Bring the Farm to Your Table!

HOW to START a Stoney Lonesome CSA DELIVERY CO-OP in 8 STEPS:

1. Email Pablo or Esther to let them know you are interested. There might already be people trying to get a co-op going in your area!
2. Start recruiting neighbors and friends who want 22 weeks of fresh-from-the-farm veggie goodness. For the Co-op to work well, you’ll need 7 or 8 shares participating for the season. Why 7 or 8? Well, the season is 22 weeks and that comes out to about 3 trips to the farm per share. And more than 8 shares is tough to fit into a small car!
3. Have your co-op members print out the membership brochure from www.slfarm.us, fill it out and give it back to you along with their check. Ask them to include any dates that they would like to be in charge of pick up, or dates they will be out of town.
4. Designate one co-op member’s house as the local pick-up location. It’s best for it to be the same house for the whole season to avoid confusion. Also, set a time for the veggies to arrive every week. 5:50 pm seems to work well for other groups.
5. Copy everyone’s contact information and emails into a document to share with the group, along with the proposed calendar of who will pick up when.
6. Before the first share pick-up, ask everyone in the co-op to bring two large canvas or other recyclable bags (not paper!) with their name on it to the local pick-up location. Once the season starts, one set of bags will be brought out to the farm to get filled up (the names help the pick up person keep track), and when folks come to the local pick up location, they bring the empty one from the previous week. This rotation ensures that there are always bags.
7. Once the season gets started, send out a reminder every Thursday to the whole co-op, reminding the person in charge of picking up that it is their turn, and that they need to grab all the bags to fill up. It’s also a good reminder for the whole group, especially when summer weekends start getting so busy.
8. Sit back and wait for the produce to start rolling in!

Helpful FAQs:
Why do I have to pay at the beginning of the season?
Yes, it's an outlay of cash at the beginning of the season, but this allows the farmer to prepare for the season. Also, if you normally buy from a farmer's market, it comes out about the same a week but with Stonely Lonesome CSA you get high-quality, just picked stuff, and you get to know the farmer to boot.
Is Stoney Lonesome certified organic?
Stoney Lonesome uses all organic processes, and no pesticides, but is not certified organic.
What if I am going to be out of town? What happens to my share?
We recommend you looking for a “sub” for the time you will be away. The co-op in Mt. Pleasant keeps a list of substitutes and co-op members reach out to them to take their share. Some ask to be reimbursed for the cost of a weekly share. If a sub can’t be found, the share is distributed among the other co-op members.
How far is Stoney Lonesome from DC? It seems like a long way to drive for veggies.
Without traffic it's about 45 minutes from DC, not far from Manassas battlefield. When folks go to the farm for the pick-up, they are encouraged to make a day or part of a day of it, helping out with harvest or other farm chores. It’s a wonderful break from the city, and offers a connection to the land where your food is grown. Plus, the farm has an honest-to-goodness swimming hole! Of course the volunteering part is optional, but it's worth walking around the property to see how things are grown, or even picnicking there.