Online Farmer's Market & CSA (updated 01/22/08 )

Photo: Our packing shed just before starting to fill orders.

Our ONLINE FARMER'S MARKET & CSA are discussed together as the CSA is web-based and ordered each week from within the online store. In terms of how they differ, the idea is that the CSA boxes (or shares) are pre-planned by us, whereas the rest of the online market is "a la carte" -- you choose what you want. The fact that non-CSA online customers can also order a CSA box, and CSA members can add other items to their boxes, tends to merge the two. In the future we hope to "blend" both into one big pot, but haven't figured out how to do that yet. This kind of internet marketing by a single small farm is still in the "development" phase, and we're always trying something new (to cater to customer requests or try to make things run smoother) although we are in our 5th year and have filled nearly 10,000 orders!

ONLINE FARMER'S MARKET: This is our online store (which, like most online stores, is a "shopping cart system") where you can go and shop for our produce online mid-week, then pick up your order in Adams Morgan on Saturday morning. If all you do is order "a la carte" from the store, there is no payment until you pick up your order. If you are ordering a CSA share, you have already prepaid, and just come for your box on Saturday. Our online store is open 24 hours per week, from Wednesday mornings at 7 AM until Thursday mornings at 7 AM.  This is because we're not reasonably certain what will be ready for the weekend until Tuesday sometime, (and it takes several hours to "build" the store Tuesday evening); and we have to leave ourselves time to pick and prep all the produce for you and box up your orders. One of the most time-consuming aspects of the online market is "portioning" the items so they can be sold as units. This means weighing out an item into a 1-lb. or other size portion -- not always an easy job! Portioning and packing your orders take three or four or five of us all day Thursdays and Fridays. That's why the store's open only a short time.

ONLINE CSA: CSA is the acronym for Community Supported Agriculture. Every farm that does CSA does it a little differently. In general, the farm has you sign up for a season's worth of vegetables, you pay in advance, then pick up a box every week, learn about new foods you may not have tried before, get a little "closer" to the source of your food. If you live near a farm, you may pick up there and see that farm every week. That's a great way to do it, but many farms today (including ours) are too far out of town for that, so we bring the produce to you! (Another term for that is a farm "Subscription," the idea I guess that you are subscribing to an issue of veggies every week, instead of Newsweek or Time). We did CSAs in Pennsylvania and DC along those lines in years past, and decided that what most folks really wanted was more flexibility in when they got a box, how much they got, what else they could get. So we devised this online farmer's market & CSA to fill that niche. We have tried to give you maximum flexibility and the option to easily add to your CSA order as you wish.

HOW OUR CSA WORKS: With our CSA, which runs year round, you sign up (more on how to do that below), then must go into the store each week you want a box and place your order. You can choose large or small, and add whatever else that's in the store that looks good to you. If you don't want a box, you don't do anything. (Each Wednesday morning about 7 AM, when we open the store, we send out a message to all the folks on our email list, with info about this week's produce, often a farm photo, and a link into the online store.)

CSA PRODUCE: Not all the produce we provide the CSA is from our farm. We are a small farm and couldn't do it all. But we are 16-year members of Tuscarora Organic Growers Co-op, and live pretty near some old orchards and other small farms trying to make a living doing small-scale agriculture, so we are happy to provide you with a nice mix from all of those sources, from people and farms I know and can vouch for, as well as our own produce. All CSA produce will be locally or (sometimes in the dead of winter) regionally grown.  Most will be Certified Organic, but some items won't be. In the case of local tree fruit, which will be included almost every week, virtually none is organic, as there are few East Coast orchards that are organic, which has to do with the climate. Each week the front page of the store ("Storefront") includes a message about produce and what's going on on the farm, and with your box we include a "menu sheet", showing what you are getting, whether it is organic or not, and include brief suggestions for preparation of items.

CSA BOX SIZE: People regularly ask how much each size will feed. The contents are based on the dollar value of the box you select: $15 for the Small and $30 for the Large. How much will that feed? People's food usage varies so widely I hesitate to say. (I could consume a small share by myself in half a week, but some couples say they can barely finish it in a week!) I suggest you try the small box the first time, and adjust according to your needs for subsequent orders.

NUMBER OF CSA BOXES AVAILABLE: Our CSA membership is capped at 100, but because we let you choose when you want a box and what size, we never really know how many CSA shares will be ordered each week until the store closes. It surprised us how variable the orders have come in. Typically between 45 and 75 members order. Because that range is so wide, we decided we had to have a little control over how many boxes we would need to be making, for our own planning and labor needs. What we do is make our best guess how many of you will order (usually around 60) when we open the store Wednesday morning, and we load that many in inventory. If it turns out more of you want to order than we planned for, you'll get into the store and see that the CSA boxes are all gone. In that case, just go ahead and order "a la carte" from the store. It's sort of like being the last CSA member to get to the distribution shed on the farm on pick-up night, and most everything is already gone (only we're letting you poke around in the cooler for any good stuff that's left!). You can still select "CSA member" while checking out, to avoid the $3 packing fee, and your order is still considered pre-paid.

CSA SIGN-UP: If our CSA sounds good to you, or you have further questions, email us (randy@starhollowfarm.com) and type "CSA info" in the subject line. I'll let you know if we are currently open for more members or not. We have a 100 member limit, but the way our year-round store works, everyone is on a different schedule. If we are open for more members, we'll let you know that you can send us a check for $300. Once we receive it, you are a member and can begin ordering. Chris will keep track of your account in our "Quicken" accounting program on the computer, and let you know when it's getting low. Basically, you create a debit account with us and it gets used up however quickly or slowly you order. Some folks run through four shares in a year, others take a year to use one up.

Thanks for your interest, and feel free to email with questions,

Randy & Chris Treichler, Star Hollow Farm

Photos (L to R): Chris & Randy, Jack & Sam packing orders, the truck in Adams Morgan.