Community Supported Agriculture

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Community supported agriculture or CSA for short is a Business relationship between a farmer and a customer. Customers get an intimate business relationship with a farmer that is local. Knowing where your food comes from and how it was growing is important to one more consumers today. Farmers produce different types of products from vegetables and fruits two more niche products like artisan breads, cheeses, and soaps.

What’s a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)?

Community supported agriculture is a relatively new method that started back in the 1980’s in the US. Typically, customers pay for a summers worth of produce or products upfront. This helps the farmers with cash flow as well as meeting expenses that are typically paid before the growing season begins. Customers also share in the risk of the farm. The downside to farming of course is the risk of crop failure due to weather or environmental events.

MEG’s Edible Landscapes

MEG’s Edible Landscapes is a plant nursery wholly devoted to edible plants. We’re adding a new business channel to our offering. Starting in 2023, MEG will be offering CSA memberships. Check out the basic membership or premium membership here. The memberships include our grow bag growing system. These grow bags are a perfect solution for the Minnesota growing season. Minnesota, of course, has a ridiculously short opportunity to grow food during the warmer months. It’s a challenge for traditional gardens — especially those planted in the ground. But, what do you do when you’re a renter, live in an urban or suburban area, or don’t have proper garden soil? This is the beauty of grow bags in that they solve this problem.

Basic CSA Membership

MEG’s Basic Membership starts at $1 for the month of May with no strings attached. We drop plants during the first part of May. You’ll have the rest of the month to see the automated garden grow. Choose to continue the subscription at the end of the trial period, or we’ll pick everything up and thank you for trying. This package has a total of 29 grow bags throughout the season (season lasts 22 months). We deliver new plants monthly. You also get to choose your plants. To get more information on this package, click here.

Premium CSA Membership

MEG’s Premium Membership starts at $1 as well. This package can be thought of as a “spoiled rotten” package. Here are some of the highlights:

Raised cedar bed
Automated watering system
New plants dropped off every other week
Checkups by a horticulturist
Exclusive access to harvesting information
Recipes from local chefs
Plants selected by you
Grown at your home
Plus Special Bonuses

The premium membership should absolutely wow you throughout the summer. It’s designed for those who want a home garden but without any of the pain of gardening like digging, weeding, watering…you get the idea. Heck, we’re in the 21st century now. We should be living like it right?!

Backstory alert: Do you remember watching the movie Back To The Future II? There’s a scene where a wall of grapes drops down out of the ceiling at dinner. That’s the inspiration behind the Premium CSA Membership. Your premium garden will be situated as close to where it will be consumed as possible.

Premium CSA Membership $1 for first month

What to expect with a community supported agriculture

Different CSAs have different methods of delivering produce or products to customers. Typical set ups require customers to Drive out to farmers to pick up produce on a weekly basis. Other CSA’s have options for customers to pick up and drop sites such as grocery stores, Co-Op, or other locations. Some CSA’s combined with other farmers to provide package deals. This is a unique benefit to the customer and that they can tailor particular packages to their individual preferences. One drawback to the typical CSA model is that customers don’t always get to choose exactly what they get. When it comes to produce, the farmers typically divvy up whatever they planted with few inputs from the customers.

How we’re a different CSA Northfield MN

Have you ever been a CSA member and were captive to what was grown on the farm? Did you have any input into what you got for that weeks share box? Do you dislike tomatoes yet somehow ended up with a massive box of tomatoes from your local farm? Do you just love to travel to a farm every Thursday afternoon to pick up your produce while you’re holding your two school-age children with? We’re intimately aware and familiar with all these problems with traditional CSA’s. This is why we’ve taken steps to solve these problems with our new plant CSA. Instead of you having to travel to the farm to pick up the produce, the farm is going to come to your doorstep.

Our commitment

MEG guarantees all plants for 30 days. With our growing bag system, we guarantee our plants from seed to seed. This means that a plant, if coupled with our automated watering system, is guaranteed to complete its lifecycle. For instance, this means a tomato plant will produce tomatoes. If for some reason there is a problem or issue, we will rectify the problem or replace the plants.

Final Thoughts

if you’re looking for a unique Community Supported Agriculture experience that provides the benefit of time saving, MEG’s Edible Landscapes is your choice. Also, be thinking about what your favorite fruits and vegetables are. When it comes to MEG’s Plant CSA, you’re the boss and you get to choose what you grow as part of your CSA experience.

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