Ambrose Family Farm CSA

(Community Supported Agriculture)

Our CSA program provides members a weekly share of our freshly harvested, organically and/or sustainably grown produce during a designated season, Spring and/or Fall Season. Produce is harvested daily, distributed to pick up points in the Charleston, Mt. Pleasant, Summerville, Downtown, James Island, Wadmalaw Island, and Johns Island areas. Members visit their pre-chosen pick up point, sign in, and take home their weekly allotment of produce.

Boxed Share Program

With Boxed Share program, a share of the day's harvest is prepacked in different share size boxes, each designed to feed a specific number of people-from 8 people down to one person.

The Boxed Shares are delivered to designated Pick up Points on specific days of the week. Pick Up Hosts (CSA Members) open their homes or businesses for Members to come during certain hours on certain days of the week to pick up their Boxed Share. Each member signs in, picks up their share size box, and takes the fresh produce home to their families.

The following week, same day, same time, same place, members would again visit their pick up point, RETURN THE BOX THEY TOOK HOME THE PREVIOUS WEEK, sign in, and take their share size box home again. This process takes place for the entire length of the Season. Fall Season 2008 will be from about the 1st week in October through the 1st or 2nd week in December - 10 to 12 weeks.

On Farm Pick Up or Stono Market Pick Up

With On Farm or Stono Market pick up, each member selects a specific day of the week they wish to pick up at either the farm or the Stono Market. Upon arrival, members sign in and select items from the day's allotment in a fashion similar to the grocery store process. The sweet thing is there are no prices listed, only the day's allotment for each share size. Above each item, a sign indicates how much you may choose of each item according to your share size. Signs might say, as an example, "Xtra Large Share - take 4", "Family Share - take 2", "Individual Share - take 1", or "Single Share - take 1". Some crops may be 'grouped' together-like root crops(carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, potatoes). With 'grouped' items, a Member might choose to select 2 bunches of beets, 1 bunch turnips, and 1 bunch carrots-as an example. A lot of Ambrose Family Farm CSA Members find this concept more flexible for their particular family's food preferences.

Pick You Own Options

We grow certain crops that are "Pick Your Own" only. These items are NOT harvested by the farm crew but available to any CSA Member who chooses to come to the farm and Pick Your Own. Beans, peas, okra, some cut flower varities, some herb varities...crops that are too expensive and time consuming to harvest by hand. Members will be notified by email when these "PYO" crops are available for harvesting. It is a perfect time to plan a visit to the farm with your entire family(you'll be glad to have the extra help!)

Risks & Rewards

Please keep in mind that there are RISKS involved for CSA Members along with the CSA Farmer. Your CSA farmer Pete's favorite response when asked about the 'risk' factors in farming is "Farming is a gamble. I should take the thousands of dollars it takes to grow a crop, go to Vegas, bet in all in a Craps game, have a lot of fun, loose it quickly, and go home rested!" The CSA concept is for community members to 'share the risks - and rewards - of farming with the farmer himself'.

Fall carries a higher risk factor for complete crop failure beacuse of where we live -Hurricane Ally! In our farming career-since 1976-we have successfully harvested 30 out of our 32 fall plantings. That seems pretty safe odds to me, but the risk still remains.

The term "crop failure" generally refers to a single crop, not the entire list of crops being grown. For example, we might plant 6 successions of tomatoes along with 20 other crops. From those 6 crops of tomatoes, we may loose a large portion of 1 planting due to inclement weather conditions or pest damage-crop failure-but continue to grow and harvest from all the other crops. The same could happen to any particular crop. We may loose all 6 crops of tomatoes, but still harvest the other 20 crops being grown.

If we sould get a direct hit from a hurricane, nothing we planted would be harvestable-complete crop loss. Crops with short growing seasons-summer squashes, lettuces, turnips, radishes, kale, spinach, tat soy, mustard, arugula, cucucumbers, snap beans, and herbs would be immediately replanted and be harvestable in a 30 to 45 day range. This would seriously shorten the CSA season for members, but not leave them empty handed. The basic CSA concept-partnership between Community and Farmer-shares the staggering financial loss that farmers have, in the past, suffered alone. Understanding and accepting the financial risks taken each season is important and Membership requires you, the member, to sign an agreement stating that you understand the risks and are willing to accept them should there be a disaster of ANY nature beyond the Farmer's control.

