I spent some time this past winter thinking about starting a CSA.  What, you might ask, is a CSA?  It stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  In a nutshell, you as a participant purchase a "share" which is a weekly pick up of a pre-made box of  produce grown by us, that you will get for 13 weeks.

Our goal is have participants committed to the CSA by May 15th and the actual program will begin the first week of June and run through the end of August.

Here is our 2015 CSA information:

 The summer CSA will be a 13 week program and will run from the first week of June through the last week of August.

           (There may be a second option of doing a mini-fall 8 week  CSA.)

      

      Pick up is available at our house in Arendtsville Fridays from 3-6pm, or at the Gettysburg Farmers’ Market on the square (Saturday mornings 7am-noon on the PUB quadrant.)  Please let us know what your preferred pick up location will be.

          All produce offerings will be grown by us.  Though we are not certified organic, we do use organically approved products in our fields.

           Fruits we have to offer this year are strawberries, black raspberries, watermelon and cantaloupe.

         Small share is geared for a 2-4 person household.  Large share is geared towards a 5-6 person household.

         Payments are appreciated by May 15^th.  Special consideration will be available for those wishing to do monthly payments.

         Every effort will be made to provide you with a nice variety (5-6 items) of high quality vegetables, herbs, (& fruits in season) each week.  Large shares will have the same number of items, just a larger portion of each.

         Our goal is customer satisfaction.  Please provide us with feedback on your experience at any time during the program.  If there are vegetables you don’t like, please let us know so we can make a substitute (pending availability.)  We grow 35-40 different kinds of produce throughout the year.  This should allow you to have a nice variety in your share.

        As a courtesy to our CSA members, we will offer you 10% off any additional purchases made while shopping with us at the Gettysburg Farmers’ Market.

       The total cost of a small “share” will be $275.00.  Large “shares” will cost $300.00

Gator-ing along

We are very fortunate to have not just one, but two "Gators" on our farm.  They are both true work horses.  The older one, purchased 12 years ago, does all of our "dirty work."  Anything that needs moved that is not food related gets hauled on this gator.  This includes firewood, shovels, rakes, chainsaws, gas cans, straw, etc.  It has 1,200 hours logged on the engine and still runs great.  We've had to replace the tires, not because they were worn out, rather they kept getting thorns in them from young locust trees.  Other than that, we've only had routine maintenance expenses.

After a lot of thinking, planning and number crunching, we decided it was in our best interest to purchase a second Gator.  Our newer Gator, purchased spring of 2014, only hauls produce harvested from the fields.  Therefore there is no chance of contamination to the produce.

We are very grateful for having both of these gators.  They save us a lot of time and work!

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