Join the Three Part Harmony Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program for the 2017 Season (April – Nov.)

The enrollment for the Spring and full season CSA memberships ended on Frinday, March 31.

The CSA program asks members of the community to make a financial investment in Three Part Harmony Farm to support what we do. That basically means you pay in advance for seasonal, farm fresh produce that you receive directly from us on a weekly basis. It is an important way to support the local food movement.

We mostly grow produce that thrives in this region. That means in the spring and fall we grow a lot of greens and roots. To keep it exciting, we have many variations on salad greens and cooking greens in the mustard family plus lettuces and spinach. To change things up and make dinner exciting, you might see pea shoots in the salad mix, agretti as a cooking green, and definitely sweet potato greens and lambs’ quarters when it gets too hot for lettuce.

In the summer, old standards that we recognize from the grocery store come into play such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, okra, potatoes, and garlic.

Even though we promote local and seasonal eating, sometimes we push the envelope and dabble in something that’s just fun and cool to grow, even if that means giving the plants extra care. Year after year we experiment to add unique items like ginger, turmeric, and Indian squashes such as ghia and tinda.

Our goal is to give you enough produce to eat dinner at home 3 – 4 nights a week, depending on how many vegetables you use in each meal and depending on how many people you cook for each time (and whether or not you make extra for lunch the next day.)

At the pick up, you weigh some items or choose bags/ tins/ bunches/ quarts/ pints that have been pre-weighed. There are always multiple options in a category, so if you are asked to take home 4 pounds of produce listed in a certain category, that doesn’t mean that you have to take some of everything listed, it just means that the total combined weight of all the items can’t exceed the 4 pounds. This is how we are able to make sure that you don’t have to take vegetables you have tried and don’t like, by putting them in a category with other items you hopefully like. We come up with the number of pounds per member based on what the harvest was that morning. Since we assume you are going home and making multiple meals from the share, we try to give you options to take moderate amounts of more kinds of produce, that way you are not making 4 meals all with potatoes and/ or kale in them. Unless you are cooking for your kid’s soccer team and you need a million quarts of mashed potatoes- then by all means take only potatoes! It’s flexible that way, and you can do it different ways each week depending on what’s happening in your kitchen.

Another important goal for us is that you are happy with the variety of produce you receive, keeping in mind the restrictions our climate gives us, and that you are content with the number of culinary challenges we present to you each season as we give you vegetables you’ve never seen before or heard of! We hope to build a relationship of trust, and encourage you to try everything at least once.

Here are some sample shares from the 2014 season:

First week of June:
1 bunch of kale
1 bunch komatsuna summerfest (a mustard that can be cooked like cabbage)
1 bag leaf lettuce
2 heads romaine lettuce
1 pound snap peas
1 pound garlic scapes
Choose 3 items: seedlings, bunches of fresh herbs, bag of lambs’ quarters, bunch of radishes, quart of fava beans

Last week of July:
4 pounds, total combined: tomatoes, green beans, kale
Choose 6 items: 3 heads of garlic; 1/2# bag of parsley; 1 gallon bag of fresh basil; 1/2# bag shelled cowpeas; tins of dried herbs; bunch of carrots

Last week of September:
4 pounds total, combined: sunchokes, green peppers, eggplant, okra, green tomatoes
Choose 6 items: butternut squash; bunches of greens; 1/2# bag beans; 2# bag sweet potatoes; bunch of celeriac; quart of ripe tomatoes; tins of dried herbs, teas and hibiscus

If you have more questions, please feel free to email me. It’s hard to answer all of the questions in one blog post. It can be a big decision to make as a household, which CSA to join. It’s important to choose the right day of the week, location, and style of pick up. If this one is not right for you, I can make recommendations. There is nothing worse than having buyer’s remorse in May- it’s a long season, and hopefully a tasty and fulfilling one for all of us!

gail at threepartharmonyfarm.com