2024 Summer
CSA Shares
Available Now!
What is
a CSA?
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a direct, food-share partnership between you and the farmer. It entails purchasing an entire season’s worth of vegetables at the beginning of the year. Purchasing a CSA share gives the customer consistent access to vegetables at a discounted price while also bringing the farmer an income at an important time of the year when cash-flow is low but they are ordering seeds, building infrastructure, and improving tools and production practices.
How does our CSA work?
Well Fed Farmstead offers a free-choice CSA program. Unlike traditional CSA models that provide a weekly box of vegetables determined for you, the free-choice CSA allows you to pick whatever items you’d like, however many you’d like, whenever you’d like them. If you miss a week or are out of town, no problem. If you don’t want kale seven weeks in a row or you don’t know how to cook kohlrabi, that’s fine!
Simply put...
You purchase a share, ----> We put that money onto a CSA debit card ----> You use the card to buy what you want, when you want ----> We deduct it from the card.
We also provide a whole lot more than just veggies!
We stock all kinds of local goods in our farm stand (open daily, April-December).
Bread | Eggs | Dairy
Fruit (Yes, Palisade Peaches, Colorado Apples, Pears, etc...)
Honey | CBD| Farm Merch & More
And the best part... You can use your CSA card to purchase all of it.
Some Other CSA Perks:
- A CSA member-only party, happening in October 2024. Think pumpkins, farm festivities, games, free produce, etc...
- Exclusive, weekly CSA newsletters, including updates on what is seasonally available and creative recipe ideas.
Early Bird Special:
Sign up NOW for an added 10% bonus on your card.
(For example... choose the large share for $500 and you will receive an added $50 on your card!)
CSA Share sizes:
Try to pick the share size that best fits your family and your needs!
Shares start on May 18th and end on October 26th (24 weeks!)
Full Share: $600 + $15 administration fee = $615
Feeds a family of 4-5 (or a vegetarian/vegan house of 2).
Equals roughly $26/week.
Medium Share: $450 + $15 administration fee = $465
Ideal for 2-3 person households. Equals roughly $19/week
Small Share: $300 + $15 administration fee = $315
Perfect for a 1 person household. Equals roughly $13/week.
*If these prices are out of reach for you read below to see how we work with SNAP and The Vegetable Connection to how we can help you out.
FAQs:
Why is there an administration fee?
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The fee helps to cover the cost of credit card processing, as well as the price of the physical gift cards and the back-end office work of keeping the CSA program running.
Do you work with SNAP?
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We accept SNAP/EBT benefits to purchase your CSA Share. Additionally, for CSA members paying with an EBT card, we hope to cut your costs in half! For the past two years we have worked with Double Up Food Bucks, a program meant to double the purchasing power of your EBT funds. If we are accepted into the program again, DUFB will match your CSA payment. That means if you select a Small Share you pay $150 and DUFB pays the rest. If you select a Full Share you pay $300 and the remainder is covered.
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If you are interested in using your EBT card to purchase a share please email us at wellfedfarmstead@gmail.com and include "SNAP CSA Share" in the subject line.
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How do I know how much money is on my card?
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The easiest way is to scan the QR code located on the back of your CSA card. You can also ask the farmers market crew at the time of purchase.
What happens if I run out of CSA Money?
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No worries! You can add money to your CSA account whenever you run out and you'll continue to receive the same sign-up bonus. Simply talk to one of our crew members at a Friday or Saturday Market and they will help you out.
Can my CSA card roll over to next year?
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Short answer, no. Any leftover funds after October 26th will be unavailable for use. Think of the CSA like a gym membership. You have it for a specific amount of time and the more you use it, the more you get out of it.
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But there's good news! If you love our CSA, we will most likely have a winter CSA in 2024. Make sure to pay attention to our newsletters, as we will release the sale of the Winter CSA at a later date.
What if the farm is affected by a natural disaster?
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A CSA program revolves around the concept of sharing the risk and rewards of local agriculture. Because we are located in Northern Colorado, we are prone to hail, extreme drought, and severe temperature shifts. Although we do our best to protect ourselves from these natural conditions (we grow a portion of our produce in greenhouses, we source water from natural precipitation, wells and ditches, and we have several strategies to keep our produce warm in the winter), we are not invincible. Thus, we include a "Hand of God" clause in our CSA that, if disaster should strike, our members would share the burden. If our harvest is dramatically reduced or we are unable to come to market we will deduct the amount of an average market week from everyone's Farm Cards until harvest resumes. Most years this will not even occur (in Farmer Ryan's career, it has never happened), but by purchasing a share, you're helping us focus on what we do best instead of fretting about the next tragedy. You are assisting us in running a sustainable business and we can't thank you enough.
I like the Traditional Box CSA Model, is that an option?
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For the past two years we have offered a traditional CSA box model for our Winter Share. We assume that this will be an option in 2024, but we have yet to confirm some important details that will determine the availability, size, and length of our Winter CSA.
Lastly, we are a participating farm with the Vegetable Connection.
The Vegetable Connection works as a liaison between low-income families that financially cannot afford a CSA share and a sustainably locally grown farm that produces the CSA share; giving families the access to become members of Well Fed Farmstead or other local Fort Collins Farms.
Last year, The Vegetable Connection was able to provide 14 families a share from our farm with donations from the Fort Collins community. And that's only our farm! Several other local farms were involved as well, and many more families were fed. This program is so neat, not only providing local and nutritious food to those who want and need it, but also paying us farmers a full price for the goods we are providing.
We want to give you an opportunity to support the Vegetable Connection (and through them, further support us). Whatever you can afford would be a welcome gift that goes straight to this program, allowing more families to share in the bounty.
Here's a link that guides you straight to their donation page. If you'd like to know more, click here to read up on the Vegetable Connection and everything they do for our community.
Questions? Email us.
