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CURRENT MEMBERS

Welcome to our Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) program! We’re so excited

that you’ve joined our farm this season. This members-only CSA page will help you understand exactly what you’ve signed up for and how our CSA program works.

Quick Reminders

2023 Summer Pick Up Schedule

Changes to your account can be made during web store / member access hours. These hours begin on the Friday before your upcoming delivery at 8 am and close Monday at 8 am: ​

If you missed a pickup, please email us right away - within 24 hours - so that we can set aside your veggies for pickup here at the farm!

FAQ Categories

FAQ
FAQ Farmigo

Getting Started on Farmigo :

Your Farmigo account is your online portal to managing your CSA. Up until 6am on the day before your delivery, the site is open for you to manage your pickups, place a web store order and update your account. Then shortly after 6am, the staff arrive at the farm and hit the fields to harvest your veggies! No further changes are possible after that point.

 

Through your Farmigo account you can:

  • Cancel a week of pickup by scheduling a delivery hold

  • Change your pickup location, either permanently or temporarily

  • Access our online store to add other farm products to your upcoming veggie share

  • Add a subscription (greens,mushrooms etc.)

  • Update your address and contact information 

  • View your next delivery date

  • Check your account balance and transactions (Note: the mobile version of your Farmigo account offers limited detail. Any notes that we have added to transactions are viewable only on the desktop site.)

There are some things you cannot do through your online account. You’ll need to email us to:

  • Schedule an extra delivery to make up for one that you have missed

  • Let us know of any last minute changes. If you have missed your share, it's important to let us know right away! Your veggies will have been returned to the farm, but if they are not claimed within 24 hours and picked up here, they will be donated to a local food bank.

Login to your Farmigo account here.

Changing Your Pick Up Location :

Log into your Farmigo to change your location at any time during the season. Since pickup locations happen on different days, this can also give you some scheduling flexibility. Changing your location is a permanent action that affects all future pickups, unless you log in to change your location back to the original spot. If you would like the change to be temporary, please set a reminder for yourself! Keep in mind that changing your location to a spot on a different delivery day may result in two shares being ordered for the same week - it's important to time the change carefully. Double check the date under Next Distribution to make sure all is as it should be, and if in doubt, send us a quick email to confirm.

Adding Items Through the Online Store : 

Through strong partnerships with other farms, we also offer premium local, organic add-ons like mushrooms, grains, corn chips, honey, maple syrup, meats, condiments, and more!  This makes it easy to source local products without combing through the hundreds of labels at the grocery store. We have a working relationship with all of these farmers and will feature their amazing stories in our newsletters. These items can be ordered and paid for by logging into our Farmigo online store, and your items will be delivered to your next CSA pick up.

Using Farmigo :  Login to your account here.

Placing A Hold :

When you know in advance that you will not be able to make it to a pickup, you can schedule a delivery hold through your online Farmigo account. As with all account changes, you need to place delivery holds before midnight, two days before your upcoming pickup. New this year we do not charge an admin fee to place a hold. The full value of your subscriptions will be added to the balance on your account, and can be used towards a future subscription, or in the online web store. This refund does not occur until after the delivery hold date has passed. 

 

If you miss your pickup because you forgot, and did not let us know ahead of time, we cannot reimburse you for the value of the share, although you can come to the farm to get those veggies. 

 

New this year: you can place as many delivery holds as you would like throughout the season. 

 

Here is how to place a delivery hold:

1.  Log into your account here.

2.  Click on the Delivery Hold tab,and enter a start

     date and an end date that encompass the delivery date you will be missing.

3.  Click the green Save button.

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FAQ Pickup

Picking Up Your Veggies :

How pickup locations work :

We are gearing up for another season of physical distancing and hygiene practices to hopefully see us through to the other side of this pandemic. Here is how CSA pickups will look this year:

 

Our Coordinators:

We have a volunteer CSA coordinator at each of our pick-up locations. These amazing people are there to greet you, walk you through the pick-up and what’s available that week, offer tips on cooking, and clean up when it’s all done. We love our coordinators and we know you will too.

 

BYO-bags Don’t forget to bring your bags, backpack or basket to carry your veggies home! We recommend two large, sturdy shopping totes. Please also bring an airtight container or bag to pack your bulk salad greens in as well. 

  • Pickup locations are all outdoors. Thank you, open air!

  • Choose your veggies: The quantities to take will be labeled on each bin. If you've ordered extras from our online farm store, they will be packed measured out separately and ready for you

  • More Choice in 2022 ! Follow the directions given by your coordinators and written on the bins

New 2023 Free Choice System :

  • This year we are implementing a “free-choice” system. We will load everyone's cart with the standard contents for that week. You will get an email on friday with this list. At taht point you can login and trade anything in your box for whatever we have loaded into the system. All choices will be worht one credit, despite their actual value. So if you want to trade a bunch of carrots for a bunch of cilantro, you can. 

