Owl’s Nest Farm

CSA Member Agreement for 2024


Welcome to Owl’s Nest Farm

Greetings from Upper Marlboro, Maryland! We thrive as farmers and people thanks to the support of our community of fresh-food eaters. No two years are alike on a farm, but there are certain perks of being a CSA member that you can count on - like fresh vegetables, friendly farmers, and opportunities to learn about how your food is produced. This agreement explains what it means to join our CSA. Please read it carefully and let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

CSA Membership

Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, is a relationship between customers and producers in which everyone shares the risks and rewards of farming. CSA customers are shareholders who pay in advance for a portion, or share, of foods that will be harvested throughout the season.

Our 2024 CSA season is 24 weeks, from mid May through the end of October. During this time, we bring shares to our CSA pickup locations on a weekly schedule and you come to your chosen location to pick up your food. If you buy a full share, you pick up a share once per week. If you buy a half share, you pick up a share every other week.



CSA Share Contents

We strive to offer 7-10 items per week in the CSA share and to provide you with a wide variety of vegetables throughout the season. Shares at the beginning of the season are typically lighter than shares later in the summer. Each week, we tell you which vegetables are almost finished, which ones are at peak production, and what we think will be ready soon. When you pick up your share, you have some choices about what to take. 

Here are some of the vegetables we’re growing this season and when we expect them to be in the CSA shares:

  • Spring: Arugula, sprouting broccoli, scallions, carrots, chard, collards, cabbage, garlic scapes, kale, lettuce, radishes, spicy salad mix, fennel, spinach, turnips, pea shoots, herbs, and seedlings.

  • Summer: Basil, hot peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, okra, sweet peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, tomatillos, ground cherries, and yellow squash.

  • Fall: Remaining summer crops, plus sprouting broccoli, napa cabbage, carrots, chard, collards, kale, lettuce, potatoes, radishes, spicy salad mix, spinach, sweet potatoes, tat soi, turnips, pea shoots, and arugula.

If we include any items in the CSA shares that we didn’t grow ourselves, we’ll tell you about them. For example, we don't currently grow beets, because we’re lacking some key micronutrients in our soil to grow them well, so we may source these items from other area farms. We’ll tell you where items came from and how they were produced.



Add-ons

We offer a selection of add-ons to your vegetable share. They’re distributed on a monthly basis, and you’ll receive the full list of distribution dates at the beginning of the season. We source these products from other producers who we know, and we enjoy sharing their stuff with you!

In 2024, here are the add-ons we’re offering:

  • pasture-raised meat from our friends at Open Book Farm. Each month at your pickup, you'll get 3-5 cuts of meat selected by farmers MK and Andrew, including real pastured pork, chicken, and 100% grass-fed beef.

  • 2 dozen eggs from hens pasture-raised at Open Book Farm and/or Ladybrook Farm.

  • Our solidarity add-on sources local food and farm products from producers who are women, non-binary, and people of color. In 2022, solidarity share items included flowers, jam, salve, and more.

  • Fruit add-on from Kuhn Orchards includes 3-5 types of seasonal fruit from their orchard in Pennsylvania.

If you make advance arrangements with us to reschedule your pickup, we can bring your add-ons to your rescheduled pickup. If you miss your pickup with no notice, your add-ons are forfeited.



Sharing the Risks and Rewards of Farming

We want your CSA membership to be a great value and a great experience. We’ll do everything we can to ensure an abundant share for you. However, we cannot guarantee how well crops will produce or exactly what the CSA share will include from week to week. Extreme temperatures, too much rain, drought, four- and six-legged pests, weeds, and plant diseases can all lower vegetable yields. When a crop thrives, you’ll have lots of opportunities to enjoy it. When a crop suffers, you’ll receive less of that crop. We appreciate your willingness to share these risks with us.


CSA Share Pickups

You’re responsible for picking up your CSA share from your chosen location. Plan to spend about 10 minutes at the pickup. An Owl's Nest Farmer will be present to answer your questions. Members who buy a full share come every week. Members who buy a half share come every other week.

If you are a half shareholder, we'll send you your pickup dates for the season in May. We skip the weeks of 4th of July and Labor Day, which can make the half share pickup schedule a little confusing. Be sure and mark your pickup dates on your calendar at the beginning of the season.

As a CSA member, you agree to:

  1. Bring your own bags to carry your bounty! We don’t pack boxes or bags for you. Instead, we set up like a farmers market and provide instructions and choices about what to take.

  2. Be respectful of our pickup site hosts’ property, patrons, and neighbors.

  3. Pick up your share within the stated time frame. If there’s ever a day when you can’t pick up your share, you may send someone else to pick it up for you. 

In the unlikely event that only a few people buy shares for a given pickup location, we reserve the right to move that pickup to another location. In this situation, we'll contact everyone who's bought a share for the location in question before the harvest season begins and discuss our options. 

