Welcome and thank you for participating. All of this information was emailed to you, so if you already read your email, this will be old news to you.

You are doing a really good thing. CSA is just about the best way to support independent, local and, in our case, organic farmers. It maximizes their direct income to plan and plant more than any other market they serve including farmers markets. You are doing your part to eat locally. That means less fuel is being used to transport your produce. In attempting to reduce my imprint on the Earth’s resources, I am learning ways to buy locally more and more.

The first pick-up is WEDNESDAY, MAY 12. Site locations and times are listed below (exact locations of each site have been emailed to you).

Please add my email address (erintjohnson@comcast.net) to your address book so it is not treated as SPAM. If you have partners and have not yet given us their email addresses, please do that now. After two weeks we will post all news here (no more weekly emails).

NOTE: In observance of Shavout, the Kemp Mill pick up will be Monday May 17 instead of May 19. The other sites will remain on May 19.

If you don’t remember where you asked to pick-up, please contact me. The shares come pre-packed in boxes and the correct number of shares is delivered to each of our three sites. You must pick-up at the site you selected for the season. If you go to a different site, there will not be a share for you.

The boxes are part of your share price, so we ask you to take care of them. If we run low on boxes because you don’t return them or break them apart, then we will have to purchase more and that money will reduce the amount of produce you receive. We will show you how to open and flatten them for storage, without destroying them. Each week you should return with your box from the previous week.

Site pick-up times and locations:

Sandy Spring
Hours: 12pm to 7pm
Location: in the center of Sandy Spring (see email for exact address)
Contact: email Gene Klinger or call 240-731-3732

East Rockville
Hours: 1PM to 7PM
Location: 400 Reading Ave, Rockville 20850
Contact: click here to email Vanessa Strunk or call 301-653-7302

West Rockville
Hours: 2pm to 7pm
Location: Rockville, MD 20850 (see email for exact address)
Contact: Frank and Mary Perry 301-279-5848 or click here to email

Mclean School/Potomac
Hours: 3:30pm to 7pm
Location: 8224 Lochinver Lane, Potomac, MD 20854 2nd entrance off circle, up steps and under eaves
Contact: Ellen Fye 301-704-6113 and Martha Ein 301-807-7391 or click here to email

Kensington
Hours: 3PM to 7PM
Location: Haverhill Drive, Kensington, MD 20895 (see email for exact address)
Contact: Winnie Holbrooke – click here to email or call 301-509-8097

Kemp Mill
Hours: 4pm to 7pm
Location: Silver Spring 20902-3006 (see email for exact address)
Contact: Rabbi Simmy & Debbi Merkin 301-803-0480 or click here to email

How it works:

Once there, you will see boxes full of produce. One box equals one share. The contents of your share will be posted on site. We’ll also post the contents here online each week. If you find something you have never eaten, it is likely that the weekly online post will contain a recipe for that item. Some of the fruit will not be certified organic, but grown using Integrated Pest Management. We will identify the items that are not certified organic.

What if you are splitting a share?

If you are part of a share group, it is your responsibility to work out with your partner(s) how to handle pick-up. The options are:

1) You pick-up and consume the share one week; your partner picks-up and consumes the share the next week, and so on.

2) You pick-up and then you and your partner rendezvous later to split the bounty.

3) You agree with your partners on a system to divide the shares at pick-up so that you separate and mark the shares for partners arriving after you. Please label the portion you leave for your share partner. Bring bags.

What if you are away?

When you are unable to pick up, it is your responsibility to arrange coverage for your share pick-up. You may arrange for your partner(s), a friend or prospective CSA member to pick it up. Any shares not picked up by 8 pm will be donated. You can ask your site coordinator where the shares will be donated.

Setting expectations

Your share will include vegetables and fruit according to when they are harvested in this region. For example, you will not get tomatoes until later in the summer. Early on the share will be lighter and get progressively heavier as the season progresses. And Mother Nature and the weather have the final say as to exactly what gets harvested and when. To view a harvest schedule, click ‘Harvest’ at the top of this page. This should help you plan menus.

Want to visit the farm?

The next event at Calvert Farm is the tomato and pepper planting party on Saturday, May 29th between 10am and 2pm. It is a working pot luck. Volunteers are also welcome to work on the farm during the week. Click here for directions to the farm. The farm is about two hours away in Rising Sun, MD.

On behalf of the Sandy Spring CSA volunteer coordinators, we look forward to meeting you all on May 12.

Here is a poem to celebrate our choice for Community Supported Agriculture.

To be of the earth is to know

the restlessness of being a seed
the darkness of being planted
the struggle toward the light
the pain of growth into the light
the joy of bursting and bearing fruit
the love of being food for someone
the scattering of your seeds
the decay of the seasons
the mystery of death
and the miracle of birth.

-John Soos, from Earth Prayers From Around the World -365 Prayers, Poems and Invocations for Honoring the Earth

Happy Spring,

Erin Johnson, Winnie Holbrooke, Gene Klinger, Meg Pease-Fye, Vanessa Strunk, Robert True, The Perry’s, The Merkin’s and McLean School