CSA Pick-Ups

Hello Heron Pond Farmers

Most of the hiccups are out of our new system. Thanks for getting back to us with your phone calls to put some fixes in. If you know anyone not getting these updates that wants to get them let them know that they can self register at our web site. Be sure to check both the general mailing list and the CSA boxes. That way all the updates will get to them.

First pick up will start the week of May 31. Your pick up day was confirmed with you phone contact. If you are looking for the farm stand check out our map on the web site. Remember when you are looking at the map that Google maps has us much further down the road then we are. We are just over the Mass border in NH on Main ave. For those of you doing a Portsmouth pick up look for the shopping basket on the map. If you click on it there will be information about the your pick up. Including time and place.

Some of you have outstanding balance. Don't send anything in at this point. We will touch base with you at the first pick up. Many Portsmouth pick up folks were caught unaware of the pick up fee. In order to cover coasts of delivery to Portsmouth there is a $36.00 charge. Heron Pond Farm makes no money off this charge. It simply covers 1/2 of the cost of 20 weeks delivering to Portsmouth which includes fuel, insurance, and a person to cover the drop off. Greg and I have decided to pay the other half of the cost. So it comes to $1.80 a week to have your veggies brought up from the farm. I am sorry that this fee is not in our registration form. We have corrected the error and have tried to let everyone know that signed up for the share. I will be at the first few Portsmouth drop offs to talk about it.

As always the shares start out slow and pick up quickly by the end of June. By mid July you should be very happy with you selections. If you are new to this please give it time, in the end you will love it. If you have been with us a while post a comment on how you felt about your share last year.

Some up dates on how this all works. Those of you with us in the winter will be happy to hear that you will be able to get fresh local meat from Kelly brook farm at the farm stand. For those of you new to this you just order what you want for the next week and when you come for your share it will be there. New price list will be available at the farm stand. For now we can only offer this to our farm stand members. We will be working with the city of Portsmouth to get them to let us bring in the meat for our pick ups there but for now they say no. You can still get Kelly brook products from Tim at the Portsmouth market on Saturdays.

Our CSA runs in compliment with our retail sales, wholesale operation, and our commitment to giving food back to the community. Some times items will be available to CSA members only. Sometimes there will be things at the stand that are not included in your share. There will still be other times that you will hear of large amounts of food going to the community. We keep good records of what our share holders get and they have never been cheated out of anything do to our other commitments. If you would like to purchase something not in your share please feel free to do so and take your 10% discount.

Now about the food, which is why we are all here. The spring has been strange. I don't like to start the year with out lettuce so we have been waiting on that. We almost had to start early because the greens were bolting in the heat. This has made me nervous about the first pick up but I am always nervous about the first pick up. The lettuce is in and although we have lost a lot of green to bolting we have been planting them every week so they will catch up. Any day of the week might bring different harvest opportunities so one days offerings may vary from the next. Every one will be getting lettuce and greens. Which lettuce and greens will be fun to see. You will be able to choose your lettuce from the harvest that day and also choose your greens. It is unclear to me if you will be getting one or two bunches of greens this first time out but they will be from the good eats early section of the site. Part of the fun is to try something new so if you haven't had it before don't be afraid of it try it. There will be new options all the time.

I want to close by saying that the expansion of the CSA has really worked out for the farm. We have more crops in the ground then ever at this time. Everything looks so good we are looking forward to a great season full of great foods.

Thanks

Andre