How Does the Tempe CSA Work?

I realized this week that there might be some people that read these blogs that are not members of the CSA, so I wanted to take this week to explain how it works! This is especially important because our next session is starting in just a few weeks, so those of you that are looking to renew your membership or start a membership will need to sign up before June 20th.

The first picture shows the room that we use for the Thursday afternoon pick up location. The members start at the right end of the far tables and move along to each of the stations and choose their food selections. There are eight different types of produce that we receive each week, and the small cards that are on the buckets tell the members how many of each different fruit or vegetable they are able to pick out. This number is dependent on how much yield the farm has per type of produce and how many members the food needs to be split between.


The second picture shows our Trade In table. There is one share of each of the eight foods placed on this table at the beginning of the day, and if a member would like to trade in one of their shares for a second share of something else that they like better they can replace it. During the past few weeks many people have been replacing their grapefruit with the other options on the table because there are so many people that have trees of their own. Since they were still eating their own fruit, they decided that it would be a better option for them to take something else. When the trade in table is full of something they do not want, the members can choose to place the items on the discard table instead.

All that the members have to do to get into this program is to pay their dues every twelve weeks, and then they are able to receive all of this fresh produce on a weekly basis!