What is a CSA?

CSA is an acronym for Community Supported Agriculture. The farmer and the consumer enter into a contract where the farmer agrees to provide produce for a predetermined number of weeks at a set price. This is called a "share". Full and half shares are available for purchase. In Japan, where CSA's began over 40 years ago, the word for CSA is teikei – "putting the farmer's face on food". This aptly expresses the foundation of CSAs. The consumer has knowledge of where the food is grown and the practices utilized by the farmer.

The farm's greatest expense occurs in late winter or early spring, months prior to harvest (i.e. seeds, transplants, labor, and supplies). Your CSA share helps fund these costs and allows you to make an investment in the farm. It ensures you receive the freshest produce while forming a relationship with the farmers growing your food. Most produce sold in grocery stores and served in restaurants has traveled more than 2,500 miles. All produce sold on our farm is grown right here with a few exceptions: Watermelons and Cantaloupes are from Lois's Produce in Westmoreland County; Apples, Peaches, and Nectarines from Saunders Brothers Orchard in Nelson County; Blueberries are from Gold Hill Blueberry Farm in Unionville; Shiitake Mushrooms are grown by K&T Specialties near Elys Ford; Asparagus and Sugar Snap peas are from Snead's Asparagus Farm in Caroline County. In combining efforts with other local farmers, we are able to bring you a greater variety of fresh high quality produce. By harvesting every day, (except Sunday) we are also able to optimize the freshness of our produce. In addition, we operate a Market on our farm and sell to several restaurants.

Included in the first box is The Practical Produce Cookbook.   If you already have The Practical Produce Cookbook, let us know and we will replace the value of the cookbook with produce.  This cookbook is packed with great recipes utilizing the vegetables that we are offering in our CSA, even those that may be less familiar. We will also be including our JoJo's tried and true recipes so that you can learn to eat "in season".

Tips from Kristine's Kitchen (Mr. Ben's Wife)

Hello everyone. This is the third-generation "farmer's wife," here to share a little with you about new ways to make good use of all the delicious produce you're receiving each week in your Miller Farms CSA crate. For some of you home kitchen experts and "foodies," what I suggest won't be news at all, but for those of you who, like me, didn't grow up on a steady diet of fresh seasonal farm produce, maybe a few tips might help. Believe it or not, as the "farmer's wife," one might expect that I would know exactly what to do with those massive bags of collards, or those interesting-looking kohlrabi, but just like you, I've had to learn! With each weekly CSA crate, I've had to survey the items and figure out what I'm going to do with them. Some items are more puzzling than others, but we all have a "secret weapon." My mother-in-law, Jo Miller, has plenty of experience and a ready supply of seasonal recipes that are proven winners. We, at Miller Farms, want to not only provide you with the opportunity to include more of our healthy produce in your diet, we also want to share ways to help you manage and prepare that produce. We want you to be able to use what's in your CSA crate to its full advantage, and to get your money's worth from all the nutritious, delicious items we provide.

     Your half-share or full-share may seem like more fresh produce than you're used to eating. We harvest our produce at its peak, rather than drawing out the harvesting process and giving you less than our best each week. There might be more of an item or two than you can eat in just one week, but that's the beauty of a seasonal CSA. We harvest what's ready, when it's ready, and pass the bounty along to you. With modern conveniences, we don't have to eat all of everything that's ready right away, like our great-grandparents did. So what's a person to do with all the extra?  

     Because we're aware that eating additional fresh produce will make a positive difference in your overall health, we generally suggest the following options:

1. Develop a weekly menu plan that incorporates fresh, seasonal produce into at least two meals each day. In our house menu planning is a must if I want to be sure to include more vegetables (‘cause we farm wives and kids don’t necessarily gravitate toward veggies!) Most of the meals are planned with typical seasonal produce items in mind, like Broccoli Cheese Soup, Chili and Cornbread, or Sweet Potato Hash Browns with Scrambled Eggs. I’ve also designated at least two meals a week for those more unusual items found in the crate. Most of the time these items can be incorporated into dishes I’m already making, but if not, I have an assortment of seasonal recipes ready to be used depending on what I find in my CSA crate. Recipes like Kohlrabi Gratin, Stuffed Squash, and Pumpkin Soup come in handy here.

 2. Building on the last option, you might want to gather a few new recipes to try out, especially if you’re not accustomed to cooking with certain items in your crate. Our weekly CSA insert always contains tips and suggested ways to prepare your CSA items for that week, but a small collection of recipes might help add variety and some new favorites in the kitchen. 

