
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
A full share costs $650 (equivalent to $25/week) plus VA state sales tax. A half share costs $350 (equivalent to just over $13/week) plus VA state sales tax. If you sign up and make a full or partial payment before December 31, you’ll receive $50 off a full share or $25 off a half share — that’s like getting two weeks of your share free. If you are joining us after the CSA season has begun, we will prorate the cost of your share based on the weeks remaining.
Some folks split a full share with a friend or neighbor – you’re welcome to do that.
For our 2012 season, we’re accepting e-checks and regular paper checks. You can pay in full or in four installments. The first payment will be due upon registration. The next payment will be due on the 1st of the following month, the third a month later, and so on.
WHERE DO MEMBERS PICK UP THEIR WEEKLY SHARES?
You can pick up your weekly share at the farm or at a central spot in your city. We’ll ask you to choose your site before the CSA season begins.
Our 2012 pick-up locations are:
RICHMOND
NEAR WEST END: St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 6000 Grove Avenue. Saturday mornings 8am – noon.
CHURCH HILL: Central Montessori School, 323 North 20th Street. Wednesdays 4pm – 7pm.
GINTER PARK: Ginter Park Presbyterian Church, 3601 Seminary Ave. Wednesdays 4pm – 7pm.
FOREST HILL: CSA member home, West 44th Street near Reedy Ave. Wednesdays 4pm – 7pm.
MIDLOTHIAN: KingsWay Community Church, 14111 Sovereign Grace Drive. Wednesdays 4pm – 7pm.
CHESTERFIELD: CSA member home, Collingswood Drive. Wednesdays 4pm – 7pm.
LYNCHBURG/FOREST
Mind Body Studio, 311 Rivermont Ave, Suite A. Wednesdays 4pm – 7pm.
APPOMATTOX
Baine’s Books & Coffee, 205 Main Street. Wednesdays 4pm – 7pm.
and AT THE FARM!
WHAT HAPPENS IF WE GO ON VACATION OR ACCIDENTALLY MISS OUR PICKUP?
If you know you won’t be able to pick up your share, you have a few options:
- Send a friend, neighbor, or relative to pick up your share. This is a fun way to introduce other folks to the CSA model of eating local vegetables!
- Donate your share that week. We’re partnered with a variety of community organizations to whom we donate extra produce at the end of the CSA pick-up. See our “Gleaning Partners” section in the sidebar for more on each of those organizations. If you can’t pick up your share and can’t send someone to pick it up for you, know that your share will be donated to families in need.
- If you’re in Richmond, where we have multiple CSA sites, it’s okay to change your pick-up location from time to time. We just ask that you call or email us by Sunday night of that week. Our CSA harvest week runs from Monday to Friday — that means that folks who normally pick up their vegetables on Wednesdays can switch to the following Saturday, and folks who normally pick up on Saturdays can switch to the preceding Wednesday. Hope that makes sense! Give us a call or email if you need more information.
If you forget to pick up your share or miss your pick-up unexpectedly, your share will be donated. See our “Gleaning Partners” section in the sidebar for more information. Unfortunately, we just can’t honor requests to pick up missed shares at another time. We do pick and send every share to be picked up unless we’ve heard from you in advance, and it would quickly become quite costly for us to pick a second share. Thank you for understanding!
CAN WE VISIT THE FARM?
Sure! We hold a few potlucks during the growing season. We usually start with a meal and continue with a relaxed farm tour. The potlucks are a great chance to meet other CSA members and learn about how your vegetables are grown. With sufficient notice, we’re also very happy to accommodate family and group visits at other times. Children are always welcome at the farm! There’s plenty of room to run and play. And we have plans to build a family discovery garden! We hope it will be a fun and inviting spot to learn about how things grow.
Please leave your dogs at home.
SIGN ME UP!
Click here to start the signup process.
