CSA Member Handbook
About the Farm
Welcome to our family-rooted, women-owned farm! We're delighted to serve as your local food provider this summer. At the Taylor Family Farm, we pride ourselves in cultivating exquisite, organic vegetables for our community. Beyond providing quality produce, we are equally excited to share with you the art of enjoying them through tips on prolonging freshness and family recipes. Our goal is to deliver a delightful culinary experience and foster a stronger connection with local farmers and the community. Here's to a season of flavorful moments and meaningful connections!
Say hello to our CSA Handbook! Think of it as a user manual, designed to guide you through how our CSA operates. Take a quick look to familiarize yourself with the Community Guidelines.
Our Growing Practices
At Taylor Family Farm, we're all about farming with intention. We're not just growing crops; we're nurturing the soil underneath to create a thriving foundation for everything we do.
We research the best farming methods that boost organic matter and encourage beneficial microorganisms to flourish in our soil. We focus on things like crop rotations, cover crops, and minimal tillage – all things that keep our soil happy and healthy.
We partner with a local compost suppliers, to give our soil a natural boost of organic mulch. Leaf mulch, also known as leaf litter, is incredibly beneficial for soil health and plant growth. It helps with nutrient cycling, soil structure, moisture retention and weed suppression.
ARE WE ORGANIC?
At Taylor Family Farm, we are all about implementing organic practices to ensure that we're not just growing food but nurturing the soil and ecosystem around us. We firmly believe that healthy soil is the foundation for healthy plants, which translates to greater disease resistance and higher nutritional content for you, our valued consumers.
We strive to be organic but past practices on the farm take time to undo and close proximity to our neighbors makes controlling all types of weed suppression difficult.
We're committed to transparency in everything we do, which is why we're happy to invite you to reach out with any questions you may have about how we grow our food. Better yet, why not come see for yourself? We'd love to give you a tour of our farm and chat openly about our growing practices. Together, let's cultivate a healthier future – one delicious harvest at a time.
DO WE EVER BUY IN PRODUCTS FROM OTHER FARMS?
At Taylor Family Farm, we are dedicated to providing you with the freshest and highest quality produce, even if it means sourcing from other farms on occasion. We believe in supporting like-minded farmers who share our commitment to sustainable and organic practices.
For products like berries, asparagus, and potatoes which can be cost-prohibitive to grow ourselves, we carefully select partner farms that align with our values.
Understanding the Risks of CSA
As a member, you share in the abundance of our harvest, as well as in the risks that come with farming. We cannot stress this part enough! Although we have learned how to avoid or manage most problems, it is likely that EVERY year, Mother Nature will throw us a curveball, and we may lose a crop to drought, disease, bugs, hail, or other acts out of our control. This may mean that you will not receive that affected crop for that season. We have a start date and are dedicated to adhering to it, but weather can play a factor and affect crop-ready dates.
If this occurs, we will do our best to make up for the value of the share by substituting something else in its place or buying in produce from one of our organic partners. Another option is to make up the value of your share on the back end of the season as we attempt to quickly plant “quick-turn” crops to recoup our losses. We will communicate regularly to keep you informed of our Plan B, and we ask that you be patient with us as we do our best to mitigate the consequences.
What's in Your Box?
We spend a lot of time before the planting season even begins mapping out our box content plan for each of the weeks. Our goal is to provide you with a “core” pre-packed box of 6-8 items each week. The items we choose are a mix of predominantly “popular” staples, but we also try to include one unusual variety to push you to try new things. Beyond the “base” box, you may be given an opportunity at the pick-up site to add in additional produce for free from what we call the “extras table.”.
As the season progresses, you’ll notice that the types of veggies in your box each week change. For example, garlic scapes will only appear in June; tomatoes start to appear in mid-July and run through early September. 2nd and 3rd crops of greens, carrots, and other root vegetables will show up in the later boxes. Part of being in a CSA is learning how to eat with the seasons.
The early CSA boxes will not be quite as bountiful.
In fact, you might look inside, calculate the math, and think, “This isn’t the $$ value I should be getting per week.” This is how it is every year in the early weeks, and there’s a good reason for it: There just aren’t as many veggies that will grow in the early months of the season. We do our best to provide as much variety as we can in the early weeks.
Our goal is by week 5, the boxes are packed with variety and volume, and the back end value of the season more than makes up for the smaller volume boxes early on.
