What is a CSA?
(Community Supported Agriculture or a CSA Share)
As a shareholders, you pay an annual subscription fee and receive regular ‘farm shares’ – weekly boxes of organically certified produce harvested on Amador Hill Farm and Orchard. Shareholders share with us the harvest, joys, rewards and inherent risks that are all a part of farming. Most of all we enjoy growing healthy organic produce for you and love to share recipe ideas and suggestions with you from all of our shareholders. We offer several options for your farm shares. Click here for CURRENT CSA OPTIONS.
Amador Hill Farm is certified organic by the Midwest Organic Services Association (MOSA) which means that we have a rigorous third-party verification process to ensure that we use no petrochemical insecticides, herbicides, fungicides or GMO/treated seeds. We certify because it helps increase the visibility of the organic farming economic sector, when farms certify, and we believe in the rigor and care required for this certification. This is your guarantee from USDA through MOSA certification that you have purchased organically certified produce. Amador Hill Farm is also a member of Minnesota Grown, Sustainable Farming Association and we are the administrator for the North Circle Online Farmers Market serving East Central Minnesota.
Policy on Certification and Outsourcing. All the produce from our Amador Hill farm is organically certified by the Midwest Organic Services Association (MOSA mosaorganic.org)
We have been certified for more than ten years with MOSA. In your produce boxes, generally all the produce has been grown on our farm. We sometimes include outsourced produce from our partner farms. These farms belong to a group of local farmers who grow healthy food for East Central Minnesota. We do not require our partner farms to officially certify with a third party agency, but we do require that they sign off on our Farmer’s Pledge. While we only use the word “organic” for officially certified produce. we can assure you that all the food in your produce boxes is reliably sourced from farms committed to sustainable and organic growing practices,
CSA SNAPSHOT: Amador Hill Farm will be growing over 200 varieties of vegetables, herbs and fruits most of which you will find in your box. These will be packaged, mixed and scaled down to 7-10 bundles/bunches/bags per box. We will try to balance basic household and well-loved food with a few lesser known fruits or vegetables for culinary exploration and cooking fun. A weekly CSA Newsletter which includes recipes for the produce in the box will be sent to you electronically on Thursday at 10:30 – a day before the CSA box is delivered to give you ideas for meals and shopping lists. Two things we outsource with local sustainable organic farmers are berries and sweet corn, which we don’t grow, but we believe these round out our CSA offerings. Everything else in the box we grow from seed —seeding by hand either into trays to transplant or by direct seeding — or from our apple trees. It always amazes us to see the farm emerge from tiny seeds and enriched by our healthy organically certified soil and from the tiny beauty of bloom on our apple trees. We love this miracle of nature.
Why do we do this? Because we care about health, we care about the land, we care about really good and tasty food, we care about the organic farming movement, and we care about our wider WEI mission of environmental, food and farming justice.
Our farm is a farm and more than a farm. By ordering your CSA through WEI, you are not only supporting our farmers and making a pathway to your own health, but you are also helping us support our education program which centers largely on our Amador Hill Farm Campus.
Living with Our Local Seasons. What to expect.
Early Season
Salad Greens, Spinach, Arugula, Amaranth, Sugar Snap Peas, Scallions, Swiss Chard, Collards, Chives, Garlic Scapes, Radishes, Herbs.
Mid Season
Salad Greens, Summer Squash, New Potatoes, Carrots, Green Beans, Sweet Corn, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Kohlrabi, Scallions, Broccoli, Beets, Onions, Okra, Raspberries, Leeks, Eggplant, Herbs.
Late Season
Salad Greens, Garlic, Tomatoes, Winter Squash, Carrots, Sweet Corn, Peppers, Broccoli, Cabbage, Potatoes, Onions, Baking Apples, Pumpkins, Brussels Sprouts, Turnips, Yams, Dry Beans, Root Vegetables, Herbs Check out the total list of over 150 varieties we are growing this year (members are not guaranteed a sample of each variety but a generous mix of the total list)