Unlike last year spring has arrived on the farm which includes much busy work to prepare for the season ahead.
We finally have rebuilt the greenhouse after it was destroyed in a windstorm in early 2019 which means we have been able to start our seeds. The first seeds to go in are the greens which will be ready shortly to transplant in the defrosted fields. The frost tolerant seedlings will be the first to be sowed into the earth and will be the first items we share in our Early Bird CSA.
Our Early bird CSA will be in response to our customers’ needs to access safe and fresh produce without the long line ups at the grocery stores and a place we can share our early crops before our regular CSA program and farmers’ markets start up in June. Every week families will have the option of ordering a produce bag to be delivered in Uxbridge or Port Perry to your home or to be picked up at one of our convenient community hub locations in Stouffville, Pickering and Markham.
So what is a HUB and why don’t we fully offer home delivery?
A hub location is a central location that we can drop off 6 or more produce shares to. This could be someone’s home, a small business offering complimentary service to their customers or a corporate workplace. For the past three years we have enjoyed the working relationship we have formed with our Farms at Work Program, each week we visit workplaces with shares and invite the employees to participate in the program. Once a week the employees visit our traveling farmer’s market to pick up their produce, exchange or purchase additional items and talk to our field workers about life on the farm thus connecting the corporate office worker to the farm and the food’s journey.
We are a small family run farm committed to sustainable farming practices who feel it is important to pick produce at their peak of freshness. Once we realized our priorities we could focus on those priorities with the realization we were not a grocery store or a delivery company. In the spirit of doing what we do best (growing) we adapted the hub delivery system to keep us off the roads and in the fields planting, growing and harvesting!
This spring we are looking to extend our Hub locations in response to the need for safe local produce, without the line-ups. If you would like to form a hub and have 6 or more committed participants, please reach out to us at forsythecsa@gmail.com.
With today’s rain, it will give us pause to work inside on all the administration and office work that is required to run the farm.
