Earthly Delights Farm
A Vegephile's Paradise
Boise, Idaho
A Vegephile's Paradise
Boise, Idaho
Your Subtitle text
CSA Program
The Earthly Delights CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)
is the main way you can support the farm and get our healthy, amazingly
tasty food into your belly. As a member, you pay us up front for a
season of produce, and we in turn supply you with 18 weeks of fresh
seasonal vegetables, fruits, and herbs. This model is wonderful for
both eaters and growers, allowing us to connect directly with each
other to foster the relationships that create a vibrant and truly
sustainable local food system.
As an eater, you journey along with us through the seasons, from the first crisp greens and fresh herbs of spring through the last tomatoes and winter squashes of autumn. Each week, you also receive a newsletter full of recipes, cooking tips, interesting food trivia, socio-political rants, and other such tidbits. In addition, you enjoy the satisfaction that comes from knowing you have invested substantially in our local community, fueling a thriving local economy and keeping would-be weed patches in scrumptious, diverse food production. Yippee!
As growers, we benefit by getting money at the time of year we need it most, replacing the ugly bank loan cycle many conventional farmers find themselves in to make ends meet with a direct support network of our own neighbors and friends! Also, we are able to grow a much wider variety of crops, taking chances on hard-to-grow items and expertly cultivating time-honored heirloom varieties to provide you with the most varied diet our climate will allow. Yee-Haw!!
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING LOCAL FARMS
As an eater, you journey along with us through the seasons, from the first crisp greens and fresh herbs of spring through the last tomatoes and winter squashes of autumn. Each week, you also receive a newsletter full of recipes, cooking tips, interesting food trivia, socio-political rants, and other such tidbits. In addition, you enjoy the satisfaction that comes from knowing you have invested substantially in our local community, fueling a thriving local economy and keeping would-be weed patches in scrumptious, diverse food production. Yippee!
As growers, we benefit by getting money at the time of year we need it most, replacing the ugly bank loan cycle many conventional farmers find themselves in to make ends meet with a direct support network of our own neighbors and friends! Also, we are able to grow a much wider variety of crops, taking chances on hard-to-grow items and expertly cultivating time-honored heirloom varieties to provide you with the most varied diet our climate will allow. Yee-Haw!!
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING LOCAL FARMS
We've added a few new options to the CSA program, to better serve y'all!
Check out our new 3-tier membership...
Now, you can choose either:
1. The good ole standby share. This is our tried and true membership. It hasn't changed in quantity or price in several years...why mess with such a good thing? (COST: $26/wk, which is $468 for the season)
2. The Farmer Advocate Share. This new little gem was inspired by a farm we visited in Portland, that offers its members the option of paying an extra amount for the same share, so they can help support the farmer(s) with a living wage! It's a cool concept, and also great for education about what a share would cost if we wanted to truly support CSA farmers with a living wage. (COST: $33.80/wk, or $608.40 for the season)
3. The half share. A popular new addition last season, offered for members who feel the good ole standby share is just too danged much food for them. You receive your share every other week with this one, giving you longer between harvests to eat up your bounty!
(COST: $275/season)
**We still offer bicycle delivery of your share to home or office for an additional $4/wk, or $72/season!
We hope these new options find friends among you. We welcome your feedback!
TO SIGN UP:
Send a $35 deposit check, along with your name, address, email, and phone number to:
Earthly Delights
2609 Arthur St.
Boise, ID 83703
You can make as many payments as you like, but all share money is due by May 15th!
CSA FAQs
Q: How much food should I expect each week?
A: Each week you'll receive around 10 items in your share. In the beginning, this is enough food for a giant salad that will feed you several meals through the week, and a couple of stirfries. As the season goes on, your bounty will get heavier and heartier, providing enough food for several vegetable-based meals a week. The regular CSA share is good for families, couples who eat many meals at home, and single folks/couples who eat out a lot but share with friends. The half share is good for single people and for couples and families who eat out a lot and/or don't eat a lot of vegetables.
Q: Where and when are the pickups? Do you deliver?
A: We have pickups on Monday evenings from 4-6 pm and Thursday late afternoons (probably 2:30-4:30--exact times TBA) on the Northwest corner of 39th and Taft Streets in the Collister neighborhood (near Veteran's Parkway and State Streets). We also offer bicycle delivery of your share to homes or offices in our delivery area.
Q: Do I get to choose what's in my share?
