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Re:a farmer driven CSA:



"how much garlic should I be planting right now for next year's shares to make
them
 happy?"

Hi Leigh,

Farmer driven CSAs are moderately stressfull for the grower and annal
consumers who try to control every aspect of their buying practices.  As you
might have guessed, I have little compassion for subscribers who can't
appreciate the amount of risk and hard work involved in delivering a diverse
bag of groceries every week for 24 weeks.  Don't get me wrong, at Ocean Sky
Farm we are very concerned that our subscribers feel that they are getting a
great value for their money.  However,  I can only work toward my happiness
and self realization.  I have given up trying to please all of the subscribers
all of the time.  There are never more than one or two chronic whiners each
season.  When they learn that I'm not going to respond to their personal
preferences they either stop whining or stop coming to the farm.  

So relax and enjoy providing a community service that most of your subscribers
will appreciate and enjoy.  A healthy, local and hopefully sustainable food
supply is unusual in our culture.  Put out an "extras box " where subscribers
can trade out the items they don't like or have had enough of for one season.
Don't hesitate to contribute the farm's extras that are too few or "funny
looking" to distribute widely.  This helps your subscribers learn that tastes
and nutritional value are in no way associated with appearance.  

The mission of a CSA is education and nutrition.  Consumer behaviors and
preferences will only change through education.  Our mission statement is "To
observe, apply and teach sustainable urban agriculture" (or see one, do one,
then teach one).   Create a mission statement for your farm that you can live
with for the rest of your life.  It has to be measurable, obtainable and help
you make business decissions.  

Spend your time and energy on developing a mission statement you believe in.
Then, deciding on how much or what varieties of garlic (or other produce) to
grow, won't be a big deal.  Remember that I suggested you sell through a
Farmers' Market as well as a CSA?  That way you can afford to overplant and
still get reembursed for all of your labor.  

Last year we planted 1100 cloves of garlic (3 varieties) for 42 subscriptions.
We lost 1/3 of the harvest to mold from a rainy spring.  The majority of the
losses were from the silver rose variety which is a late maturing garlic.  We
still had plenty of garlic for our subscribers all summer plus we sold about
$1,000 worth at the Farmers' Market.  We committed 840 square feet of raised
beds to our garlic crop last year.  

We are only in our third year of CSA.  It's a steep learning curve.  But it
levels out very quickly.  Good luck and have fun.  We aren't here for a long
time.......Just a good time. 

Art Biggert
Ocean Sky Farm


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