
There is one primary difference between buying local produce and buying produce from a large grocery store: relationships. You can walk in and out of the grocery store without interacting with anyone if you choose, but when you buy produce from local farmers, you form a relationship. The same is true for us when we put together our Weekly Shares. Each local item that we include in our Shares has a story behind it, a partnership that we foster week after week.
Our relationships with our farmers started with a conversation. When we hear about a new farm we're interested in working with, we reach out to see what they offer during each season, what their operation looks like, where they're located, and so on. We tell them what we're all about and what our weekly needs are and we work something out.
Every Wednesday & Thursday we contact our farmers to find out what they will be offering. We piece together a patchwork Weekly Share that we will offer for the following week. On Monday evenings after ordering closes, we touch base with our farmers again to let them know our exact numbers so that they only harvest the amount that we need, being sure not to waste any of their high quality fruit & veg. We get to see them on Tuesdays when they drop off our order. This is a great time for them to check in with us and let us know what they might have for the next week. It's also a great time to hear stories about what's going on at the farm - what they're working on, whether or not the hail did any damage, or something silly that one of the farm dogs did that week. We cherish the partnerships we've built with our farmers and we encourage you to do they same. If you're free on a Saturday, head to the growers market, you'll see many of them there!
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