 3. Separate and prepare (as much as possible) the more abundant items in your CSA crate, before you think you might need them. If you're overwhelmed by the size or amounts of certain kinds of produce you're receiving, and don't know where to begin, try separating the produce into meal-sized or recipe-sized portions. You could use Ziploc baggies, plastic containers, or glass containers to "organize" your produce for individual meals. To retain freshness, you don't need to wash the produce before you separate it. Washing should happen right before you use the produce in a recipe. For example, if you plan to toss some of that iron-rich kale into a Ham and Navy Bean Soup, you might not want to wait until the day you make that soup to pull out your huge baggie of kale. It might seem overwhelming to tackle that baggie then. Try pulling it out of your CSA crate or the refrigerator a few days before you plan to use it, when you have an extra few minutes and your hands aren't busy (on the phone, supervising homework or other tasks, watching the news, etc.) If you have kitchen helpers like I do, this is a great job for them. Peel the kale off of its stem and chop it into small pieces, and then gather those pieces into your container. Containers can be organized in a designated refrigerator space and pulled out as needed during the week. Another benefit to separating and prepping your produce before you need it, is that you can toss it into already-planned dishes on your menu. The already-chopped fresh kale can be sprinkled into a garden salad, soup, or layered in a lasagna or other pasta dish, without changing the flavor of the dish and yet adding to the overall nutritional value.

 4. Learn the always-in-fashion art of home canning, to preserve your fresh fruits and vegetables for use during the long winter months. Even when supplies of fresh fruits and vegetables are down, our nutritional needs remain the same. If we can find a few hours to can some of those fruits and veggies, they will retain their fresh goodness for us to enjoy through the winter.

 5. If you can't find the time for home canning (like me, with seven children and a busy home schooling schedule), freezing produce is a wonderful option! For all that yummy produce that you aren't able to use right away, there's always the freezer to keep it fresh and handy until you can pull it out again. Right now there are countless baggies of peppers, chopped tomatoes, corn, and beans in my freezer, ready for soups, stews, casseroles, and side-dish recipes, and all of which will no-doubt be gone by the spring. There's no trick to cooking a pumpkin and mashing, pureeing, or pressing it through a food mill, and then straining it in a colander before bagging it up for the freezer. We eat from our ready supply of frozen pumpkin, rich in vitamins A and C, in Pumpkin Soup, Pumpkin Bread, and other baked goodies, all winter long.

 6. You can also share your CSA with friends, family, or neighbors. If your half-share is still too much produce for you to consume and/or store, you can always divide the share with others as you see fit. If you’ve determined that a smaller share is just right for you, this option might be the way to go.

 We hope that this list of CSA-related suggestions will be helpful. It might take some time to adjust to a new way of eating fresh produce grown and harvested seasonally, but we’re in this adventure with you. Ultimately, we want you to experience a good value in your investment in our farm, and in your health.

 

Season-Specific CSA Information and Applications

• Spring/Summer 2013 CSA Information
  
  • Download the Spring/Summer 2013 CSA application now
• Fall 2012 CSA Information
  
  • Download the Fall CSA application now
• Pick-Your-Own CSA Information
  
  • Download the Pick-Your-Own CSA application now

 

Harvest Chart

Want to know what we've got growing and when it's in season? Check out our Harvest Chart!

 

Farming Practices and Philosophy

We are not an organic farm, but we do use IPM (Integrated Pest Management). When using IPM a farmer scouts his fields for a threshold of insects before spraying. If the threshold is not reached, then we do not spray. We follow the label on the product and wait more than the suggested days to harvest. We use natural and sustainable methods of farming such as companion planting, no till planting (planting directly into the sod), and plasticulture. Plasticulture is the practice of growing crops on plastic mulch. A machine lays long rows of plastic in the field over rows of soil that have been mounded up to a height of 8". Under the plastic is irrigation (drip tape) for the plants or seeds. Mounding the soil up helps with drainage and facilitates harvest. We poke holes in the plastic and put the vegetable transplants in or put the seeds in the hole. This is very efficient because it reduces runoff from irrigation and puts the water at the roots of the plants, resulting in less water being used. The need for herbicides is greatly reduced because the plastic prevents weeds from growing. We also use different colors of plastic mulch which deters bugs, allowing us to use less pesticide. Remember, we are eating our own produce and feeding it to our own families. We are the second,third and fourth generations to farm this land. We are passionate about farming and want to sustain our land for future generations. Farmers are the original environmentalists. Without our land we would not be able to continue to support ourselves, our community, and our future.

 

Pick–up Times and Location

The pick-up site is Miller Farms Market located at 12101 Orange Plank Rd, Locust Grove, VA 22508. You must select one designated pick up day that remains in effect during the length of the agreement. Choices are Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00pm-4pm. See the application for more details concerning vacations, etc. We encourage you to coordinate pick–ups with friends to help save time and gas.

 

Food Donation

In an effort to be good stewards, we support the Food Pantry at Saint Faustina Conference Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. They are located in the Breezewood Shopping Center off of Courthouse Road. All boxes of produce that are not picked up on their designated day and any produce from your share that you do not wish to take home will be donated.