CSA FAQs
WHAT IS COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE (CSA)?
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.
It's a commitment between individuals or families and farmers, where people buy into the farm as members at the start of the growing season, and in exchange receive a weekly share of the farm's harvest.
WHY JOIN THE RED FIRE FARM CSA?
- Enjoy fresh locally grown vegetables. Our careful variety selection
and organic growing practices bring out the very best in flavor!
- Help us compete with environmentally detrimental industrial food producers
from distant regions.
- By supporting Red Fire Farm, you also benefit the local economy. Red
Fire Farm both provides jobs and also recycles money by purchasing
supplies from other local businesses.
- We don’t use chemicals, synthetic pesticides or herbicides on our
vegetable fields.
- You become involved in a community of farmers and eaters committed to healthy food and a cleaner environment!
What is picking up a share like?
You will come each week to the same location to pick up your share. At most pick up locations, produce is displayed on tables farmers' market style so that you can select the items that you want within the weekly guidelines. It helps to bring your own reusable bags or containers to take home your produce. A coordinator will be there to check you in and answer any questions about the vegetables and how to cook them.
Pre-packed boxes are offered during November and December at some of the distributions when the weather is cold.
WHAT SIZE IS A VEGETABLE SHARE?
Vegetable shares generally consist of about 10 lbs of assorted produce per week, although the share size does fluctuate depending on the time of the season and success of individual crop plantings.
In general, shares are lighter early in the season because most of the crops are still growing and sizing up. By midsummer and fall, the shares are abundant and diverse with a wide spectrum of tasty produce.
The vegetables in the winter portion of the Full Season Share (the portion also called Winter Share) are mostly root crops, onions, squashes and others that store well, although there are still plenty of greens later on too. Each winter share consists of 14-20 pounds of mixed produce.
HOW MANY SHARES DOES MY FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLD NEED?
Usually, a family or household of 2 - 4 people can eat a share without much trouble. Small households can freeze, dry or can extras. Large households should seriously consider purchasing two shares.
CAN I SPLIT A SHARE OR DO YOU HAVE HALF SHARES?
We do not sell half shares, but it is fine if you’d like to split a share with a friend or co-worker. Some people split the share after pick-up or you can go one week and your friend the next.
When you sign-up, please make sure to include the names and contact info of any one who will be coming to pick-up for the share, as well as all the e-mail addresses of folks who want to receive the newsletters and updates.
WHAT OPTIONS DO YOU HAVE IN THE CSA?
We offer the vegetable farm shares, Flower Shares, Fruit Shares, and Egg Shares.
Please visit the CSA Options page for an overview of what we have and to see the details on each option.
WHAT VEGETABLES DO YOU GROW?
We basically grow every kind of vegetable that grows well in this climate. You can visit our Recipes page to see the diversity of produce we grow and get ideas of how to cook it.
We also have a season chart that shows you the general availability of produce throughout the season.
How does pick your own (PYO) work?
Additional produce of certain crops (peas, beans, basil, cherry tomatoes, herbs, strawberries and cut flowers) are also available to all CSA members for Pick-Your-Own at the farm in Granby at no additional cost.
Current Pick Your Own information and amounts will be posted in the barn and specific details about how to pick will be sent out early in the season in the weekly newsletter emails. Each weekly e-mail will also list what crops are ready for PYO.
Boston area and Montague members can come and pick larger amounts at one time.
Pick Your Own is for CSA members and Farm Stand members only. Not open to the general public. Though it is great to bring your friends with you when you visit to pick.
What is organic and what isn't in the shares from our farm?
Our Vegetable Shares are 100% Certified Organic
Here are the details about all our shares below.All, everything, and every single vegetable in our vegetable shares are certified organic 100%. All the crops we grow on our farm are certified organic. If we buy in anything from other farms for the shares, like green beans, or sweet corn, it is only from certified organic sources that we know and are close to us, like the beans from Hadley or corn from Sunderland MA.
