What is the SLO Farm CSA?
“Community Sharing Agriculture” is a food-box subscription program where you commit to the purchase of a share of our harvest for the season. Every week on Thursdays we will deliver a box of produce with your name on it to our drop site near downtown Eugene (15th & Washington).
We are proud to be able to offer a diversity of tree fruits and berries throughout the season as well as a selection of the freshest staple vegetables from our fields.
Signing up at the start of the season to share in our abundant harvest for the year gives the farm the funding we need to get our crops started off right: by plowing, tilling, fertilizing, inoculating, planting and irrigating the fields and also mowing, spraying, thinning and pruning in the orchards. It takes a lot of detailed work to bring our crops to fruition and it would not be possible without the early income from our dedicated CSA members. We do not carry large bank loans to cover our start-up costs as most farms do; we believe that our community can work together to make it happen.
The CSA model can also help you budget your food expenditures in advance.
What is special about the SLO Farm CSA?
Our CSA is all about FRUIT.
Members receive fruit fresh from the tree and vine from July 15 through November 11. We also provide staple vegetable crops such as potatoes, garlic, onions, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and more, but primarily, we are a fruit farm.
Through the CSA program, you will experience the changing summer and fall seasons through the tasty medium of fruit.
Every box will contain a newsletter so that we may share with you what is happening on the farm, how the crops are doing, and what is fresh at the moment.
We will also share our ideas for recipes and tips on preserving the harvest. We have a lot of experience in and passion for the culinary arts and love to share!
The most up to date information, including photographs from the field, will be available here, on our blog.
We are seeking to connect our farm with members of the community who appreciate good food. The CSA program is the most direct connection to our farm. Additionally, your advance commitment to our harvests provides the farm with early season income that helps us start our season with the resources we need.
What does it cost?
We strive to make our food as affordable as possible while maintaining what in our opinion is the high value of quality fresh food. This year we are offering a weekly box that we believe will meet many of your fresh produce needs at an affordable price.
For $18/week you will receive 10 pounds of fruit.
For an additional $10/week you will receive 5 pounds of staple vegetables.
Our CSA season is 18 weeks: July 15 – November 11.
18 weeks of fruit, 10 pounds per week, will cost you $324;
with the additional staple vegetables, your total cost for the full harvest season will be $504.
If you would like to sign up for portions of the season and not the full season, we are happy to make those arrangements for you.
Low Income assistance is available through That’s My Farmer. We also accept Food Stamps.
What’s in the Box?
Our Harvest Season encompasses three distinct ripening phases on the farm:
Early Season: (July 15 – August 19)
Cherry Plum; Cherry; Shiro Plum; Strawberry; Blueberry; Blackberry
with Lettuce; Green Beans; Zucchini; Garlic; Onion; Potatoes; Basil; Cilantro
Mid Season (August 26 – September 30):
Blackberry; Strawberry; Early Apples (Ida Red, Red Gravenstein, Ginger Gold, Akane); Prune Plums; Golden Gage Plums; Yellow Shinseki Asian Pears; Raspberry
with Heirloom and Slicer Tomato; Cherry Tomato; Sweet Pepper; Bell Pepper; Cucumber; Zucchini; Potato; Japanese Eggplant; Green Beans; Garlic; Onion; Basil; Cilantro
Late Season (October 7 – November 11)
Yellow Gage Plum; Grapes; Asian Pears (Yellow & Brown- skinned); Quince; Apples (Liberty, Gala, Jonagold); Pears (Bosc, Comice, Bartlett)
with Kale; Leeks; Potatoes; Garlic, Beet; Cabbage; Winter Squash
How do I sign up?
Please contact us at slo.farm[at]gmail[dot]com or (541) 484-9973. We are happy to answer any questions you may have. The best times to reach us by phone are 1:00 – 2:00pm or 6:00 – 8:00pm.
The quickest way to reserve your Sweeties Box for the upcoming season is to send us an e-mail or leave us a message with your name and address so that we can send you a copy of our CSA Contract.
Thank you and Happy Eating!!
As 2011 approaches, we reflect upon our education of the past seasons and have come to realize that the CSA model may not work well for our farm.
We are a highly diverse operation, run by just a couple of people. The CSA is a substantial time commitment every week and for that to balance out for us, we would need a substantial commitment from the community. We figure we would need a minimum of 25 members to run our CSA. As of now, we have just a handful of dedicated members who we can count on to sign up again.
This next season, there will surely be abundance to share with our community and we hope to offer our abundance in an accessible way.
We are thinking of setting up a SLO club, where members would receive notices when there is an abundance and we would arrange for an exchange between the farm and club members.
By: SLO farm on December 22, 2010
at 11:29 am