As a member of School Farm CSA, each week you will receive a box of fresh, organic vegetables grown primarily here on the farm. The box represents a share of the weekly harvest – whatever the season and the soil offers up that week: from broad beans and peas at mid-summer, juicy tomatoes in high summer, and hearty squashes for autumnal feast.
As a CSA there is more seasonal variability than a standard box scheme – we do our best to grow as many vegetables as possible, in a variety that will tickle your palette! Read more about what we grow at different times of year.
As a member, you commit to your veg share for the season, and we will focus on providing you week in, week out with an outstanding box.
Share size
We offer two sizes of share to suit different size households and diets – depending on how veg hungry you are!
A standard share may include upwards of a dozen different items in the summer and autumn, and no less than 7 in the leaner months. We’d recommend this size for a family, or a couple who include fresh veg in their meals on a regular basis, although a hungry individual “eating food, not too much, mostly plants” would be welcome to give it a go too!
A small share may include up to a dozen items in the summer and autumn, no less than 6 items in the leaner months and has slightly smaller portion sizes (roughly half the size of a standard). Recommended for individuals, or those who just don’t want so much veg.
Collection
We get your freshly harvested veg shares ready for collection every Tuesday, and you have a wide collection window within which to come and pick it up. Just choose where is most convenient for you to collect from – we have handy collection points in the centre of Totnes and Buckfastleigh, or you can decide to pick it up from the farm. If, on occasion, you need to pick up your veg box later in the week, just drop us an email and we will save it for you. Otherwise leftover veg will be redistributed.
- School Farm, Dartington – collection anytime from 4pm Tuesday until 4pm Thursday.
- The Mansion, Totnes – collection from 4:30pm Tuesday, until Thursday evening. No collections after 9pm as The Mansion courtyard is locked after this time.
- Moor Imagination Collective, Buckfastleigh – collection from 4:30pm Tuesday, until 9am Thursday. No collections after 9pm.
Pricing
Our veg shares are priced on a sliding scale, you choose what you pay. This system relies on your engagement with our motivations so please take a moment to read the following and to self-assess your financial means (you may find The Green Bottle Scale useful).
We are strongly motivated to grow and provide excellent food for our community. We would like this food to be available to anyone, regardless of their income and it is important for us to make our veg shares reasonably priced. At the same time, earning a living from food production is a labour of love – most food is artificially cheap, and it is hard work to make it pay. For that reason we invite our CSA members to choose what they pay from four options, reflecting your own financial means. We hope this approach will make our veg shares more accessible, whilst also sustaining the farm and the growers in good health.
- INVESTOR PRICE
| Standard share | £165 / month | that’s £38.08 per veg box |
| Small share | £99 / month | that’s £22.85 per veg box |
This option is an investment in the farm and its future. It will enable us to pay our team for more of the hours actually worked, invest in the infrastructure of the farm, and run more community focussed events without reliance on grant funding.
- SUPPORTER PRICE
| Standard share | £99 / month | that’s £22.85 per veg box |
| Small share | £59.40 / month | that’s £13.71 per veg box |
To put it simply, this price allows someone else to join at the subsidised rate – supporting another household with less financial means to access healthy veg.
- REGULAR PRICE
| Standard share | £82.50 / month | that’s £19.04 per veg box |
| Small share | £49.50 / month | that’s £11.42 per veg box |
This price covers the basic running costs of the garden and paying our growers at the Real Living Wage.
- SUBSIDISED PRICE
| Standard share | £66 / month | that’s £15.23 per veg box |
| Small share | £39.60 / month | that’s £9.14 per veg box |
The farm could not sustain selling veg shares at this price alone, but it is possible if others are able to give more. For those who sometimes struggle to pay the bills.
Seasonality
We are committed to growing excellent organic vegetables and offering our CSA members a healthy and generous share of the harvest each week. We grow on a small acreage and with minimal machinery so we focus our production on the main growing season from June through December inclusive. During this time, your veg share will be straight out of our fields.
Through the winter and the hungry gap we will be offering a share of the harvest which combines our own production with that of other local, organic producers. We’ll be growing many of the leafy greens, especially winter mixed salads, and sourcing the staple and land hungry crops from others. It will be a high priority of ours to keep the quality as high as ever.
This approach allows us to focus on what we do best – growing delicious veg through the main growing season – whilst continuing to offer our members an excellent and still very local veg share through the rest of the year.
Before signing up, you may also find it useful to check out our membership FAQ’s page and don’t hesitate to email if you have any questions: info@schoolfarmcsa.org.uk