“You’d be hard pressed to find a better food investment than a CSA. I’m proud to support local organic farms and agriculture and can’t wait to cook with all the summer goodness!”- Jess, Vegetable CSA customer
CSA
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CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, a concerted effort between grower and consumer to make local food and farm products more sustainable for all involved. By purchasing a share at the beginning of the season, before crops are even planted, you are making an investment in future harvests of healthy fresh vegetables, and beautiful fresh flowers.
- Flower bouquet shares, mushroom shares and small vegetable shares are a privilege of Farmer ($50) Membership.
- Large vegetable shares are a privilege of Crofter ($125) membership.
CSA Offerings for 2023
- Cost: $310 for 16 weeks, $160 for 8 weeks (Early or Late Summer shares now available in limited quantities)
- Duration: 16 weeks or NEW! 8 week Early or Late Summer Shares
- Start date: Weather dependent, but full shares and Early Summer shares begin sometime around end of May/beginning of June, and Late Summer shares will begin around late July. We will contact all shareholders the week before pickups begin via email.
- Days: Shares pick up either Tuesday or Thursday.
Grilling Meat CSA- limited spots still available!
- Cost: Small- $150, Medium – $300, Large – $600
- Duration: 6 pickups over 12 weeks, from June 5 to August 18.
- How it works: Pick ups can happen Monday – Sunday of each pick up week, shares will be located in a self service freezer for you to pick up during daylight hours.
- Potential Cuts available: NCOF pork, goat, lamb, and chicken (including opportunities for fresh chicken pickups), and premium grass fed Angus beef from our partners at Rocca di Cambio farm.
Meat CSA add-on SOLD OUT FOR 2023
- Cost: $195
- Duration: 16 weeks, starting the same day as your Summer CSA Share
- How it works: When you pick up your flower or vegetable CSA, choose a package of meat from the labeled freezer in the Root Cellar. Each week we will put a variety of cuts and ground meat into the freezer so you’ll always have a few options.
- Potential Cuts available: Ground beef, stew beef, sweet Italian sausage, breakfast sausage, smoked bacon, goat kabobs, ground lamb, ground goat, small steaks, or pork chops.
- Cost: $110
- Duration: 6 biweekly shares over 12 weeks
- Start date: The pickups will happen during the weeks of:
- June 5 & 19
- July 3 & 17
- August 1 & 14
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Pick up days: Share pick up is anytime after Monday at 5pm and before Friday morning during NCOF open hours. (NCOF is open to the public daily during daylight hours).
SOLD OUT FOR SPRING 2023. Email [email protected] to join the waitlist.
- Cost: $120
- Duration: 5 weeks
- Start date: Weather dependent, but sometime around end of April/beginning of May. We will contact all shareholders the week before pickups begin via email.
SOLD OUT FOR 2023 Email [email protected] to join the waitlist.
- Cost: Large shares are $550, Small shares are $370
- Sizes: Large (feeds 3-4 people) and Small (feeds 1-2 people)
- Duration: 16 weeks
- Start date: Weather dependent, but sometime around end of May/beginning of June. We will contact all shareholders the week before pickups begin via email.
- Days: Large shares pick up on Mondays, Small shares pick up either Tuesday or Thursday.
CSA FAQ
We actually don’t determine your share size by pounds, because leafy crops like lettuce weigh very little, while root crops like potatoes weigh a lot. Instead, we base share size on what we’re harvesting from the fields and the cumulative dollar-value of the vegetables that we put in your share every week. Our shares tend to start out on smaller size, with cool-season greens, and then increase in size as the weather warms, and more crops come in. On average, by the end of the season, NCOF’s CSA customers receive between 5% and 10% more dollars-worth of food than what they paid for their shares. This is our way of saying thank you for investing in our farm through our CSA program.
The variety of produce that we include in the shares will differ slightly from year to year, as the farmers plan for crops that will be most successful in our fields, but to give you an example:
2022 Summer Share Week 1 included Pac choi, endive, fresh herbs, lettuce, mesclun mix, radishes, a 4 pack of our organic veggie seedlings, and turnips
2022 Summer Share Week 8 (halfway through the season) had carrots, celery, endive, herbs, kale or collard greens, leeks, lettuce, onions, rutabaga, and tomatoes.
The last week of the 2022 season had popping corn, eggplant, garlic, herbs, lettuce, bell peppers, shishito peppers, summer squash, swiss chard, tomatoes, and winter squash.
This is one of our most frequently asked questions. The large shares are about 50% bigger than the small, but we like to say that the small shares feed 1-2 people and the large shares feed 3-4. In general, the small and large shares get the same variety of vegetables, although some weeks the large shares get one or two more types.
Our weekly e-newsletter will let you know what to expect in your share. You will get plenty of greens, but you will not get lettuce or salad every week, since they generally do not thrive during hot weather.
You can come on your pick up day until dusk, which is pretty late in the summer. We ask you not to come after dark because people live here to help with farm security and we need to respect their privacy.
We get that life sometimes gets busy. Please do your best to get here on your designated pick-up day, or to send a friend, because that’s when your food will be freshest and at its most nutritious. We will leave unclaimed shares in the root cellar for 24 hours. After that, they will get unpacked and redistributed. Sorry, but we do not have make-up shares for missed pick ups.
We’re sorry that you missed out. 🙁 You can ask to be added to our waitlist by emailing us. There are many other excellent CSAs nearby run by very good farming friends of ours, like Vanguarden Farm in Dover and Silverwood Farm CSA in Sherborn.