  • The oppournunity to change your basket will end .....

If you're running late or cannot pick up your veggies :

If it's too late to book a delivery hold in your account, the next best option is to have a friend or neighbour pick up your veggies for you.

Most of our volunteers have invited us to share their personal cell phone numbers with our members. So if you are going to be late for a pickup, try to reach your volunteer by text so that they can pack up your share and leave it behind for you. Depending on your pickup location, we can’t necessarily leave your share there indefinitely. If you are going to be more than a few minutes late, our driver will likely have to bring your veggies back to the farm when he cleans up the rest of our gear from pickup.

If you missed your share :

Any items that have not been picked up will be brought back to the farm. Contact us no later than the day after your forgotten pickup to have us set aside your veggies for you to pick up at the farm during store hours. Any veggies that are not claimed within 24 hours of the pickup will be donated to a local food pantry. There are no refunds for forgotten shares. Happily, forgotten shares are relatively rare. We send multiple reminder emails, and our coordinator will try to reach you if you haven’t picked up your share by the end of the pickup window. Take a moment to check that the phone number on your account is the best number to reach you.

About Community Supported Agriculture :

FAQ About CSA

Should I be worried about crop failure?

We have many tricks up our sleeves to cheat early frosts and late springs and we have multi-stystem approach to pest and disease control. We do our very best to bring you high quality, delicious vegetables. We do our best to provide a good variety in your share. 

We are excited about our new free choice system. It means we can grow morvariety without worrying about growing enough for everyone. Say we grow 350 fennel one week but have 400 shares. Well, I bet tehre are 50 people who don't like fennel. So we will load everyone's cart with 10 items , not include the fennel in the 'standard basket" but include 350 fennel as a choice item. You can go in and trade that bunch of kale for a bunch of fennel instead. 

Because we grow so many different crops in various methods (field, tunnels etc) we can gauruntee that each week you will recieve not only great value, but a huge variety of vegetables to suit everyone's needs

Are all your veggies certified organic?

Yes ! In 2012, Roots and Shoots Farm attained certified organic status through EcoCert Canada and has maintained it annually ever since. In Canada, all certifiers have to meet the National Organic Standards established in 2009. Although we meet almost every one of our customers face to face on a weekly basis, and despite the fact that any one of our customers is welcome to visit the farm to see how we grow, we still feel it is very important to support the organic standards by becoming certified ourselves. This is because Certified Organic means so much more than just what the consumer sees when buying the product.

Certified Organic farms are required to not only keep extremely accurate record keeping of everything that comes in and goes out of the farm, but also ensures that we follow strict standards about:

  • Following a sensible, planned, multi-year rotation to break insect and disease cycles on the farm

  • Following a composting regime complete with daily temperature recording

  • Limiting the amounts of manure brought in from other farms

  • Encouraging the integration of animals to make the farm self sufficient

  • Using cover crops every year in every field to build organic matter and fertility

  • Using only substances on the “Permitted Substances List”, which prohibits any synthetic chemicals, fertilisers or pesticides on the farm

  • Recording every seed purchase, buying only certified organic seed, and showing proof that organic seed was adequately sought out if it was not available, and never using treated or genetically modified seed

  • Protecting waterways and wetlands from farm runoff

  • Requiring that animals have access to free ranging space that is out of doors

In the end, there are many aspects to Certified Organic that are not obvious from reading a label on a Certified Organic product. Certified Organic protects not only the health of the consumer, but also the health of the farmer, the ecosystems that produce the food, the waterways on the farm, and the biodiversity of the farm. It is for this reason that Roots and Shoots Farm supports and adheres to Certified Organic standards.

What is the value of a share?

In 2021, we raised our prices for the first time in a decade! But as always, we aim to give you 10%-15% more value than the market prices for your share contents. Because of the nature of farming, this means you will get a lighter basket in the spring and a more substantial basket as the season goes on. In June, the basket may only reach a value of $28 especially if there is a late thaw, but in August, the share will reach a value of $45. There also may be weeks when we have enough of a certain crop for half of our pickup locations, and the other pickup locations will get that item or one of similar value on a future week. We keep track of it all and make sure you get your money’s worth.

What should I expect in my share?

We grow a huge variety of vegetables to keep your plates interesting all season long. We have many years of experience in the field and in the kitchen, and have developed a good understanding of how to grow with the end goal of delicious, seasonal meals. We are also continually investing in season extension tools so we can stretch our seasons out and offer a diverse amount of veggies all year long.