A: No, you don't. In an increasingly competitive CSA market, we can appear downright old-fashioned by not budging on this aspect of the CSA. Though you do occasionally get to choose between two items, and can certainly help yourself to as much or as little as you want of others (like tomatoes), for the most part, you put yourself at our mercy when it comes to choosing what's in your share each week, based on what we have in the garden. Casey is especially staunch about this point because of her own evolution into eating the way she now does, which came about as a result of joining another CSA back in the day. She didn't know what anything in her share was when she went to pick up her first week's food! She was scared of everything in it, certain she had made a mistake, but had to figure out how to cook everything she got, since she'd already paid for it. This radically changed the way she ate! Given the choice, she wouldn't ever have chosen items, like kale, that she now eats nearly every day, and so would never truly have transformed her diet and culinary lifestyle. That is one of the biggest benefits of a CSA, in our opinion. By giving up the ability to choose exactly what you eat each week, you actually open yourself up to a much greater diversity in food choice than you would have by selecting your own!
Q: How does the cost compare to the grocery store?
A: It's tough to calculate exactly because many of the things we grow aren't found in grocery stores as a rule, and certainly are of a higher nutritional quality, having been picked the morning you receive them. For the most part, the early spring shares are pretty comparable to the same items purchased in a grocery store but the majority of the CSA, once the warmer weather comes, is a steal of a deal in comparison. For example, one organic heirloom tomato can cost $5 in the grocery store, and you might get 4-5 a week, plus ten or twelve other items! The summer shares provide you with a bounty at a fraction of the cost in the grocery store! The level cost of a share is one of the many ways the CSA model benefits farmers, who are in dire need of cash in the spring when their crops don't generally fetch high prices, while benefiting eaters like you in the summer, when we share our abundance with you!
Q: It seems like kind of a hassle. Why should I join a CSA rather than buying whatever I want from the store or the farmer's market?
A: We're glad you asked! Maybe you want to truly connect with agriculture or farmers in your community, and you want the one-on-one personalized interaction with them that our CSA provides. Maybe you're ready to branch out in your eating and/or your cooking, and you want some guidance. Our weekly newsletter gives you the skinny on what's in your share, how to cook it, and why you're such a bad ass for being a member of a CSA farm. Part pat on the back, part advice column, part inspiration sandwich! Maybe you want to eat local food but find the farmer's market a crazy zoo you'd just as soon avoid and the grocery store an impersonal fluorescent buffet--we're with you there! Maybe you want to introduce your kids to the wacko new generation of urban farmers to give them some alternative perspectives on what's possible with their creative energy. Maybe you like watching a garden evolve from spring to fall and don't have the space, time, or energy to have your own. And maybe you just want to be as helpful as possible in our local economy and local food system--by joining a CSA, your money goes directly into the hands of actual farmers, with ZERO middlemen taking a cut! No grocery stores, no farmer's market booth fees, nothing to stand between you and your local farmer except a table full of yummy veggies...and we'll even walk around that to give you a hug when you need one!
Q: OK already, I'm ready to join a CSA. What's so special about yours? Why should I choose you?
A: There's a few things that make our farm unique in the valley. For one, we are first and foremost a CSA farm. Many other farms offer a CSA as one component of their sales. They sell at farmers market, to many restaurants, or to grocery stores in addition to their CSA, which means their high-value crops like berries or sugar snap peas make their way into their members' shares less often. All the food we grow goes to our members first, and only after we've offered you as much oregano or sage as you'll ever need in a year do we offer it to our one or two restaurant customers. Also, we make every effort to reduce the amount of petroleum we consume in our farm's operations. We transport ourselves, our veggies, our tools, chickens, and other farm necessities almost exclusively by bicycle. We save many of our own varieties of seeds (we saved about 45 varieties last year!) and strive to utilize as many local resources as possible. Also, our wacky, unique newsletter is much beloved by our members. Lastly, we're pretty decent guys and gals--we hope you'll enjoy getting to know us through the weeks of the CSA! Ooh! And members get discounts on our gardening classes as well...what more reason do you need?
Casey O'Leary and Lori Bevan
208-284-3712 digger@earthlydelightsfarm.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Opportunity is missed by many people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work"
- Mark Twain
Q: How much food should I expect each week?
A: Each week you'll receive around 10 items in your share. In the beginning, this is enough food for a giant salad that will feed you several meals through the week, and a couple of stirfries. As the season goes on, your bounty will get heavier and heartier, providing enough food for several vegetable-based meals a week. The regular CSA share is good for families, couples who eat many meals at home, and single folks/couples who eat out a lot but share with friends. The half share is good for single people and for couples and families who eat out a lot and/or don't eat a lot of vegetables.
Q: Where and when are the pickups? Do you deliver?
