What is CSA?
A Community Supported Agriculture program is a model that works for farmers and consumers. It is a cooperative economic model that fosters a direct relationship between the farmer and you. This means that as consumers and supporters you have to share the risk as well as the bounty with the farmer. If the weather, disease, or pests cause crops to fail, there is not much the farmer can do. It’s important to realize you might not get a share of every crop on the list. However, we do all we can to make sure we have plenty of crops planted to ensure a full bag of vegetables each week.
What are the benefits of joining?
- Supporting a great non-profit program
- Reducing your carbon foot print
- Supporting local food systems and economies
- Learning to cook a wide variety of vegetables
- Learning about eating seasonally
- Eating healthier, fresher, and more local food
Unfortunately, most of the food available in grocery stores and restaurants travels thousands of miles to get to your plate. This means there is incredible waste in terms of packaging and fuel costs to get that produce where it needs to go. By joining a CSA you are doing a small part to reorient our food systems back to a local and sustainable scale. If we can support CSA programs in every watershed or in every 100 mile radius, we can reduce carbon our foot print and support our local economies. Money you spend locally tends to stay in your local economy. Besides these great reasons to join, you will also be challenged to use what’s in your share each week. This means you can try out all those recipes you’ve been meaning to get around to! Just think about how much healthier you will be eating over the summer.
What is included in a share? 
Shares will vary considerably from week to week. They will start out smaller, but as the season progresses, the shares will increase in size and variety. See the crop list for more information on what to expect and when.
How do you join?
Contact cbisgivingtreefarm@gmail.com if you are interested!
What if you can’t pick up your share one week?
Please just let us know. If you are going to be out of town you can always send a friend to pick up your share and eat your veggies for you. If you don’t have anyone who is interested in doing that, we don’t have to harvest a share for you that week. That saves us a little work.
If you just forget, or something comes up last minute, it’s ok. We will store left over shares in the farm cooler. You can just come out the next day and pick it up at anytime. If left over shares are not picked up by the end of the week, we will eat your veggies or donate them to the food bank! We never let food go to waste.
What do your payments do?
Although CBI’s Giving Tree Farm’s financial arrangements are different that most other CSA farms, your payments help keep it running. The farm is a non-profit operation, which means we are always just trying to meet expenses. Your CSA payments are a guaranteed income that is the foundation of our finances each season.
Typically, CSA payments help farmers with start up costs like growing medium, seeds, compost, inputs, equipment repair, tools, etc. CSA payments are essential because farmers don’t usually have any income in the late winter and early spring when the have to pay these start up costs.
What are our growing methods and practices? 
We are a certified organic farm. That means your food is safe and delicious. We do not use any synthetic pesticides, fungicides, or fertilizers. Every input used on our farm is derived from nature and completely safe. The foundation of growing healthy food is the soil. We are careful to take care of our soil by using minimal tillage, rotations, and cover crops, returning nutrients that the vegetables have taken from it.
We also provide habitat for wild life at our farm. We have put up birdhouses and bat houses around our land. We have many song birds, hummingbirds, sandhill cranes, blues herons, hawks, turkeys, various amphibians, and lots of snakes, that call the farm home. We have also seen coyotes, foxes, weasels, minks, muskrats, and bald eagles on our farm! Of course, we also have visitors that like to eat our crops like rodents, raccoons, and deer. We’d rather not have them around but we understand that our farm is a living ecosystem from the soil to the wildlife.
What is a flower share? 
A flower share can be included in your weekly pick up for an extra $100. The flowers will be included for the entire CSA season from May 23rd-Oct 24th. Each week your flower share will include one bouquet of at least 12 stems.
