I don’t know about you but this warm weather is giving me the itch to get the 2016 season underway!
We are considering starting FruitShare in January. It will be an every other week pick-up here at the farm or in St. Paul. There will be 12 pick-ups from early January until the end of May. The price is $560 and includes 10+ lbs of fresh, delicious, mixed organic fruit in each box. Please let me know as soon as possible if you’d like to participate. We need to ensure there is enough interest to make it happen.
If you haven’t filled out your survey yet please do so before you forget about this past season. We’ve had a pretty good response rate so far, approximately 40%! The survey takes only a few minutes and will help steer the farm for 2016.
If you haven’t signed up for 2016 yet please do so as soon as possible. It is very helpful knowing how many people will be rejoining. A deposit of $100 holds your spot. You can either just send in a check or purchase your share on our online store. If you plan to order additional items (e.g. fruit, seafood, etc.) creating an account in the store might make it easier for you in the future. In any case, please sign up as soon as you know you’ll be back. Due to a “feature” of our online store, if you choose to pay with a credit card you will have to pay the full amount. There is an alternative payment option called “Deposit Plan” which requires you to send in a check for the $100 deposit at this time with the remaining balance due in March 2016.
Don’t forget to tell your friends, neighbors, colleagues, family members, random strangers and presidential candidates about our farm. For every one that signs up you’ll get a $25 credit on your account! Have them put your name in the “Where did you hear about us?” box on the checkout form.
We’ve set pricing for a few of our add-on items in our online store. There are a couple of changes. For WinterShare we upped the amount of onions you get from 5 lbs to 10 lbs without changing the price. Pretty sweet! Otherwise it is the same as 2015. For FruitShare we switched the default to all mixed-fruit boxes. That means the standard FruitShare does not include an all cherry, an all blueberry and an all peach box for the 2016 season. However, if you prefer to have all of one type of fruit you can select upgrades in the ordering process by either selecting “Substitute…” if you want to replace a week with a single fruit variety, or “Add-on…” if you want a box of a single variety of fruit in addition to your normal FruitShare. Confusing? Not really. Go check it out. We also have the a la carte fruit option as well.
What is happening on the farm? Big news. We received our first seed catalog for 2016! Just in time for the holiday season. I’m sure there will be plenty more to follow but at least this first one gives us hope that winter will soon(?) be just a memory. Receiving this catalog reminds me to remind you to let us know if there is anything you would like us to add for 2016. We’ve had a couple of suggestions but are always interested in hearing more. So exercise your membership privilege and let us know what you want us to grow next year.
Other than receiving seed catalogs for next season we are just wrapping up 2015 and starting to plan for 2016 — plus reviewing all the interesting responses to the survey. Sometime in the next month or two I will put together a newsletter discussing results from the survey.
Oh, and if all goes well, there will be another “add-on” share that I think people will really enjoy. We’ll commence discussions with the supplier in January. Stay tuned.