It’s not too late to join!

When you join our Community Supported Agriculture project:

• you receive a weekly supply of ultra-fresh, vitamin-rich produce that is grown using organic standards
• you enjoy a variety of produce that is chosen and harvested for its vitality and flavor
• your produce comes directly to you from your farmer
• you help sustain local organic farms
• you practice environmental stewardship, reduce food miles, and support bio-diversity

There are still shares available for our 2015 season.  Contact us via e-mail at facsap@yahoo.com to purchase your prorated share in the harvest.  Read the FACSAP 2015 Prospectus, for more information about what to expect this season.

Our CSA was started nearly twenty years ago with the purpose of establishing and supporting local organic farms. Before we entered the picture, there was no “local organic scene.”  Our founder, a mother of two young children at the time, was perplexed at the reality that the organic produce on her table came from California, while her family lived in the midst of an agricultural area of Stafford County. She learned about the CSA concept and worked for two years in establishing the Fredericksburg Area Community Supported Agriculture Project (FACSAP),  the first in the region and the eleventh in Virginia.

Members who support FACSAP growers are directly involved in keeping our local organic farms economically viable.

Over the past several years, nearly a dozen local CSA projects have emerged, however, almost all of them grow without using organic practices–applying synthetic inputs to crops and soils, using genetically modified seed, etc.  Folks sometimes get confused—just because something is grown by a local farmer does NOT mean it is grown using organic methods.

2015 Harvest Season

There are still shares available for our 2015 season. To purchase a share in the harvest, print the membership commitment form included in the  FACSAP 2015 Prospectus, and mail it with your payment. (Please disregard the original membership deadline that appears on the form.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FACSAP 2015 Harvest Season

We’re excited to share with you the FACSAP 2015 Prospectus, in which you’ll find membership details, information about our participating farms, and the 2015 membership commitment form.

This year, 65 harvest shares will be offered at a cost of $680 per share (that’s just $34 a week). A share is enough for 2 to 4 people (2 very enthusiastic vegetable eaters or a typical household of 4). We have a 20-week harvest season—May 21 through October 1, 2015. Members pick up their share on Thursday evenings from 6 to 7 p.m. at Hurkamp Park in historic downtown Fredericksburg, Virginia.

The Season Commitment Form can be found on the last page of the prospectus. FACSAP membership is available on a first come first serve basis, so if you would like to join for this coming harvest season, we encourage you to fill out the form and submit with payment (payable in full or in 3 installments) as soon as possible. Please email us at facsap@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

 

 

 

 

 

Growing with the Seasons

Community Supported Agriculture isn’t just about growing vegetables. Among the many things that CSA cultivates is an understanding of our growing seasons and what foods can be produced in our region.

Each harvest share that our FACSAP distribution team bags on Thursday evenings is a record of that particular week: the temperature, the field conditions, the amount of rainfall, the intensity of the sun.

This rare connection with the seasons is something we sometimes take for granted.

Recently, while wandering the produce aisles at my local supermarket, I was reminded of a television series I stumbled upon about five years ago. The 100-Mile Challenge followed several families living in a small town in British Columbia—they’d agreed to only eat food produced within a 100-mile radius of their homes, for 100 days. One family didn’t even make it through Day One of the challenge, but the others persevered. Not only did they connect with local farmers and a local family-owned grocery store, they also learned valuable lessons—how to forage for wild foods, for example.

The series was inspired by a book titled The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating (or Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally) by Canadian writers Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon, published in 2007. I have yet to read this book, but I imagine it includes some of the same sorts of experiences that Barbara Kingsolver shares in her memoir Animal Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2008).

Books like Kingsolver’s, as well as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), inspired folks to think seriously about where our food comes from and the miles it must travel before reaching our tables. I’m sure these books boosted CSA memberships nationwide, at the time—planted a seed—but how deep-rooted is their message, years later?

Would you take the 100-mile challenge?

 

Apple Season

The 2014 Golden Acres Orchard newsletter, or Applegram, arrived in my mailbox today. Mrs. A. P. (“Scottie”) Thomson and son, John Thomson, of Golden Acres are the farmers who produce the delicious apple juice that FACSAP provides for our members each year. Golden Acres Orchard in Front Royal, Virginia is one of the oldest family-run apple orchards in the United States. Their apple juice is cold-pressed, and flash pasteurized.

For those members who may be interested in visiting the orchard this autumn or ordering a winter’s supply of apple juice, I’ve scanned the Applegram and created a PDF (please see the link at the end of this post.) This newsletter includes a greeting from Scottie and John, as well as order information. Cases of juices are available this fall for farm pick-up or truck shipping (6 cases minimum for shipping.) Bushels of apples are available both at the farm and by UPS delivery.

Golden Acres Orchard, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, does not have a website—this is a fairly low-tech, family business. If you plan to visit, I would recommend calling ahead and speaking directly with the farmers to inquire about hours of operation.

The orchard’s founder, A. P. Thomson, passed away in 1986. In an article for the Chicago Tribune, John N. Maclean describes Thomson as “a guru of the organic movement who took a worn out family homestead and gradually turned it into a showplace that has spawned imitators across the country.” Maclean adds, “Thomson’s apple orchard is as different from a conventional one as a garden is from a parking lot. The apples blossom in splendor in the spring, unthinned by man-made chemicals. Thomson’s bees accomplish the pollination. The blossoms become little green apples that survive and flourish without the 40 or so sprayings that conventional fruit growers may apply. They become big red and yellow apples and sometimes fall off, instead of being glued to the branch by a sprayed hormone.”

A wonderful interview with A. P. Thomson was featured in the January/February 1981 issue of Mother Earth News. Thomson discusses his farming philosophy and practices, as well as how he embarked on a life of farming. You can find the interview online here.

2014 Applegram

 

 

FACSAP 2013 Harvest Season

If you’re interested in purchasing a share in the harvest, we still have a few spaces available. Please download a copy of the 2013 Prospectus at the link below— this document highlights information about our 20 week season, as well as farm updates, what’s growing this year, the membership commitment form, and more!
Our harvests begins May 23rd and continue through October 3rd. Membership is first come first serve, so if you would like to join for this coming season, we would encourage you to fill out the form and submit with payment soon.
2013 membership prospectus