Shared Harvest CSA

Specialties

Shared Harvest is a Winter Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. We are a multi-​farm, extended season partnership between small-​scale family farmers and people who value high-​quality and sustainably grown food. We are a community that supports local agriculture, and in turn, is nourished by it. Shared Harvest farms include Riverland (Sunderland, MA), Picadilly (Winchester, NH), Brookwood (Canton, MA) and Busa (Lexington, MA), These farms grow produce for the share using organic methods. Riverland and Picadilly are certified organic. Charley Baer, Baer’s Best Beans, grows beans for us using Integrated Pest Management strategies. This year our beans will be grown on land Charley owns, Lover’s Brook Farm, S. Berwick, Maine. Cider Hill Farm (Amesbury, MA) provides IPM-​grown apples for our November share.

History

Established in 2007.

This multi-​farm Winter CSA was started in 2007 in an effort to make a little one-​acre market garden economically sustainable. One acre of land, farmed intensively during the summer, is a full-​time job, but doesn’t yield a full-​time or sustainable income. Increasing income meant growing more crops: While one acre does not have room to spare in the summer, it can accommodate a number of cool-​season greens that would be ready for distribution in the late fall and winter. But who would come to a farm in December for a few bunches of kale and a head or two of cabbage? Partnering with other growers, farmers with more land, seemed a great solution. And thus, Shared Harvest CSA was started in 2007. More information about our history can be found on the Shared Harvest CSA website, under CSA, details.