For just one brief moment, we worried we wouldn’t be able to have a CSA this year. Would our growers be in a position to spend the money and time necessary to start up the fields when work schedules and paychecks and farm market income are suddenly in flux? And even if the growers were on board, we didn’t know how we would manage a socially-distanced pickup or if we were up for the logistical maneuvering it would require.

But then the pea shoots started coming up in our own garden and got our mouths watering, and most of our growers enthusiastically confirmed that they still wanted to grow food this year (and we even signed on some new ones). The eagerness of our growers and the thought of bright spring greens and sugar snap peas bursting with fresh, sweet water got us motivated. OF COURSE we’re doing a CSA this year. What a waste of a gorgeous fertile river valley it would have been not to. Spring is here and proceeding right on schedule, and even though time feels so strange and elastic for us right now, and our priorities have shifted so abruptly, Mother Nature is out there like nothing at all is going on. Spring is springing, and if we’re all going to be stuck at home, we might as well be eating delicious food.

In addition to our experienced growers, we have signed on two new growers, Sean Cox and Ann Craig. Both are sustainably working land on Nightfall Farm near Crothersville, IN. Sean and Ann will be providing much of our spring produce. One of the most important functions of our multigrower CSA model is that we have the flexibility to work with new, ultra-small-scale growers and provide them access to market that they might not otherwise have. It’s a great way for new farmers to try things out, gain experience, and find the means to increase their scale, paving the way for more and more growers to contribute to Madison’s local food landscape. We’re so looking forward to working with Sean and Ann!

We are still working out the details of a no-contact outdoor pickup, but we’re sure we can do it at this point. We’ll still be there to say hi and watch over the produce, but from a safe distance. Local food is all about solving problems and working with conditions as they are, and this spring is no exception. If our growers have been able to provide food through the muddiest of springs and the droughtiest of Augusts all these years, then we can surely do this.

If you’d like to participate in the all-around goodness of CSA, spend some time exploring the website, read the About page, and then sign up with our webform. We’ll see you in May!