Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a partnership between you, the CSA member and us, the farmers. Farm members pay the farmers at the beginning of the growing season for a share in the season’s harvest on the farm. In return the farm members, or shareholders, receive a weekly box of produce directly from the the farm that is delivered to several designated dropsites. Farm members choose a dropsite that is located near where they live or that is convenient for them to pick up weekly. With the Small Family CSA farm, this is a 20-week program that runs from June through October. We also offer Fall or Storage shares in addition to our summer shares. In addition to each weekly box of produce, members receive an e-mailed copy of our Weekly Dig Newsletter with an short write-up from Farmer Jillian, recipes ideas for the more unusual vegetables in the box, and pictures from the farm that week.
Wholistically speaking, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is as it sounds; the surrounding community to a local farm economically, socially, and spiritually supports the farm and farm community.
We grow over fourty different vegetables with over 100 varieties each season. In the spring we have lighter and leafier crops like lettuce, kale, spinach, swiss chard, peas and radish. Your classic summer favorites like carrots, cucumbers, beans, peppers, tomatoes and onions join us in mid-season. Heavier and warming crops like potatoes, winter squash, garlic, celeriac root, rutabega and celery round out the season in the fall. We grow all the vegetables that you’re familiar with and some that you’re less familiar with to help stretch out your cooking comfort zone.
A ¾ bushel box delivered to your designated drop site location. Generally, one summer share will provide approximately two servings of 8-13 different vegetables per week. The average number of pounds per share/week is 20. You will also receive our Weekly Dig Newsletter via e-mail full of recipe ideas, news from the farm, pictures and information about storage for your veggies. You are also invited to our Farm Events.
No, we do not split your share for you, this would simply be too much extra handling for your dear farmers. You may want to bring a cutting board and a knife to your dropsite with you and cut your cabbages, melons and large roots in half if you plan to split with a friend. Some weeks you might only get one red pepper, and if you both love red peppers, gonna have to cut it in half!
If you think that a Summer Share will be simply too much food for you or your small family but you still want to find a way to join a CSA farm and support your local farmers, consider splitting a share with a friend. You can split each box every week or alternate weeks picking up the share. We also offer Every Other Weeks Shares. You can purchase an Every Other Week share and pick up your box every other week during our 20 week delivery program. If you purchased a regular 20-Week Share you can always use the opportunity to preserve the summer bounty by canning, freezing and drying your excess produce depending on how much time and energy you reserve for projects such as this. Take local eating to the next level and preserve!
You will pick up your share at the dropsite that you sign up for when you purchase your share. We have several different drop locations in La Crosse, WI., Onalaska, WI., Holmen, WI., Tomah, WI., West Salem, WI., Sparta, WI., Viroqua, WI., Lancaster, WI., Platteville, WI., Madison, WI., and Dubuque, Ia. The boxes are delivered on Wednesday afternoons between 1-and 5 pm, depending on which drop site you have chosen. The shares are delivered in wax produce boxes that we re-use from week to week. We prefer that you take your veggies home in a paper, plastic or cloth bag or box of your choice and leave the produce box at the drop site so the farm can pick it up the following week. If you MUST take the box home, you may, but please be sure to return the box to the dropsite the following week undamaged.
If you think that you will not be able to pick up your box you can send a friend, family member or neighbor to pick up your box for you without needing to let us know. If you’re just running late, call your dropsite and ask them ‘pretty please’ to hold your box until tomorrow and they usually will. Once your box has been delivered, there isn’t much we can do and we cannot offer a replacement. If you cannot find anyone to pick up your box for you and you know in advance that you will not be able to make it, send the farm and e-mail at least 48 hours in advance and we can re-schedule your delivery. If you signed up for an ‘Every Other Week Share’ and you miss a week, you still have to wait two more weeks before you pick up your box. You cannot expect to find a box packed for you at your dropsite on your “off” week if you signed up for an ‘Every Other Week Share’.
It depends. Our Every-Week Summer Shares can feed a family of 3-5 depending on your familie’s experience of cooking with vegetables. This varies widely on wether or not you eat all of your meals in a week at home, if you eat out frequently, if you are a vegetarian and so on. If you think an Every Week Share might be a bit too much, but you want to give it a try, it could be a wonderful opportunity for drying, canning and freezing your excess. Some families talk about making large pots of soup and freezing it for when the CSA has ended for the season for example. An ‘Every Other Week Share’ is a great way to enjoy the CSA experience with a smaller time and financial investment. The ‘Every Other Week’ share can feed 1-4 people.
We do offer a Fall Share and a Thanksgiving Share that is an additional cost to our summer share where you can sign up to receive storage quantities of your favorite fall veggies such as carrots, potatoes, onions, squash, beets, leeks, sweet potatoes ect. Our Fall Shares are larger boxes than our standard summer share boxes. The Fall Shares are delivered in a 1 1/9th bushel box filled with 5# bags of carrots and potatoes. Bags of onions, garlic, sweet potatoes beets and shallots. We also include other storage roots like rutabaga, celeriac root, parsnip and diakon radish. The Fall Share is two additional boxes in the Fall delivered two weeks apart from eachother. Thanksgiving Shares are very similar to Fall Share boxes in contents.
