Sign-ups are open for the 2023 CSA Season at Valley Flora!
Read on to learn about our CSA Sliding Scale System, and to Sign Up!
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Fresh, Local Produce Direct from our Farm to your Plate!
Abby’s Greens - Apples - Artichokes - Arugula - Beans - Beets - Broccoli - Cabbage - Carrots - Cauliflower - Chard - Chiles - Collards - Corn - Cucumbers - Eggplant - Fennel - Herbs - Kale - Leeks - Lettuce - Onions - Pac Choi - Parsnips - Peas - Potatoes - Radicchio - Radishes - Spinach - Strawberries - Sweet Peppers - Tomatoes - Turnips - Winter Squash - Zucchini ... & lots of love!
What’s a Harvest Basket?
Based on the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, the Harvest Basket program is a partnership of mutual commitment between our farm and you, a local eater. Harvest Basket members sign up for our 28-week season and in return receive a diverse array of vegetables, fruit, berries, herbs and recipes each week from June through December. The season kicks off the first week of June after Memorial Day and ends in mid-December.
How Many People Will a Harvest Basket Feed?
It depends on your eating habits, but most members say that a Harvest Basket is ample produce for two to four enthusiastic veggie eaters who mostly cook at home. A few especially zealous folks have managed a whole basket themselves - they do a lot of freezing, juicing, and preserving - while others have split it 6 ways. What's in your harvest basket follows the arc of the season, so a weekly share in June might include: 1 pint of strawberries, 1 head of lettuce, 1 head of pac choi, 1 bunch of radishes, a pound of broccolini, a few stalks of rhubarb, 1 bunch kale, 4 artichokes and some early zucchini. A weekly share in September might include: 1 head of lettuce, 3 sweet peppers, 2 hot peppers, 1 pint of berries, 1 bunch of carrots, 1 cucumber, 8 ears of corn, 3 lbs of potatoes, 1.5 lbs of tomatoes, 2 zucchini, 2 bulbs of fennel and 1 bunch of herbs. Shares can be slightly lighter in June and early July, but heavier in the late summer and fall when the harvest is at its peak.
How Much Does it Cost?
The value of the Harvest Basket averages around $34 per week but fluctuates with the season. A basket in early June might be worth $25, whereas a basket in late August might be worth over $50. We set a base price for the Harvest Basket each year, based on our cost of production, and then offer a voluntary sliding scale option to our members. We accept cash, checks, PayPal and SNAP. In a typical year, you receive about 10% more produce than you pay for over the course of the season, making the Harvest Basket the best bang for your buck. To make our CSA more accessible, we offer the following payment options:
- We offer a $25 discount on all Paid In Full Harvest Baskets ($950 for 2023 instead of $975).
- We offer a Monthly Payment Plan option for those who need to spread their CSA payments out over the season (for 2023, a $375 deposit is due by April 15 followed by six $100 payments from June through November = $975)
- We accept EBT/SNAP and are part of a program called Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB) where SNAP members will receive matching funds through DUFB (you pay half the cost of the CSA with SNAP and DUFB covers the other half). If you are paying with SNAP food benefits, you do not choose a sliding scale option (see below) because you will be eligible for the DUFB incentive. Please contact us directly if you want to pay with EBT/SNAP so we can set up your account. Please note the DUFB program only applies to SNAP food benefits, not SNAP cash benefits.
Our Sliding Scale Payment System
Valley Flora uses an income-based sliding scale CSA payment model for Harvest Baskets (the sliding scale does not apply to Abby’s Greens Salad Shares). We want our CSA to be accessible to everyone in our community, regardless of their current economic situation. Sliding scale options ask that those who can afford to pay more make a larger CSA contribution for the season, so that those who cannot afford to contribute as much can pay less. This approach means that collectively we can make food access more equitable in our community while keeping the farm economically viable.
Participation in our sliding scale is based on the honor system and is completely voluntary. CSA is built on trust; in that spirit we will not ask you any personal questions about finances or life circumstances. If you do not want to participate, you can sign up for the normal full price option ($975 for the 2023 season, with a $25 discount applied to all Paid in Full Harvest Baskets). If you want to participate in our sliding scale, please follow the steps explained below.
Step 1: Income-based suggestion
Our sliding scale CSA pricing is based on the income required to provide a modest yet secure standard of living in Coos and Curry Counties, based on data from the Economic Policy Institute Family Budget Calculator. In the chart below, choose your household size (family of 2 or family of 4) and find the annual household income that most closely matches your own. To the right of your income you will find your suggested CSA contribution for the season. If you have a larger or smaller family, please use your best judgement to determine your CSA contribution for the season given the baseline provided.
Step 2: Consider your wealth and privilege in addition to income
Our sliding scale CSA encourages you to consider other factors besides income that affect your financial status. Some groups of privileged people go through life with a tailwind at their back, others with less privilege face a headwind. For most people, there is a mix of tailwinds and headwinds. Please consider wealth and privilege as well as income.