Add-Ons
Each week, we may have additional items to sell – things like bulk vegetable or fruit orders. You can order additional items and we’ll have them for you to pick up with your regular CSA box.
Just fill up your cart by the order cutoff (12pm Mondays) – we'll charge your card on file and have it ready for pickup that week.
Pickup & Delivery
Skip or modify your upcoming order 12pm the Monday before your scheduled order.
To pick up your CSA box, please note that pickups are exclusively available at the farm every Wednesday between 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM. We've carefully curated this schedule to ensure the freshest produce straight from our fields to your table.
When you arrive at your site,
- Check off your name from the list.
- Visit the swap table. If there’s something you don’t want from your main box, simply place it in the SWAP box and take something else out that looks good to you.
- Unpack your produce at the SWAP tables. You will have the option to take your harvest bag home and bring it back the following week.
- Once you arrive home, unpack your bag ASAP and get the product into proper storage to promote shelf life!
Can I send someone to pickup in my place?
Yes! If you cannot pick up your share yourself, simply send a substitute! All they have to do is give us your name. Make sure they know to bring bags to transfer the vegetables into.
FAQ & Policies
We plan our growing schedules around each and every member, which is why we always prefer if you send a friend or family member to pickup in your place. However, if you need to place a vacation hold, you can do so directly from the "Account" tab of your Farmhand Dashboard.
If you do not arrive to pick up your share and you do not notify us in time, your box will be taken to the Clark County food bank 2 days later. CALL US or TEXT US on our cell phone. If we hear from you before we donate the share, we can save it, and it can be picked up the following day in our market stand refrigerator.
AnnMarie Taylor Haldeman 360.901.888
Brian Donally 415.971.6289
Keep an eye on your inbox! Each Sunday, we will email you the contents of your box for that week. Since Mother Nature is fickle and we may not always have exactly enough of the same crop for everyone, but we will do our very best.
You will also receive a Content PDF Guide each week in your Sunday email. This list will include reminders about where to store each veggie, common uses for that veggie, and whether you can freeze it.
You will receive suggestions and recipes in the newsletter each week for the best use of your vegetables or creative recipes to try. Your vegetables will take time so please make time to cook at least several times a week.
Volunteering is not required as part of your CSA membership but we welcome you to our farm. Simply email us at taylorfarmilyfarmandbarn@gmail.com to express interest and we will have a job for you.
Not clicking with our CSA? No worries! We offer a money-back guarantee. If, after 5 weeks, you are dissatisfied with your membership and wish to cancel, or if you have to move out of the area and cannot continue your share, we will arrange a refund on a pro-rated basis.
Member Tips & Resources
Preserving Your Produce
Keeping your vegetables fresh for an entire week takes effort. Part of that is our responsibility. We are very careful when we harvest your produce, to ensure that we pick it at its peak of ripeness and in ideal harvesting weather conditions to keep it lasting as long as possible. But part of it is your responsibility as well.
If you want to extend the life of your produce, you must get your vegetables and fruits into a cool location ASAP. Leaving your box in your hot car is a very bad idea, and your produce will spoil very fast.
Here are some suggestions for how to protect the life of your produce from our farm to your kitchen.
- We encourage you to bring a cooler or insulated bag with ice packs to pick up your produce. You can then transfer your items into your bag and get them home in a cool container. This will extend the life of your produce.
- Purchase green bags from Amazon. These are around $5 and are made of a special polymer that absorbs ethylene gas (emitted by vegetables causing them to spoil faster). They are reusable up to 10 times each. A great investment.
- Take the tops of your carrots and beets right away when you get home. Or you’ll get floppy carrots.
- Wash and store your greens right away.
Kitchen Tools & Gadgets
Level up from CSA Member to CSA Master with tools and gadgets handpicked to help you maximize the enjoyment of your farm box.
- Salad spinner: Quickly clean and dry CSA produce, saving time and ensuring freshness. Efficient, convenient, and enhances longevity.
- Good kitchen knives, along with a knife sharpener (or local business who sharpens knives!).
- Reusable glass containers and mason jars to keep your food as farm-fresh as possible.
- Sheet pans for roasting delicious veggies!
- Food processor: The one “big-ticket” item we recommend. Use it for making salsa, pesto, pizza dough, and pureeing items like soups and sauces.