All the egg shares are certified organic. The flower shares are certified organic, except one type of flower, lisianthus, that isn't often in the flower shares, which is best grown from plugs (mini plants) that we buy from a non-organic source, and once we get it onto the farm and plant it is raised with certified organic practices.
The fruit shares have elements that aren't organic; we buy in many of the fruits, like apples, peaches, and others, from local orchards that use conventional methods. The watermelons and muskmelons in the shares are organic from our farm, as well as some of the strawberries, and raspberries when we have bumper crops. We work with orchardists who use IPM (Integrated Pest Management), which saves spraying for last resort, and uses minimum spray amounts and least environmentally harmful types when they do spray. Growing these fruits in our climate organically would be difficult and expensive with significantly lower yields, so we decided that sourcing locally is more important in this case.
Deep Winter Shares also have some non-organic elements. The selected local products, stored apples, and frozen fruit are not all organic, though some are. All the vegetables in the Deep Winter Shares are certified organic.
Who Certifies Us and the Organic Logo We Use
Our certification agency is Baystate Organic Certifiers. Baystate is accredited by the USDA organic program, so all our crops are USDA certified organic. We use the Baystate organic logo on our materials instead of the USDA circle logo because we support having a locally-based certification agency.
Before the national USDA program existed, Ryan's farm was certified organic by NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association) which had one of the earliest and most successful independent organic certification programs in the country. The NOFA program then became Baystate Organic Certifiers.
What does it mean to be certified organic?
To be certified organic you have to submit a yearly farm plan and detailed records of everything done on the farm to an accredited agency to make sure you comply with the national standards. The agency also comes and regularly inspects the farm.
If you look at the actual regulations, they are a lot about what we're not allowed to do. As organic farmers, it doesn't really feel like that, because we are constantly making positive management choices to work with our ecosystem to produce the best crops. Our key tools include a detailed rotational plan (that moves crop families from field to field year to year so diseases and pests don't build up), cultivation practices that reduce the weed seedbank before the crop even goes in to the ground and continue to stay ahead of the weeds as the crop grows, informed field amendment plans that keep the soil rich for plant health, cover cropping to improve organic material in the soil, and more.
Some of No-No's in the regulations include no genetically modified (GM) seeds or plants, no treated or irradiated seeds, no sewage sludge, no fresh manure applications allowed x months close to harvest time, no synthetic chemical pesticides or herbicides, no irradiation, no antibiotics, no growth hormones, and more.
Some of the required Yes things are pest, weed and disease management through physical, mechanical and biological controls as the first lines of defense before using organic approved pesticides; only organic feed for animals; access to outdoors for animals; and more.
USDA Organic Program website for more details.
Any materials that are used on organic farms must pass review and get approval by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI). This government agency has very strict standards and tests all products to make sure that the ingredients comply with the organic standards (naturally occurring and safe). This includes everything from potting soil to organic pesticides to soil amendments.
One of our biggest pest challenges and general challenges as organic farmers are weeds. Conventional vegetable farmers have an arsenal of chemical herbicides that they use to keep weeds under control. Organic farms such as Red Fire must rely on mulches, cultivation, careful rotation, and ultimately more hand labor (hoeing and hand weeding on certain crops like carrots). This extra hand labor is one of the major reasons that organic produce tends to cost more than conventional produce.There are many details to keep track of for organic certification, but we would be doing most of those things anyway to have the kind of farm that we want to have. We think that certification is worth it to give our customers the assurance that we do what we say we do.
When you come down to it, you can't really certify that we are going to bust our butts to get the cover crops in on time to protect the soil before winter comes. The principles beneath our actions come from deeper than needing to fulfill the organic program regulations. We feel committed to providing our community with delicious, healthful food, and see the land and ecosystem as a long-term partner in doing so.
We put lots of energy into making the produce organic and believe very strongly in doing it that way!
If you have any questions about how we do things, please let us know!
Thanks ~ Sarah