Inaugural Spring CSA Season

Date: Thursday, December 8th

Blog Post by Fiona Flynn, MKG Coordinator

This year, for the very first time, Morven Kitchen Garden will be offering CSA shares during the Spring season (February 15th - April 26th). In previous years, we have not been able to offer CSA shares during this time frame due to a limited availability of produce. We rely heavily on the labor of student interns, and during the academic year, students are only able to complete somewhere between 5 and 10 hours of work per week on top of their demanding course schedules. Over the Summer most students are relieved of most of their academic obligations, and generally are able to consistently work close to 20 hours per week. This has worked our well for our Summer and Fall CSA customers, as most of the crops that we sell during these seasons are planted after April 15th and before the end of September and the return to classes. The majority of the Spring season crops, however, need to be planted during the late fall/early winter, when we are relying on much fewer hours of labor per week, and most of that labor is divided among harvesting and packing CSA share as well as wholesale orders for UVA Dine. Combine this with the fact that there is a significant amount of field preparation, and seeding trays of plants in our nursery greenhouse to be transplanted in the spring, and continuing our wholesale program to UVA Dine, and we have not been able to offer CSA memberships on top of it all.

A crowd of volunteers help harvest peppers at MKG this Fall

So what changed?

Well, there were a few things that spurred us into action. First is our egg supply, which has always been too small to meet our demand for eggs through our CSA. We buy our eggs from our friend and Morven Gatehouse Employee, Tom, who lovingly raises chickens at his home. When we told him how many of our customers were asking for his eggs, he said he’d gladly increase the size of his flock, but for the fact that we don’t usually purchase from him year-round, and he didn’t want to be overwhelmed with eggs during the spring. For our egg supply, a Spring CSA seemed to be the only solution.

Secondly, we have been so happy to provide CSA shares for food insecure families and have never turned anyone away for inability to pay. Motivated by a sense of duty to continue to support these members of our community year-round, we have buckled down to make it happen this spring.

Eggplant, bell peppers, and cayenne peppers create a rainbow as we packed CSA shares in June.

We know that this season won’t be perfect. There might be missed plantings, weeds that get out of hand, pest problems that go unnoticed, and this might impact the quality or quantity of produce in our CSA. That’s why we have decided to offer a temporary discount for our very first spring CSA members. For a limited time only, you can get a Full share for $200 and a Half share for only $100. (Current UVA Students are still eligible for 20% discount on top of these reduced prices!) We hope that this special offer inspires you to take the leap with us and join our CSA this spring.