Farming in the shade

This is the time of year that many veggie farmers are offering sign-ups for CSAs. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture (read more  here ), and this membership structure offers a win-win situation for both the farmer and the member. The farmer receives income at a traditionally low-income time of year from membership fees—money that can be used to purchase seeds or pay a greenhouse heating bill, or just keep the lights on and everyone fed and clothed until the next paycheck comes. And the member is assured that all summer long he/she will eat well, usually at a lower cost than he/she would have paid to buy all those veggies individually.  Our farm is quite different from most market farms. We don’t raise veggies, and what we do raise is available off and on for much of the year. We continue to go to the markets all winter, as weather and our energy levels allow. So we aren’t so much in need of a CSA model for timely income. But we look at our veggie farmer friends and wo