If there is inclement weather, your host may opt to make minor adjustments to your pickup site location (i.e move inside at St. Stephens or Material Things if it’s raining). Especially if conditions change quickly, we may not be able to communicate in a timely way about these adjustments, and we rely on you to check in if there’s confusion. Your pickup site host’s phone number is in your share email each week.



Rescheduled and Missed Pickup Policies

Contact information for the farmer hosting your pickup is at the bottom of your weekly share email. If you're running late on a pickup day, let them know via phone or text as soon as possible and they may be able to leave a share for you.

Half shareholders can switch weeks at any point. We just ask that you give us at least 48 hours (via email or our schedule change form) before the pickup you will miss and we can plan for you to come on a different week.

If you forget to pick up your share or neglect to give us 48 hours notice of a missed pickup, we are happy to reschedule one pickup per season. However, we can only rearrange pickups under the following conditions:

  • We can only make alternate arrangements with folks who contact us within 24 hours of the missed pickup. You must email us asap at farmers@owls-nest-farm.com.

  • After one missed pickup, we will no longer be able to make alternate arrangements

Our Growing Practices

We’re Certified Naturally Grown (CNG). The land we lease has been CNG certified since 2013 and has been managed according to organic guidelines since 2011. 

Here is a quick overview of our growing practices. If you’d like additional information, please let us know.

  • Soil fertility: We test our soil annually and amend it according to those test results. We maintain soil fertility by rotating crops, planting cover crops, and applying organically-approved fertilizers and micronutrients. The products we use include blood meal, fish emulsion, compost, lime, kelp, and a number of mineral supplements.

  • Weed control: We block weeds with landscape fabric (woven, reusable, plastic fabric), BioTelo (biodegradable plastic), straw mulch, and cover crops. When weeds appear among our vegetable crops, we remove them by hand, with hoes and other hand tools, and with tractor-mounted cultivators.

  • Pest control: We plant flowering farmscapes and cover crops to attract beneficial insects to the areas around our crops. We hand-pick pests and sometimes buy beneficial insects to be released where pest populations are causing crop loss. When necessary, we spray our crops with organically-approved controls, including Bacillus thuringiensis and Safer Insecticidal Soap. Rotating our vegetable crops also helps with pest control.

  • Plant diseases: We manage plant diseases by balancing soil nutrients, rotating vegetable crops, planting cover crops, and removing severely infected plants.


Buying a CSA Share

Buying a CSA share before the harvest season begins is a huge help to us. Having income early enables us to purchase the seeds and equipment we need for the upcoming season.

For the 2024 season, we are offering a sliding scale pricing model by allowing members to choose to pay 20% more or less than the market rate depending on their circumstances.

CSA share prices for 2024 are as follows:

  • Full share, pay it forward price: $1050

  • Full share, market rate: $875

  • Full share, lower income/wealth: $700

  • Half share, pay it forward price: $535

  • Half share, market rate: $40

  • Half share, lower income/wealth: $350

Full shares are weekly for 24 weeks. Half shares are every other week, with a total of 12 shares.

You may pay by check or credit card.

  • To pay by credit card, visit our website.

  • To pay by check, mail a check payable to Owl’s Nest Farm to 2612 Ritchie Marlboro Road, Upper Marlboro MD 20774.

We also offer the option to sign up with a payment plan using the subscription plan option on our website.


Communicating with Us

We’ll communicate with you by email. Please read the messages we send you to make sure that you don’t miss important information.

We invite you to contact us with questions, feedback, concerns, recipes, etc. We want to hear from you! You may reach us via email or phone:

  • Our email address is farmers[at]owls-nest-farm[dot]com

  • Your pickup site host’s phone number is included in your weekly share email and it’s intended for you to use only for urgent messages on the day-of pickup.

Email is the best way to reach us, and we do our best to respond to email messages and phone calls within two business days.

When you buy a CSA share, we’ll add you to our distribution list and send you a weekly message about the crops available that week, recipe ideas, and other farm-related news.

In the unlikely event that we need to change the time or location of a farm event or CSA pickup, we will notify you via email.

Miscellaneous

  • We may sometimes offer discounts or bonuses for CSA signups. These are only applicable at the time of purchase and cannot be used retroactively.

  • Your CSA purchase is non-refundable. If you have a significant change in your life (i.e. you're moving out of the area, you or someone in your family is having a health crisis), let us know and we’ll do our very best to figure out an arrangement that works for you.

  • We try to make the same options available at every pickup site each week. However, we may make minor adjustments based on crop availability, and we'll always to our best to make sure every shareholder receives shares of equal value.



Thank you for investing in our farm. We appreciate your support and look forward to bringing you delicious, fresh, seasonal, healthy vegetables.



Sound good?

By checking the Member Agreement box on the CSA signup form, you are declaring the following:

I have read this Agreement and accept the terms outlined herein. I understand that the Farm may need to make changes to this Agreement from time to time. I understand that Owl’s Nest Farmers will contact me via email in advance of any changes to this Agreement.