Produce being harvested for the CSA boxes. Photo by Jacqui Anderson.

What is a CSA?

When you purchase a CSA share you are creating a stable local agricultural system. Unlike buying food from a store or produce warehouse, you are supporting farmers directly. You have the ability to know exactly how and where your food was grown, with unsurpassable freshness.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a model used by more than one thousand small farms  in the US and Canada.  As a member of a CSA farm, you are provided with a full box of farm fresh produce weekly  throughout the growing season.  Your purchase of a CSA share  actively supports the independent farming community.   Unlike buying food from a store or produce warehouse, you are supporting farmers directly, helping to create a stable, local agriculture system.  You know exactly how and where your food was grown, and you have the experience of eating unsurpassably fresh fruit and vegetables all summer long.

Please contact us by writing or calling to get on the mailing list!

32404 Mill Canyon Road North
Davenport, WA 99122
(509) 725-FARM

Tomatoes being harvested for the CSA boxes. Photo by Jacqui Anderson.

 When you join a CSA, you pay the farm in advance for a regular, weekly supply of produce throughout the growing season.  Your payment goes directly to the farmer, helping the CSA farm to buy seeds, for example, and to maintain the farm.  This annual funding builds better, more sustainable farms and helps secure for you a source of fine, and in our case, certified organic produce for years to come.

Another unique feature of Community Supported Agriculture is that consumers share both the farm’s abundance and the risk of impacted crops.  The possibilities of poor weather, pests, or plant disease are a reality for farmers.  When strawberries or corn are in abundance, you, the CSA member, reap the rewards.  On the other hand, if the potatoes fail this year, your weekly boxes will be short of that crop. In the  relatively rare instance of a crop failure, the CSA has empathy for the farmers and wishes them better luck next year. As well, when you support a CSA farm, you are supporting local agricultural diversity. Tolstoy Farms practices sustainable agriculture methods, such as crop rotation & cover cropping that help to minimize these chances for crop failures.

CSA members gain a sense of ownership through their involvement with the farm through surveys, volunteer hours, farm visits, and other programs connected with Tolstoy Farms.
We hope you will consider joining us as we begin our 8th CSA season!

The continued support we have received from our CSA friends over the past seven seasons has truly made a difference on our farm.  Both farmers and consumers benefit from the increased security a viable farm economy brings.

Carrots, the signature Tolstoy vegetable. They stay sweet even when they're big. Photo by Jacqui Anderson.

CSA Shareholders get a variety of seasonal produce, beginning in early June and lasting until late September/ early October.  Your weekly boxes will change according to what is available, and may include:

June: Spinach, lettuce, herbs, peas, cut flowers, green onions, strawberries, salad mix, orach, arugula, mustard, radish, collards, kale, garlic tops

July: Chard, peas, spinach lettuce, kale, green onions, sweet onions, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, salad mix, carrots, beets, herbs, cut flowers, fava beans, basil, potatoes, zucchini, apricots

August: Green and sweet onions, leeks, carrots, beets, chard, kale, lettuce, zucchini, cucumber, green beans, potatoes, basil, herbs, corn, apples, tomatoes, cabbage, garlic, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes

September: Corn, beets, carrots, chard, cucumber, zucchini,  kale, lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, sweet and keeper onions, green pepper, pears, plums, winter squash, pumpkin, celery, tomatillos, green beans, garlic, hot pepper

The above appeared at some point during  the given month in the 2002 season boxes.

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