There are lots more rewards than risks. Members from the spring took home, on average, 5 pounds more produce each week than they had expected. They had ample to feed their families and left overs enough to share with friends and neighbors.

The biggest rewards are QUALITY, FRESHNESS, FLAVOR, and FUN. The comment from our CSA Members made most often is "I have learned to be a more adventuresome cook. I'm eating things I would never have tried, and loving them. My family has never eaten so good!"

Farming Facts for City Slickers

1) Produce is not grown in the grocery store. It is grown in the DIRT. "God made dirt and dirt don't hurt." Your produce may require extra care-WASH IT.

2)Produce is not grown indoors. It is grown outdoors where bugs live. There may be a bug stow-away in your box looking for a new home-yours. If we try to kill all the bugs, we would have to use chemicals. You see where this train is heading? Being able to supply you with the best transitionally organic produce means that we use organic control products first. If faced with 'complete crop failure due to a pesky creature' that we cannot control using organics, we have to make the choice of either loosing the crop or using as mild a non-organic product as possible. Ocassionally, but rarely, we choose to use rather than loose.

3)Beauty is only skin deep. It might be ugly, but it's still got character. This spring season, we harvested fresh garlic. It was ugly, stinky, and dirty (all the things that make great produce a real pleasure). It didn't look like garlic but it sure smelled like garlic. A lot of members threw it away and complained about the stinky ugly dirty 'thing' in their box. But those who surmized from the smell that it might be garlic and tried it, had one of the most pleasurable experiences in their lives-fresh garlic. If you have questions about an item and cannot figure out what in the heck it is, check the web site for possible answers or call! Don't just throw it away.

4)Veggie plants are really smart but really stubborn. They have the incredible ability to know when to sprout, how to grow, and how to produce offspring without having to be taught or trained. But, when they have done what they instinctively know how to do, no matter how hard one tries, one cannot get them to do any more! Food, water, threats, promises, a firm talking to-whatever-they just won't do any more. And it doesn't even matter to them what we NEED or WANT or have PROMISED. The point is, if you should see something on the "What may be in your box this week" list, and it's not in your box, not on the Farm, or not at Stono Market, don't blame us-it's the veggies fault.

5)Farmers are human just like you-just dirtier. Although a farmer is often idolized and placed on some pedestal, believe it or not, a farmer can-and ocassionally does- make a mistake. Although this doesn't seem possible,..it happens. Please, if we make a mistake, let us know in the same manner you would like us to let you know if you made a mistake.

Fall CSA

The Fall Season will begin near the 1st of October through the first or second week in December. A list of probable crops: Lettuce(4 to 6 varities), Arugula, Collards, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Beets, Carrots, Turnips, Radishes, Spinach, Tat Soy, Boc Choi, Tomatoes, Heirloom Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Cantaloup, Watermelon, Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Patty Pan Squash, Butternut Squash, Acorn Squash, Spaghetti Squash, Egg Plant, Kale, Mustard, Scallion Onions, Basil, Cilantro, Dill, Bell Peppers, Jalapeno Peppers, Sweet Corn(NOT ORGANIC),and Popping Corn. Beans, peas, okra, some fresh cut flowers, and some varities of herbs will be available for Pick Your Own. And there are often 'surprise' crops Pete decides to plant for experiment or pleasure.

We begin harvest in October with lettuces, spinach, arugula, Kale, Summer Squashes, egg plant, radishes, tat soy, turnips, mustard, cucumbers. We progress throughout the season with other crops becoming available each week, so the vairty stays diverse.

Membership

We are growing for about 800 members this fall. Membership slots are alloted to existing members first, waiting list applicants second, and to the general public third-on a first come first served basis.

We encourage you to visit this web site often to keep up with membership openings. If membership slots are available, they don't last long.