How-To for CSA Pickups
Here is our little primer for coming to get your share. This is a great thing to read when you are new, and to share with friends or family who might pick up for you during the season.
HOW TO GET YOUR VEGETABLES
1. Bring your bags to the pickup location within the distribution hours.
Some locations have boxed shares – Pick up your box, and you are all set. We cannot reuse or recycle the boxes, please do not return them to the farm or leave them at your pickup site.
2. Check in with your volunteer coordinator every week when you arrive, so they can sign you in. For the first week, check your contact and share information on the sign in sheet to make sure everything is correct. If you have a fruit or flower share, ask the coordinator, and they’ll hook you up with it. (Flower shares don’t start until a little later in the season. Egg Shares start the first week of distributions. Fruit Shares will start the first or second week of distributions, depending on the strawberry crop.)
3. Use the list of vegetables and amounts written on the white board to select the items that you want within the weekly guidelines. The produce will be displayed market-style in crates on tables. Some of it you weigh with the scale.
Special Weighing Note: We send various things by weight, with enough for each share at the pickup. Make sure not to go over the allotted weight or people at the end might not have any veggies left! Remember your neighbors who come at the end!
4. Chat a little, swap recipes, and head out with your loot.
If there is a problem with your share, the site, or something missing – please contact us at the farm. We can work with you to resolve the issue. Our coordinators are volunteers who have donated their time to help our CSA program, they are not staff members.
*Please do not take add-on shares of eggs, fruit, or flowers unless you are signed up on the check-in list. Double-check the list if you are unsure.*
If you have a Farmstand Membership in Granby or Montague or at the markets, you just select your items from the stand towards your membership amount.
All the CSA pickup locations with times are on the website for reference.
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The Swap Box
At most of the CSA pickups the coordinator has time to set up a “swap box.” This is essentially a crate with one share worth of produce where people can make swaps item-for-item. Trade your bunch of kale for a couple summer squash, or vice versa.
If your volunteer coordinator hasn’t had time to set up the swap box, you can ask them if you can help by setting up the box and labeling it. Then you can make a swap and head out!
If you have something you really would like to exchange, and don’t have a swap box option around, don’t be shy to give a little shout to your fellow members “Would anyone want to trade something for my fennel?!” More often than not you will find a taker if folks are around at the same time as you.
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What Will Be in the Share? – It’s a Guesstimate!
We send out a guesstimate of what will be in the share in the weekly e-mail, which we try to get out early in the week on Monday night or Tuesday so you can start thinking about what to make. The share list in the email is based on our weekend field tours and the harvest plan that we create on Sunday evening. During the week, what we find in the field may change the CSA harvest for that day, so while we try to give an outline of what is likely coming, what you actually get may be slightly different. All will be seasonal produce freshly harvested for you!
HAVE FUN WITH YOUR CSA MEMBERSHIP
1. Enjoy the produce in as many ways as possible. Trying things raw, cooking new recipes, sharing with friends, preserving for the winter, composting for future soil, taking pictures, writing limericks for our newsletter :).
2. Read the e-mails and newsletter, especially to keep abreast of any changes, and stay in tune with the farm.
3. Visit the farm with friends or family to pick your own any time or for a special event. You are always welcome!
Etiquette at the Pickup
How to help create the best pickups ever.
One year, I lived in an apartment with my brother, and we referred to the “Spirit of Goodwill” whenever that special something was lacking (and we needed make an effort to do the dishes), or whenever it was so present it needed celebration. May the Spirit of Goodwill be with you!
PRACTICE PATIENCE
If your CSA pickup is one of the locations where everyone’s schedule seems to converge right at the beginning of pickup, or a line usually forms, please take time to get to know your neighbors, network and enjoy!
REMEMBER THE PEOPLE COMING AFTER YOU
When weighing, don’t go over the weight limit, because if you take extra spinach, it means the person coming at the end won’t have enough. Please be gentle with the produce while you are selecting your share!
GO WITH THE FLOW and BE HELPFUL
The volunteer CSA coordinator will be directing traffic if lines form, and you can help keep things going smoothly by staying in line, helping people arriving find the line, being quick when it’s your turn to pick up, and generally being aware of the flow and helping it along. If you see something that needs help, go for it! The coordinator will appreciate a helpful hand if the pickup is very busy, so don’t be shy to offer.
