In addition to getting your garden projects going with an order through Fedco Seeds, we strongly encourage you to think about investing in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share this year — especially since there are so many great ReVision solar champion farms in our region today!
CSAs establish a direct relationship between a farms and customers — in late winter/early spring, CSA members sign up and pre-purchase a season’s worth of the farmer’s harvest, usually at a discount vs. the rates expected at the farmer’s market. This gives farmers the benefit of income at a time of the year when they need it, and members the benefit of cost savings, but also, more meaningfully, members become part of a farm’s community — sharing rewards with farmers, and helping protect them against risks.
CSA specifications vary from farm to farm, but the most common option is a summer share which consists of some combination of vegetables, fruit, and/or herb crops, flowers, etc. Shares are picked up on the farm or at a satellite location, while some farms can even offer home delivery. Whichever your selection, you’ll receive your shares from roughly June to October — as well, many farms now offer winter CSAs, and specialty shares such as meat or seedling shares.
A radical transformation of our food system is an integral part of our society’s larger transition from a top-down, centralized fossil-fuel based economy to a distributed, community-oriented renewable energy powered economy. CSAs are a fantastic model for supporting that transition. There are CSAs in every corner of our region – Western Massachusetts to Downeast Maine – and far too many to include here (though organic farming organizations such as MOFGA, NOFA-NH, and NOFA/Mass do a great job at it).
If you don’t go the route of a CSA membership, good old-fashioned farmers’ markets are also great places to discover our solar-powered farm friends, and many restaurants and natural foods stores purvey solar-powered farm products, too. Here we’ve compiled a helpful (and growing!) compendium of the farmers who we’ve had the delight of being able to partner with to install solar at their farms:
Wolf Pine Farm, Alfred Bar Harbor Farm, Bar Harbor Beech Hill Farm at COA, Bar Harbor Orange Circle Farm, Berwick Blue Hill Blondes, Blue Hill Blue Bell Farm, Bowdoinham Six River Farm, Bowdoinham Crystal Spring Farm, Brunswick Spring Day Creamery, Durham The Apple Farm, Fairfield Villageside Farm, Freedom Wolfe’s Neck Center, Freeport Oaklands Farm, Gardiner Georgetown Island Oysters, Georgetown Island Two Coves Farm, Harpswell Hope Orchards, Hope Little Ridge Farm, Lisbon Falls Maine Milkhouse, Monmouth True North Farms, Montville Fairwinds Farm, Oxford Broadturn Farm, Scarborough ~Broadturn Flower Shop, Portland Kennebec Cheesery, Sidney 3 Level Farm, South China Two Loons Farm, South China McDougal Orchards, Springvale Dow Farm Enterprise, Standish A Wrinkle in Thyme Farm, Sumner (fiber CSA) Whatley Farm, Topsham Full Circle Farm, Vassalboro Mook Sea Farm, Walpole Hatchet Cove Farm, Warren Farmer Kev’s, West Gardiner Tarbox Farm, Westport Island Hamilton Farm, Whitefield Morris Farm, Wiscasset
Giovagnoli Family Farm, Boscawen (A Pete & Gerry’s Organic Eggs farm) Stout Oak Farm, Brentwood Serendipity Farm, Campton Three J Farms, Danbury Saddleback Mountain Farm, Deerfield Emery Farm, Durham White Gate Farm, Epping Dartmouth Organic Farm, Hanover The Farm at Eastman’s Corner, Kensington Coppal House Farm, Lee McKenzie’s Farm, Milton Riverview Farm, Plainfield Jewell Towne Vineyards, South Hampton Barker’s Farm, Stratham Meadows Mirth, Stratham
Middle Earth Farm, Amesbury Farmer Dave’s, Dracut ~Farmer Dave’s at Brox Farm, Dracut ~East Street Farm Stand, Tewksbury ~Hill Orchard Farm Stand, Westford ~CSA pickups all around Northeast Massachusetts, from Quincy to Gloucester The HERB FARMacy, Salisbury Smith’s Country Cheese, Winchendon