At the Small Family CSA Farm, we plant, nurture and harvest your produce before we pack it in the box and deliver it to your designated drop off point. For twenty weeks the Small Family Farm will grow delicious vegetables for you, from the beginning of June through the end of October filled with the Midwest bounty.By being part of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, you share the risks and blessings with us through the fate of the unpredictable growing season.While a long, cool, wet Spring may be wonderful for our cool-weather-loving broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and spinach, it may not be as helpful for heat-loving sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. Here are a few sample boxes depicted below. Keep in mind that no two boxes will ever be the same from week to week or from season to season.
You don’t get to choose what you get, but that’s the fun in it! Once the season gets rolling, each box will contain 10-13 different items, likely challenging you with one ‘unusual’ item like kohlraib or rutabaga.
You can determine what site fits best for you now, and then during checkout, you can choose your pickup site.
| City/Town | Drop Site Name | Pickup Times |
|---|---|---|
| Cashton, WI | Cashton: Organic Valley Retail Store | Wed. 8am to 6pm |
| Dubuque, IA | Dubuque: River Lights Bookstore at 1098 Main St. | Wed. 12pm to 6pm |
| Dubuque, IA | Dubuque: Hartig Drug at 1600 University Ave. | Wed. 1pm to 5pm |
| Dubuque, IA | Dubuque: Ace Home and Garden on JFK | Wed. 1pm to 7pm |
| Dubuque, IA | Dubuque: Free Flight at 5010 Wolff Road | Wed. 1pm to 6:30pm |
| Fitchburg, WI | Fitchburg: All Saints Lutheran Church at 2951 Chapel Valley Rd. | Wed. 2pm to 6:30pm |
| Holmen, WI | Holmen: 1104 Starlite Dr., Member's Home (near intersection of Hwy 53 and McHugh Rd.) | Wed. 1pm to 6pm |
| Lancaster, WI | Lancaster: 2 Parkwood Street, Member's Home | Wed. 11am to 6pm |
| La Crosse, WI | La Crosse: Mayo Clinic Health System | Wed. 1pm to 5:30pm |
| La Crosse, WI | La Crosse: Good Shepard Lutheran Church | Wed. 1pm to 8pm |
| La Crosse, WI | La Crosse: People's Food Coop | Wed. 1pm to 6pm |
| La Crosse, WI | La Crosse: 1233 Market St., Member's Home | Wed. 1pm to 5pm |
| La Crosse, WI | La Crosse: Gundersen Health System of La Crosse (employees only) | Wed. 1pm to 5pm |
| La Crosse, WI | La Crosse: 1435 Denton St., Member's Home | Wed. 12pm to 6pm |
| La Crosse, WI | La Crosse: Viaro Health (formerly Belle Square Fitness) at 303 State St. | Wed. 1pm to 8pm |
| La Farge, WI | La Farge: Our Farm: S2958 West Salem Ridge Road | Wed. 9am to 7pm |
| La Farge, WI | La Farge: Organic Valley Retail Store | Wed. 3:30pm to 6pm |
| Madison, WI | Madison: 1824 Rowley Ave., Member's Home (Near Regent Market) | Wed. 11am to 7pm |
| Madison, WI | Madison: Whole Trees at 800 Williamson Street | Wed. 1pm to 5:30pm |
| Madison, WI | Madison: 1914 East Mifflin St., Member's Home (near intersection of East Washington and N First St.) | Wed. 1pm to 7pm |
| Madison, WI | Madison: 572 Toepfer Ave., Member's Home (near intersection of Midvale blvd. and Tokay blvd.) | Wed. 12pm to 7pm |
| Madison, WI | Madison: 5521 Park Way, Member's Home | Wed. 11am to 7pm |
| Madison, WI | Madison: Madison College Truax Campus (Health Building) | Wed. 1pm to 7pm |
| Madison, WI | Madison: Bernie's Place at 39 University Houses | Wed. 1pm to 5pm |
| Madison, WI | Madison: Eurofins at 6304 Ronald Reagan Ave (employees only) | Wed. 1:30pm to 8pm |
| Middleton, WI | Middleton: 7214 Hubbard Ave., Member's Home (near intersection of University Ave. and Parmenter St.) | Wed. 11am to 7pm |
| Onalaska, WI | Onalaska: Gundersen Helath System of Onalaska (employees only) | Wed. 11am to 5pm |
| Onalaska, WI | Onalaska: First Lutheran Church at 410 Main St. | Wed. 11am to 7pm |
| Platteville, WI | Platteville: Driftless Market at 95 West Main Street | Wed. 3pm to 6:30pm |
| Sparta, WI | Sparta: Sparta Police Department at 711 Pine St. | Wed. 9am -open 24 hrs. |
| Sun Prairie, WI | Sun Prairie: 472 N Heatherstone Dr. Member's Home (near Horizon Elementary) | Wed. 2pm to 5pm |
| Sun Prairie, WI | Sun Prairie: Northeast YMCA | Wed. 2pm to 8pm |
| Tomah, WI | Tomah: Olson Chiropractic at 301 Superior Ave. | Wed. 10am to 4:30pm |
| West Salem, WI | West Salem: 405 East Garland Street, Member's Home | Wed. 12pm to 6pm |
| Verona, WI | Verona: 620 Mahogany Way, Member's Home | Wed. 3pm to 7pm |
| Viroqua, WI | Viroqua: Viroqua Food Coop | Wed. 9am to 8pm |
The Small Family Farm hosts two to three Farm Events each Season. These events are a wonderful opportunity to come out the farm, meet your farmers and deepen your connection to where your food is grown. These events enrich your CSA experience.