Please be aware of the hours of your pickup. The coordinator will usually need all the set up time to get ready before opening time, so give them space and time to prepare. Same at the end, they need time to clean up to get home in a timely fashion! Please plan to come by about 15 minutes before the end time so you will have time to get you things before close.
KIDS
Please make sure your kids are close by, safe and watched at the pickups. Also please make sure they are respectful and gentle with the produce and scales, and don’t handle other people’s produce. It is great to have them come and participate – kids are welcome.
BUILD COMMUNITY
How does such an amorphous thing happen! Say hello! Trade vegetables with other people. Hold a bag for someone. Rideshare with folks. Every time we are together it is a gift and a chance.
GIVE US FEEDBACK
How is the pickup going for you? If you run into consistent problems or anything you want help with, please get in touch so we can assist and fix things before they continue too long. We want it to be a great experience for you to be part of the farm! Likewise, if you are finding it to be great, please tell us that too, as we pass it around to the whole crew.
At the end of the Summer season we do a survey where we take crop requests and lots of details for our crop planning the next year, so think about your crop requests over the season and let us know!
OTHER CSA INFO
Rain or Shine; Same Time, Same Place
The CSA happens every week rain or shine. We usually hold the CSA even on holidays, as it is quite difficult to reschedule our locations. You always pickup on the same day you signed up for at the same time through the season. Except any announced exceptions through the year (good reason to read your e-mail ☺).
FOOD RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS PICK UP EXTRA PRODUCE
We organize to donate leftover produce to food relief organizations in the area. Any produce left at the end of the distribution gets picked up by a food relief organization right after the distribution hours close. So if you can’t make it one day, your goods will go to a good cause.
IF YOU’RE GOING AWAY
If you’re planning to be away for the day of your pickup, we recommend setting up a friend to come pickup your share. You could hook them up with some veggies for their help! This is a great way to introduce new people to the CSA concept.
Also if you give us one week’s notice, you can arrange to pickup your share at another CSA pickup that week – only use this option 1-2 times per season!
HAVE TIME TO HELP OUT SETTING UP YOUR PICKUP?
If you have time to come by and help your coordinator set up the distribution the hour before it begins each week, let him or her know and you guys can work out when to come. A volunteer or two can really help make things go more smoothly at setup!
Don’t be shy to lend a hand! Sometimes the truck gets delayed loading at the farm or traffic prevents the vegetables from getting there as early as planned. If your coordinator is running around like crazy, he or she will welcome a hand writing signs or doing anything to get the shares set up. You can also help unload the truck in a situation like that.
MAKING PAYMENTS
The best thing to do for quick processing is to mail check payments direct to our farm office at 184 Meadow Road, Montague, MA 01351. You can also make payments online at this payment page. Here are more details about how to make CSA payments. Payments can also be given to our CSA coordinators, though these can take time to get to us and get cashed, as these folks mail them back to the farm.
PICK YOUR OWN (PYO)
During the Summer CSA Season, we have Pick Your Own crops at our farm that are free for all CSA members to come pick, up to the posted limits. We will have a link to PYO information in our weekly email, and a list of what is currently available. If you have a longer drive, organic strawberry season is a great time to visit, as is August or September for later summer crops. Save some dates now to visit!
PYO is a sweet BONUS for being part of the CSA
When we plan our shares for the year, we set a value for different crops. Over the season, we build each weekly share with the value calculated to make sure we give out enough produce. And over the season make sure that it adds up collectively to at least the share price or more. Our pricing for CSA vegetables comes out to a discount of about 25% off our retail prices. We make sure that we are giving out the full value of the share in harvested vegetables. PYO crops are not included in the calculation. So if you never make it to the farm, you are still getting the full price or value of the share coming pre-harvested to you in the CSA. We usually exceed the price of the share in harvested value each year too – sharing the bounty!
DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND SHARING YOUR SHARE WHO IS INTERESTED IN JOINING OUR MAILING LIST?
Direct them to this link:
https://www.redfirefarm.com/mailinglist/index.html
Instead of ‘general interest,’ have them choose their pickup location from the list of options to get the weekly CSA email. (This only works starting in June forward for summer shares, as that is when we set up the lists for the summer)
Thank you for reading!