Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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week, so that is not a confusing thing. The coordinator doesn't drive every
week. They all take turns. So over the course of the season I should see every
person in the program at least once, some twice or three times, depending
on the size of the group.” Other than this pickup, the CSA members do not
work on the farm.
Steven explains that the delivery system is somewhat different for the
other city. “Now in Rochester, since we weren't starting with anything, the
first year we had maybe twelve families. They got together and one person
drove out, and that didn't work out too well. The following year we started a
delivery system, and we basically drive around to the different suburbs and
the city of Rochester. We leave six bags here and eight bags here. Same type
of program, but we do the delivering and we charge a little extra for it. One
of my employees does it Saturday mornings. He just loads up his pickup
and he leaves here at eight in the morning. He actually lives in a suburb
of Rochester, and his home serves as one of our pickup points. So he gets
home around noon. It takes him about four or five hours. We don't have
quite as many families in Rochester - maybe about sixty.”
All together, then, “We are right around two hundred because we do have
some local people that pick up right at the farm. We call it a share.” He
has two helpers, “one in Buffalo and one in the Rochester area, who help
me keep the database. I just send the information to them, and they keep
the database and print out the labels to put on the bags. You know, we
really don't need labels because the bags are mostly the same, but we put
everyone's name on their bag and their group letter.”
The CSA season “usually starts in late June for us.” But, of course, it
depends on the weather. “This year we had such a cold wet spring we were
late starting. We didn't start until the first weekend in July and finished the
first weekend in December, which is later than I would have liked but that
is what we had to work with.” Last year, they grew more than twenty-five
types of vegetables. “I would have to sit down and add them up, but it is
plenty.” For the CSA weekly shares “we use a standard size paper grocery
bag, and because at times we have things going into the bag that are moist
or wet, we use a plastic bag around the outside of the paper bag so that
if it gets wet the bag won't rot and have everything fall out.” In terms of
vegetable quantities, “well, that depends on if it is heavy dense things like
potatoes or squash where it is heavy but not quite full, or light and fluffy
things that don't weigh a lot but make the bag look full. So we try to put as
much different selection in the bags each week as possible.”
The cost of the Porter's CSA shares is reasonable for organic produce.
“This year it worked out in the Buffalo area people who picked up their own
[96],
(6)
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[96],
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