Join us for a delicious winter of local eating!

Winter farm membership runs November 14th through February 6th

~~~~~there’s still room for more members, and membership fee can be pro-rated for folks joining in after the start of the season ~~~~

(returning members ready to sign up, feel free to jump to the form below)

Summary: The Winter Farm Membership offers 12 weeks of SweetRoot Farm produce to help you eat healthy local food long past the end of market and home-garden season. Weekly shares picked up at the farm include freshly-harvested cold hardy greens like spinach, kale, chard, mustards, baby boc choi, tatsoi and salad mixes, along with storage crops like winter squash, potatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage, onions, and garlic.

We strive for a balanced, varied offering of veggies each week for fresh raw eating as well as cooking, and provide a suite of meal ideas and recipes suggestions with each pick-up. We grow all of it right here at SweetRoot following organic growing practices with an emphasis on soil health.

Winter membership is more structured than our fill-the-bag market season memberships, but we also give members a lot of choice so no one has to take home the veggies they don’t like. For example, you might take your choice of 3 greens options from a selection including salad, spinach, spicy mix, kale and chard bunches, and cooking mix. Similarly, you’ll often take your choice of a few bags of roots, selecting from carrots, beets, radishes, turnips or potatoes.

Dates: November 14 - February 6th (with no pickup on the week of December 24th) note: as long as there are open spaces, you can join at any date, with a pro-rated membership fee.

Cost: $350 *financial assistance available*

Location/ timing: Shares are ready to pick up Tuesday afternoon through Thursday evening of each week, at the farmstore.

How much food? Based on member feedback, we have scaled down the winter share size a little bit this year, but each weekly pickup will feed 1 to 3 people or more (it depends so much on how many vegetables you eat and how much you cook each day!). For those familiar with our main-season “feedbag” membership, you can expect a weekly pickup that will generously fill one feedbag.

Much of the produce can store for weeks or months at home in case you don’t get through it all that week. Larger households can sign up for a two shares, or top up as needed with their favorite veggies by purchasing additional items of their choice at the farmstore with their member discount.

Directions for a typical week’s share will look something like this: pick out 2 salad-type greens (choices: spinach, spicy mix, winter salad mix, or radicchio mix). take 1 cooking green (choices: kale bunch, chard bunch, or stir-fry mix). choose 2 roots bags (choices: carrots, beets, potatoes, radishes, salad turnips, or mixed snacking roots). choose either a large cabbage head or a winter squash. take 1-2 onions, 1 garlic head, and one flavor-booster (choices: fresh dill, fresh cilantro, dried hot pepper, or dried basil)

What are the risks? A key part of farm membership (or community supported agriculture) philosophy is that the farmers and the eaters each take on a portion of the risk and the reward of this wild ride of farming. What that means for members is mostly being willing to be flexible and understanding of what is available; we may have some weeks with more greens than others, or weeks when we recommend a cabbage and carrot salad because the fresh greens have taken a hard hit from sub-zero temps. You take a risk by trusting that we can actually deliver winter food as promised, and share in the reward of farm success. For us as farmers it means committing to learning and improving our techniques, and anticipating changes and inclement weather. We might harvest extra greens in advance of a deep cold spell, and will communicate as best we can about the status of the farm. We take a risk when planting and storing all of these crops, that people will actually show up to eat buy them at the right time….but your advance payment helps mitigate that risk, while also helping ensure the steady supply of food to you, by helping us hire winter crew and retain team members year-round. It is also key to our investment in on-farm storage space and good systems for harvesting, washing, and storing produce year-round. Farm member investments help make more local food available for everyone in our community and help make farming a more viable career choice for our whole team.

How is this possible? Our winter growing uses very low-tech and low-input techniques, no artificial heat or supplemental light (with the exception of mid-winter microgreens). All our greens are grown in real soil in unheated high tunnels, planted early enough the summer and fall to reach mature size before the light gets too short for growth. For the winter, we keep them alive by covering with row cover at night and uncovering during the day to allow sunlight to heat the plants and soil. We select cold-hardy varieties for winter harvest; you won’t find any tomatoes or cucumbers in your winter shares, but over the years we have found greens that do well through our winters so we can all enjoy fresh crunchy salads through the cold season. We harvest our storage crops at their peak (including making sure carrots get a few of those good hard frosts to sweeten them up) and store in walk-in coolers to parcel out through the cold months for all of you.

Ready to try it out? Just fill out the simple form below, and we’ll be in touch with more details. Payment by check at the first pickup is ideal. Membership cost can be split into two payments (one due in November, the second in January), if you’d like.