Category: News

Happy winter everyone! It is time to register for the 2021 CSA season!   Know your farmer. Know your food.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  CSA members pre-pay for “shares” in a local organic farm at the beginning of the season in March when the farmer most needs the money. Then during the harvest from June through November, the farmer delivers a weekly assortment of vegetables, herbs, and some fruit.

100% of your food dollars go to the person who is growing it. You support sustainable, local agriculture and get freshly picked organic produce at reasonable prices.  In addition, you know the farmer growing your vegetables and can visit the farm – establishing a personal connection with your food supply.

NEW THIS YEAR!
Register by mail OR online.
Pay by check or Zelle or PayPal or Venmo
New smaller “half size share”

COST INFO:
This year Farmer John is offering 3 share types:

• Premium share:  Will contain on average 10-12 items and more of many items
• Basic share:  Will contain on average 9-10 items and be about 75% of the premium share
• Half share (pre-bagged):  Will contain on average 9-10 items and about 50% of the premium share.
  This share is pre-bagged and the cost includes the cost of bagging. There is no bag refund for this share.

More details:

• Our season runs for 24 weeks and will begin in June.
• Organic Egg and Fruit shares will be available to purchase in the spring.
• See our Weekly Shares page for examples of past year share contents

If you can not pay your share in full, a $200 non-refundable deposit holds your spot.  Email westfieldcsa@gmail.com for more information.

To Register:

Click here to register online
Then submit your payment electronically (Venmo, Zelle, PayPal) or mail us a check

or

Click here to download a membership form
Then print and mail the application.  You can include your check with the application or pay electronically (Venmo, Zelle, PayPal).

You will receive a confirmation email within a few days of receiving your payment.

If you have any friends who are interested, feel free to forward this info to them!

Stay warm, it’s just a few more months to go!

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Hi Folks, we have reached the end of the CSA season.  I hope that you have enjoyed the produce we were able to provide this year.  Every farming season has its unique challenges, mostly weather related.  This year we had both the latest spring frost ever – May 18th – and the earliest fall frost that I can remember – September 18.  The September frost took us a bit by surprise as the forecast was for a low of 38 degrees.  The cold snap in September was even more unusual since it was not a single night, but rather four night in a row of sub-freezing temperatures.  This gave us only four months of frost-free growing season.  A long summer drought followed by excessive rain added another hurdle. (more…)

Hi Folks, I hope you have been enjoying the balmy weather these past days; my crew and I certainly have been.  It’s a bit strange for early November but we’ll take it!  In any case there is no such thing as normal weather anymore.  The dry conditions have enabled us to finish digging the potatoes (finally!) and get started planting the garlic for next year’s crop.  The warmth is allowing some of the greens to recover from the damage sustained during the recent freeze, and the Brussel’s Sprouts and cauliflower to continue to mature.  We still have carrots and a few other root crops in the ground which also benefit from the mild temps and abundant sunshine. (more…)

Hi Folks, November came brrrr-eezing in this weekend. We had temperatures in the mid- twenties Saturday morning. Today we are being buffeted by howling winds. We have two more cold nights ahead before the temps rise back to more seasonable levels. Friday was a long day for the crew, as they worked diligently to harvest and cover crops ahead of the freeze. We were mostly successful in protecting the crops, although we did have some losses. The dill and cilantro were burned by the cold. They should recover but they will need some time to grow new leaf. We continue our rotation with broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and red cabbage. We have some lovely lettuce for you this round. We will be alternating the arugula with broccoli raab and some other mustard greens during the final weeks of the season. (more…)

Hello Everyone! The weather continues to be good for growing, although it looks like a dreary week ahead. The forecast for Friday night to Saturday has been fluctuating in the mid-twenties, what we’d refer to as a hard freeze as opposed to just a frost. At that point we will be giving up on protecting the more tender crops and covering the hardier ones to protect them from damage. Even crops like kale and spinach, which are quite tough, can sustain damage that reduces their quality and marketability. We will have to cut any broccoli or cauliflower that is heading regardless of the size, because if the heads freeze they are ruined. Lettuce is amazingly resistant to the cold, but if the tender center of the plant freezes it will no longer continue to grow and size up. There are only a few weeks until the end of the CSA season, but the challenges never end! (more…)

Hi Folks! The weather continues to be reasonably good for the crops. We had almost two inches of rain and another ¾ inch on Friday. We had a light frost Sunday morning. We continue to cover the beans and a few other more delicate crops to protect them from cold nights. We are getting a good harvest from the beans now, so our efforts have paid off. (more…)

Hello Folks, the weather has been copacetic this past week – one cold night but no frost.  We are currently getting some rain, but it is not expected to be excessive.  We are still waiting for a large planting of string beans to size up.  They are growing very slowly but we should have enough for some groups this week and for the rest by next week.  This will be the gasp for the summer vegetables. (more…)

Hello everyone, so after three weeks without rain we received a little over three inches last week. We have gone from bone-dry to muddy conditions, but at least we have a respite from moving the sprinklers around. Nighttime temperatures have been dropping, but we have not had any more frosts. At this point we are covering anything tender and worth saving anytime the forecast calls for temps in the thirties. We have a large planting of beans which have been flowering profusely and are loaded with small pods. They are growing very slowly with the shorter days and cool nights, but we hope to have beans for next week. (more…)

Hi Everyone! Farming can be a very rewarding endeavor – producing high quality food in a sustainable and environmentally conscious manner is important and gratifying. It can also be tremendously heartbreaking. As last week went by, the extent of the damage from four successive night of frost became apparent. We tried to cover and protect as much of the more sensitive crops as we could, but it is not possible to cover ten or more acres of crops. I estimate the losses to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Some of this loss is manifest as income loss on crops we would have sold at market – we loss most of our cut flowers for example. Some of the loss is reflected in both market sales losses and what we have available to put in the CSA shares, reducing the value of the shares. (more…)

Hello Folks, so the weather has turned on us again. It has been nearly 2 weeks with no rain and another week to go before any precipitation is predicted. Worse than that we have had frost on 3 consecutive nights with a fourth forecast for tonight. I say forecast but actually the predictions have been for 37-38 degrees and there were no frost warnings. We covered some of the more delicate crops on the first night and then, once we saw the effects, started covering as much as we could. (more…)