What is a CSA? 🌱
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.
At its simplest, it's a partnership between a farm and the people who eat what it grows. Members commit to regular Farm Shares, giving the grower a known community to grow for and income that can be reinvested into future crops. In return, members get a closer connection to their food, the farm and the seasons.
Traditionally, CSA members genuinely share the harvest.
If the tomatoes have an incredible year, everyone gets plenty of tomatoes. If the carrots don't perform, there might not be carrots that week. What's in the Share reflects what's actually happening on the farm.
We love that principle — but we've adapted it slightly.
Why Share+? 💜
We all know that farming doesn't always go to plan.
Weather changes, pests appear and sometimes a crop simply doesn't produce what you expected. Equally, sometimes you end up with an absolute mountain of something else.
With Share+, FTMicroFarm produce remains at the heart of the Share, but Nina has teamed up with our friends Chris & Liz at The Vale Grocer to fill the gaps with carefully selected seasonal produce. That gives us the best of both models.
Nina can plan and we can grow specifically for the members without the pressure of having to produce absolutely everything ourselves, and members get a more varied and useful selection of vegetables each time.
So rather than receiving four courgettes, three cucumbers and an heroic quantity of microgreens because that's what happens to be ready that week, Share+ gives us the flexibility to create a much more balanced selection for your kitchen. That's the +.
Why membership matters
Having members changes how we can plan the farm. Instead of growing something and hoping there's a customer for it when it's ready, Nina can plan future crops knowing there's already a community waiting for the harvest.
Membership income can then be reinvested into seeds, plants, compost, equipment and more growing space.
It creates a simple cycle:
You support the next crop → it's grown → we share the harvest → we grow again. 🌱
And as the growing area develops, the aim is for more and more of each Share+ to come directly from FTMicroFarm.
This first Share+ is a pilot, but Nina has much bigger plans for what membership could become.
Looking to the future 🌱
One of the things that inspired Nina to start Share+ was seeing how other farms and CSAs have built whole communities around what they grow.
On our recent horticulture trips, we saw some brilliant ideas for bringing members closer to the farm — and it's given her plenty of inspiration for what FTMicroFarm Share+ could become. We're not promising all of these things! They're ideas to explore, work towards and introduce where they make sense as the membership and farm grow.
🌱 Growing more specifically for members — increasing the amount and variety of FTMicroFarm produce in each Share+.
🥕 First pick of the harvest — giving members priority when limited crops or particularly good harvests become available.
🌸 Flowers from the farm — finding ways to include cut-flower growing in the membership.
🌱 New crop trials — letting members help shape what we try growing next — and getting to taste the results.
🌻 Pick-your-own — opportunities for members to pick selected crops or flowers here at the farm.
👩🌾 Farm days — chances to visit, see where your food is grown and occasionally get involved.
💜 Helping shape what we grow — using member suggestions, polls and feedback when Nina plans future crops.
📩 More from behind the scenes — sharing what's being planted, what's nearly ready, what's thriving and what's happening around the farm.
These are ideas, not promises. Some might work brilliantly for FTMicroFarm, others might not — and our members will help us discover which are worth pursuing.
For now, we're starting with something simple: grow good food, build a community around it, and see where we can take it together. 🌱💜
