What is a CSA?

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. CSA’s are a means of creating a mutually beneficial connection between consumers and their farmers. Community members who want to support a local CSA farm can buy a subscription from the farm early in the season. In a traditional CSA, members receive weekly bounty from their farm. That bounty is a set bounty which is a result of how many members the farm supports and what the farm is able to produce each week. At Full Moon Farm however, the bounty can be whatever the member wants it to be, within the bounty available each week

How This Works

Once registered with Full Moon Farm, members receive an email in late May, informing them of the impending arrival of the first harvest. Pick-ups should begin in the first or second week of June and continue through the middle of October, 18 weeks.

At your first pick-up and as often again as needed, our CSA manager will walk you through the process. We have shopping baskets available to pick-up your bounty. You walk around and take what you want. Take vegetables only or add to your share with eggs, flowers, pork, chicken or CBD products. All choices are up to you. You can bring your own bags.

How Farmers Benefit

By supporting local farmers directly, you eliminate the middle person, thereby moving agriculture towards a livable wage. Having share money up-front, early in the season, prevents the growers from having to borrow money to pay wages or purchase supplies. Normally, the bills start coming in January, but the income doesn’t arrive until June. Knowing how many families to grow for, the growers can concentrate on crops that are pre-sold and not waste time, energy and earth’s resources, speculating.

We would be liars if we also didn’t admit that direct contact with our members saves us during the season. Farming is incredibly hard, non-financially rewarding work. It is crucial for us to interact with our members on a weekly basis and reap the rewards of our business through your friendly faces, positive comments and useful suggestions. In the casual atmosphere of the pick-up site, members learn more about life on the farm, food preparation, planting cycles and pest management. We, in turn, learn more about nursing, teaching, medical school, engineering, social activism, marketing and immigration law.

How Members Benefit

• Know your farmers: Our pick-up option allows you to interact with the farmers on a regular basis. Children and adults learn to see the connection to their food source and to the cycles of the growing season. Staff and farmers are always on-hand to answer any questions, concerns, or just to shoot the breeze.

• Help feed your community: For every share purchased, Full Moon Farm donates an equivalent of 10% of the purchase to members in need in our community.

• Get a Full-Service Operation: Our produce is harvested, washed, bunched and displayed for you. Our 4 pick-up locations are located on convenient commuter routes. On your walk, bike, or drive home, just pull over and pack your bounty.

• Freshness Counts: At Full Moon Farm, our fruits and veggies are picked fewer than 36 hours before you lay your hands on them. This short period from the farmer’s hands to your hands, guarantees vine-ripened taste and crispness, unmatchable by stores.

• Money Talks: Members’ dollars purchase 10-30% more produce than they could at our farm stand or at local health food stores.

How the Environment Benefits

Locally grown produce is distributed with minimal waste of fossil fuels. Certified organic growing methods improve soil fertility, thus assuring sustainable crops for years to come. By not using any synthetic pesticides or herbicides, the soil remains ‘alive’ with vital microbes that promote plant growth, thereby eliminating the need for synthetic fertilizers. Supporting an organic farm in your community makes you a steward of your local land. No herbicides or pesticides on the land means no chance of them sneaking into our water supply. You can sleep well at night knowing that the food you eat is helping to healthily re-establish the headwaters of the LaPlatte River.

So What's the Catch?

Joining a CSA means making a commitment to the process. You receive super fresh food at a discounted price. In return, you agree to endure certain limitations:

• Limited hours of pick-up: CSA’s cannot offer the convenience of grocery-store hours. Sometimes convenience comes at the cost of quality. To keep your food fresh, Full Moon Farm Inc. limits its pick-up hours. Members need to arrange to pick-up your products during that time. The good news is, with our flexible system, if you can't make it to your normal pick-up during regular hours, perhaps you can come to another one of pick-ups throughout the week. ***In 2023, Full Moon Farm added a farmstand! You will now be able to access our certified organic products 7 days/wk!***

• Seasonability: Becoming a member also means that you agree to eat food that can be grown locally at that time of year. We cannot grow melons or peppers in June. We can, however, offer vegetables replete with the splendors that in-season, local, organic produce possesses.

• Risk: The members agree to assume all the risks that the farmers do. The farmer is growing for you. If the weather does not cooperate and a crop fails, or is greatly reduced in yield, if our seed supplier sends us non-viable seeds and nothing grows, if it’s so hot that all the lettuce bolts, members will feel it. Sometimes a fox or a weasel gets into the hen-house and we lose eggs. Sometimes the slaughterhouse bumps us out of a scheduled date and we have no pork for a spell. The good news is that Full Moon Farm has so much to offer, that members will be able to find something that they like.