What will a CSA farm share include? How much does it cost?


A share in June, the height of spring crops

SOLD OUT

NEWS: I am sold out for 2024. If you would like to be on the early email list for 2025, or on the list if a current customer wants to sell the end of their season, email me at farmer@wordofmouth.farm

Contents and cost

A share is an insulated bag (max 16"x13"x9'') of very fresh vegetables delivered to you in North Capitol Hill late Friday afternoon, for eighteen weeks starting May 31 and ending October 4 -- that allows for one unpredictable week off when I can't harvest -- e.g., during smoke.  Most of the veg are triple-washed before I pack them. I aim for six different things every week, though last year most weeks got more than that. This has been plenty for most two-adult households, and some were happy with an every-other-week share.  My sweetie and I eat a double share ourselves, but we eat a lot of vegetables.

It costs $40 per delivery, so the season payments are:

Every week: $720/season. 

Every other week, totaling nine deliveries: $360/season. 

Any delivery to an address I go to anyway -- including my front porch -- is $25 off each full season or $12.50 off an every-other-week season

The picture  above was a share for one week in June. Kale, romaine, herbs and scallions, beets, carrots, radishes, snap peas, and butter lettuce. Scroll down for a picture of a double share at the biggest harvest time... 

Also in the planting plan, in their various seasons: chard; spinach; small turnips; snap beans;  hoophouse (warm-climate) crops, including several varieties of tomatoes; and eventually baking squash. In 2024 I am trying greens from warm climates because we're expecting a warm summer. 

If it gets too smoky to work safely outside, there will be less harvested. CSA is a risk-sharing economic approach and bad weather is always a farmers' first risk. I aim to get a lot of things growing early, as soon as spring warms a little -- I figure I can harvest and wash in a respirator, but I can't dig and hoe in one. 


NOW ACCEPTING ORDERS FOR 2024

TO SIGN UP:

Email me at farmer@wordofmouth.farm . We'll figure out delivery, payment, etc. I'm too small to have a formal storefront, but I'm on Venmo and Paypal. 

Delivery

I deliver to North Capitol Hill in Seattle, Washington (because I live here). I will deliver straight to your door. I text everybody a headsup as I leave the farm in Woodinville and then text each customer when I drop off your bag an hour or two later (usually about an hour later;  three hours to the end of the delivery loop on terrible traffic days). 

I need the insulated bag back every week! I sanitize and reuse them.   So I  also text a reminder on Thursday evening.

If you can't use the delivery in a given week, I will deliver it to a close neighbor or to a food bank for you.  I can't postpone the week til later when I've already sold the future weeks. 

 
Questions? farmer@wordofmouth.farm


More details about the contents

Greens

Lots of greens! I love fresh greens and the Seattle region is good for them, especially in spring. That includes spinach, braising greens like kale, many kinds of lettuce,  fresh herbs like basil and cilantro. Pak choi. Amaranth in high summer because it doesn't mind heat. In 2024 I'm planting some more greens from warm places around the world, we'll see what does well here. 

Tomatoes

I also have a hoophouse, a semi-permanent greenhouse. It allows plants that like a warmer, more humid climate than we have most years. That's TOMATOES. And basil. Also cucumbers to round out the salad, and okra to mellow summer soups. There are ten tomato plants for each farm share, of six kinds of tomatoes over the course of tomato season (July till frost). Melons if we're lucky; last year everyone got one small watermelon. 

Sturdy salad, tender stir-fry

Carrots, baby beets, baby turnips, radishes; all of these to be harvested while they're still young and tender. Green onions, because I always find them handy when cooking. Beans and peas because they're nutritious and various and absolutely great for the soil. This year's best greens are growing where last year's peas were. 

Herbs

Basil with the tomatoes, and also cilantro, and I'm planting more flavorful things in pots around the plot -- we'll see what adapts. Why pots? Because so many herbs either need different soil from what we have, or are SO happy here that I need them in pots to constrain them! 

Autumn crops

In high summer, new kinds of crops go into the warm ground: squashes that we start harvesting as the year gets autumnal. I find a cool place to germinate sturdy greens that will grow as the days get cooler and get a little sweet in the first frost. There should even be a round of autumn lettuce and spinach when the weather cools off. 

Flowers

Lots of reasons to have flowers -- to keep insect populations well balanced, keep pollinators around; some strong-scented ones are thought to keep pests from concentrating on crops; some of them are edible themselves; and I just like having them around. I don't grow or harvest them like a florist, but you'll get a "kitchen posy" as often as I can. 


September 1, 2023, double share: still pretty proud of this.