Week-by-week

We organize our boxes every week according to what is ready in the field. We start this plan in the dead of winter and start implementing it in March. When planning for the boxes we think about what it takes to put together a meal for a family. We include onions and garlic, salad ingredients, and more substantial vegetables for sustenance. 

Consistency

We strive for transparency and fairness in everything we do. With some crops, we harvest just enough each week for some of our pickup locations and not others. We keep track and make sure that each pickup location gets equivalent value.

Do you take back bottles and jars from your products?

No. Sorry, logistically we cannot accept returns

About Our CSA and History :

The idea behind the CSA is that you are commissioning us to grow delicious, nutrient dense, fresh organic vegetables for you. The first “CSA” actually started in Japan in the 1960’s? They called it “Seikyou”, which is a shorter form of “Seikatsu Kyoodo Kumiai”, which means Living in Community Union. A group of Japanese mothers, horrified at the increasing levels of mercury in milk, approached a farmer and proposed the idea of pre-buying his product in return for the guarantee that he used safe farming and growing methods. The farmer was happy as he got a better return for his efforts, compared to selling it on the market. The women were happy as they got safe milk and ended up getting more for their money. These women essentially cut out the middle-men and created a meaningful connection with their food. This alternative socioeconomic model was picked up in North America in the 1980s. It took a slightly different spin as it was mostly applied to vegetable farms and put more emphasis on the connection between farmer and consumer. But the idea was and remains the same: create a meaningful connection with your food and between consumer and farmer. By signing up for a Roots and Shoots Farm CSA share, you are guaranteeing that we, the farmers, get a fair price for our product. This allows us to promise you that we will use safe, certified organic methods to grow the most nutrient dense produce we can. We also offer you education about growing, cooking and consuming vegetables. It also means that we pick fresh just for you!

 

We promise to do everything in our power to give you a huge basket of beautiful veggies to sustain you through the season, and as a member of the farm, you agree to support us through any unforeseen issues that may arise throughout the year. We don’t ask you to sign a contract, because this is a business and we do strive to offer a really excellent product for your hard-earned money. We do take many measures to mitigate crop failure and ultimately want you to have the best healthy eating experience possible! We do thank you for joining us in this season and learning more about the intricacies of growing food!

Stay In Touch :

FAQ Stay Intouh

Staying Informed 

You'll be hearing a lot from us over the course of the season! Here is how communication happens here:

  1. Start of the season email: Typically sent in early June, this email confirms all of your pickup details and connects you with all the logistical information you'll need.

  2. Welcome Page: This is the only piece of paper you'll be receiving from us all year. Please keep it! Give it a place of honour on the refrigerator if you can. It has storage instructions, important reminders, and a calendar of all of our pickups - very handy if you ever need to reschedule your pickup.

  3. Weekly Share Contents emails: At the beginning of each week, you will receive a list of the veggies we plan to harvest for you, and a reminder to log into the web store to add any extras to your order before the web store closes.

  4. Pickup Day Auto-alerts: We'll drop a quick auto-alert by email on the day of your delivery, so that you don't forget.

Farm Newsletters: Every other week, we write up tips and recipes from our staff and farmers to help you store and prepare your veggies to make the most of your basket. You will also have access to behind the scenes footage of what goes on at the farm and our work throughout the season.

Join the Facebook Group !

Online community: Join our members-only facebook page to connect with other Roots and Shoots CSA members to share recipes, tips and inspiration. Follow the farm on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date. No social media accounts? No problem - our public posts are up on our homepage for all to see.

Keep in touch! Emails, newsletters & social media :

You'll be hearing a lot from us over the course of the season! Here is how communication happens here:

  1. Start of the season email: Typically sent in early June, this email confirms all of your pickup details and connects you with all the logistical information you'll need.

  2. Weekly Share Contents emails: At the beginning of each week, you will receive a list of the veggies we plan to harvest for you, and a reminder to log into the web store to add any extras to your order before the web store closes.

  3. Pickup Day Auto-alerts: We'll drop a quick auto-alert by email on the day of your delivery, so that you don't forget.

  4. Farm Newsletters: Every week, we write up tips and recipes from our staff and farmers to help you store and prepare your veggies to make the most of your basket. You will also have access to behind the scenes footage of what goes on at the farm and our work throughout the season. This year we include a weekly farm fun fact you won't want to miss!

Online community:

Join our members-only facebook page to connect with other Roots and Shoots CSA members to share recipes, tips and inspiration. Follow the farm on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date. No social media accounts? No problem - our public posts are up on our homepage for all to see.

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