CSA Week 2023
CSA week 2023 takes place from February 20th - 26th. It's a time for farms across the country to promote Community Supported Agriculture. Here at Gould Farm, we have a very small 10-member CSA. This week we want to highlight another local CSA, Woven Roots Farm in Tyringham, MA, as well as share a testimonial from one of our members from last year!
What is a CSA?
CSA is an acronym for Community Supported Agriculture. It is a commitment between individuals (or families) and farmers. At the start of the growing season people buy into the farm share as members, and in exchange receive a weekly share of the farm’s harvest.
What is a share?
At Gould Farm, a full season’s share includes 20 weeks of our produce distributed weekly. A week’s share is an 8 to a 12-pound variety of seasonal vegetables from our garden and selected produce (such as apples) from other local farms! There is also an available add-on of Gould Farm cheese for every other week. Guests at Gould Farm who are working on the garden team are an integral part of harvesting, packing, and preparing our weekly CSA distribution.
Berkshire County CSA's
While Gould Farm runs a relatively small but mighty CSA, with just 10 members, there are other incredible CSAs also available in the area. Our friends at Berkshire Grown maintain an easily searchable database of local farms where you can find many CSA options. And right down the road from Gould Farm, in Tryingham, is Woven Roots Farm, founded by Jen and Pete Salinetti. Gould Farm has enjoyed a great neighborly relationship with Woven Roots over the years, including having former guests work with them when they are in our transition program.
From their website: "Woven Roots Farm is a traditional, hand-scale vegetable farm, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and education center located on unceded Mohican land in the present-day Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts. Through a deep relationship with the land and one another, we commit to feeding, educating, and empowering our community members by co-creating pathways to become healthier individuals, ethical growers, and caretakers of the earth and one another."
What the CSA means to one local family
Last year, one of our members sent us the photos in this post along with the testimonial below. We will leave you with her words because we could not have said it better! And we hope you consider supporting a CSA near you this season!
"Our CSA share was such a blessing. Truly. You may know this but we got our share through WIC (The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children - better known as the WIC program) and being able to feed my family with such amazing local produce really warms my heart. Your hard work was dearly appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed by my little family, especially our 4 year old twins. The process of coming to pick up our share, prepping it and eating at home or school, canning for winter has been so rewarding and such a good opportunity to teach them about the seasonality of food, ways to preserve it and 71 ways to eat zucchini! I am so grateful. Thank you!"