Consider contributing more when you:
- Own your home;
- Have retirement accounts, investments, or inherited money;
- Have access to family money and resources in times of need; have significant discretionary expenses like travel, dining out, entertainment, etc.;
- Have a relatively high degree of earning power due to your education level (or other privileges you may have associated with race, gender, citizenship status, class background, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical ability, etc.). Even if you are not currently exercising your earning power – we ask you to recognize when this is a choice and consider contributing more.
Consider contributing less when you:
- Are supporting other dependents or sending remittances;
- Have significant non-mortgage debt, particularly cash advance or payday loans;
- Have medical expenses not covered by insurance;
- Are impacted by state violence (e.g. refugees, asylees and injustice in our criminal system).
Thanks to all the good people at Soulfire Farm, Zephyr Farm, Boundless Farmstead and many others for inspiring and pioneering the sliding scale CSA model, and THANK YOU for being part of a more just and equitable food system in our community!
Salad Shares, Too!
We offer an optional Abby’s Greens Salad Share add-on, available by itself or in conjunction with a Harvest Basket. The salad mix is seasonal blend of baby lettuces and asian greens available for 18 weeks, June to October. You can choose between the Full Pound Share for $200 (1 pound of Abby's Greens per week for 18 weeks) or the Half Pound Share for $105 (1/2 pound of Abby's Greens per week for 18 weeks).
How Do I Sign Up?
We have an online signup process via our website. We offer returning members a priority sign-up period in January/February to guarantee them a spot for the upcoming season. For folks on our waiting list, sign-ups begin after the priority period, usually by early Mach.
How Do I Get My Share Each Week?
When you sign up with us online, you choose a pick-up site with designated pick-up hours. We have pickup locations in Coos Bay, Bandon, Port Orford, and at the farm in Langlois. Each week we’ll harvest and pack your produce into re-usable totes on the farm and then deliver to your pick-up location. You come to the pickup site with your own bag, unpack the tote's contents, and leave the emptied tote at the site. If you are sharing a basket with someone, it’s your responsibility to divvy up the basket with your share partner each week (we do not offer half shares).
What If I Can’t Pick Up My Share?
If you know that you’ll be out of town, we suggest that you arrange for a friend to pick up your basket, or notify us so we can either hold your share in our cooler at the farm or arrange to donate it to a local foodbank. Any unclaimed shares at a pick-up site will be donated after 24 hours.
Why Would I Want to Sign-Up for a Harvest Basket?
The Harvest Basket is the most affordable, convenient and guaranteed way to get fresh, farm-direct, local produce from Valley Flora. We honor the seasons and harvest everything at its peak of ripeness and flavor. We help you enjoy the diversity of farm produce with a weekly newsletter and recipes that turn unusual or new foods into a culinary adventure. Harvest Basket members are also always the first to know when certain crops like strawberries, tomatoes, basil, plums and other produce are available for u-pick or bulk purchase on the farm. Filling the Harvest Basket amply is our first priority every week.
For the farm, the CSA is our economic backbone. Your financial commitment in the spring - when money is always the tightest - helps us afford seeds, soil amendments, and labor to get the season going - and provides financial stability throughout the year. Our Harvest Basket members become friends, create new community, and act as vital partners in realizing a vision where local food, family farms, and sustainable agriculture are the thriving norm in our neighborhood.
Sign Up Now For the Upcoming CSA Season!
Feedback from Harvest Basket Members:
Everything we eat from you is so delicious. You must be doing something magical. The food is full of it!
THANK YOU to everyone at Valley Flora for the most wonderful harvest baskets all summer long -- every Wednesday pickup is full of delight and amazement!
This past week's delivery was to die for!!! And now that tomatoes (real, tasty, delicious tomatoes) are starting to come in, my husband and I are in heaven!! He made an awesome potato, leek, carrot and bacon (carnivore that he is!) soup this past week that was wonderful. And the tomatoes --- yum!! And with basil coming again, life is so good! Thanks to you all for your hard work and for bringing us these wonderful (and healthy) treats!
I just have to thank you right now this minute for the best carrot I've ever had, ever. It's the one that's orange on the inside and beet colored on the outside. It was SO sweet and SO pretty and just so much fun to eat. Thank you!
I think need a bumper sticker that says - "I 'heart' my CSA!" You guys are awesome and I thank you every time I open my fridge.
You are changing my eating habits & I feel so much healthier! I've even lowered my prednisone dose, in part due to healthy food. Thank you Valley Flora!
Just have to say -- we totally love Saturdays when we get your awesome delivery!!! It's like a Christmas present every week!! When we decided to commit to doing this, we had to say -- okay, now what menus do we work around this wonderful produce/veggie delivery. And it's working!!! Thank you, thank you!! It's great and so much fun!