A: We have pickups on Monday evenings from 4-6 pm and Thursday late afternoons (probably 2:30-4:30--exact times TBA) on the Northwest corner of 39th and Taft Streets in the Collister neighborhood (near Veteran's Parkway and State Streets). We also offer bicycle delivery of your share to homes or offices in our delivery area.
Q: Do I get to choose what's in my share?
A: No, you don't. In an increasingly competitive CSA market, we can appear downright old-fashioned by not budging on this aspect of the CSA. Though you do occasionally get to choose between two items, and can certainly help yourself to as much or as little as you want of others (like tomatoes), for the most part, you put yourself at our mercy when it comes to choosing what's in your share each week, based on what we have in the garden. Casey is especially staunch about this point because of her own evolution into eating the way she now does, which came about as a result of joining another CSA back in the day. She didn't know what anything in her share was when she went to pick up her first week's food! She was scared of everything in it, certain she had made a mistake, but had to figure out how to cook everything she got, since she'd already paid for it. This radically changed the way she ate! Given the choice, she wouldn't ever have chosen items, like kale, that she now eats nearly every day, and so would never truly have transformed her diet and culinary lifestyle. That is one of the biggest benefits of a CSA, in our opinion. By giving up the ability to choose exactly what you eat each week, you actually open yourself up to a much greater diversity in food choice than you would have by selecting your own!
Q: How does the cost compare to the grocery store?
A: It's tough to calculate exactly because many of the things we grow aren't found in grocery stores as a rule, and certainly are of a higher nutritional quality, having been picked the morning you receive them. For the most part, the early spring shares are pretty comparable to the same items purchased in a grocery store but the majority of the CSA, once the warmer weather comes, is a steal of a deal in comparison. For example, one organic heirloom tomato can cost $5 in the grocery store, and you might get 4-5 a week, plus ten or twelve other items! The summer shares provide you with a bounty at a fraction of the cost in the grocery store! The level cost of a share is one of the many ways the CSA model benefits farmers, who are in dire need of cash in the spring when their crops don't generally fetch high prices, while benefiting eaters like you in the summer, when we share our abundance with you!
Q: It seems like kind of a hassle. Why should I join a CSA rather than buying whatever I want from the store or the farmer's market?
A: We're glad you asked! Maybe you want to truly connect with agriculture or farmers in your community, and you want the one-on-one personalized interaction with them that our CSA provides. Maybe you're ready to branch out in your eating and/or your cooking, and you want some guidance. Our weekly newsletter gives you the skinny on what's in your share, how to cook it, and why you're such a bad ass for being a member of a CSA farm. Part pat on the back, part advice column, part inspiration sandwich! Maybe you want to eat local food but find the farmer's market a crazy zoo you'd just as soon avoid and the grocery store an impersonal fluorescent buffet--we're with you there! Maybe you want to introduce your kids to the wacko new generation of urban farmers to give them some alternative perspectives on what's possible with their creative energy. Maybe you like watching a garden evolve from spring to fall and don't have the space, time, or energy to have your own. And maybe you just want to be as helpful as possible in our local economy and local food system--by joining a CSA, your money goes directly into the hands of actual farmers, with ZERO middlemen taking a cut! No grocery stores, no farmer's market booth fees, nothing to stand between you and your local farmer except a table full of yummy veggies...and we'll even walk around that to give you a hug when you need one!
Q: OK already, I'm ready to join a CSA. What's so special about yours? Why should I choose you?
A: There's a few things that make our farm unique in the valley. For one, we are first and foremost a CSA farm. Many other farms offer a CSA as one component of their sales. They sell at farmers market, to many restaurants, or to grocery stores in addition to their CSA, which means their high-value crops like berries or sugar snap peas make their way into their members' shares less often. All the food we grow goes to our members first, and only after we've offered you as much oregano or sage as you'll ever need in a year do we offer it to our one or two restaurant customers. Also, we make every effort to reduce the amount of petroleum we consume in our farm's operations. We transport ourselves, our veggies, our tools, chickens, and other farm necessities almost exclusively by bicycle. We save many of our own varieties of seeds (we saved about 45 varieties last year!) and strive to utilize as many local resources as possible. Also, our wacky, unique newsletter is much beloved by our members. Lastly, we're pretty decent guys and gals--we hope you'll enjoy getting to know us through the weeks of the CSA! Ooh! And members get discounts on our gardening classes as well...what more reason do you need?
Casey O'Leary and Lori Bevan
208-284-3712 digger@earthlydelightsfarm.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Opportunity is missed by many people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work"
- Mark Twain
