We have some excellent news to share with you about a little something called the East Coast Foodshed.

The very heroic people at Enterprise Produce and Heaven’s Harvest farms have forged a partnership with producers who live and work below the Mason-Dixon line. There, exotic fruits like oranges and grapefruits grow and beloved veggies, like kale and peppers, keep coming, well past the day when everything has turned gray and died here in New England.

Why have they done this? Because they think it’s a crucial part of the local foods movement to share resources, to diversify the work of sustainable farming and to give us good eaters access to quality produce in the winter — from our part of the world, not just California and South America.

So here’s the deal:

Both farms are selling *new* Winter CSA shares that include veggies from these farms, plus greenhouse veggies + storage crops from New England farms.

Both are ALSO offering citrus boxes — pure, delicious organic fruit from East Coast farms. All of this is available now through March and you can sign up any time. You can buy ‘em both, or just the share, or just the citrus box.

Details:
Disclaimer: The info available on the farm web sites is a little hard to parse. I talked to both farms on the phone and got a little more clarity, but a lot of this work is new so it seems like they’re still sussing out the specifics. I encourage you to contact them directly if you have questions. Apologies if I get any of this wrong.

Heaven’s Harvest (New Braintree, Mass)

• If you go here, then click on the most recent newsletter (and scroll way down) you can find a sample of what was in the last CSA share delivery. Don’t know the pricing on that.
• If you want just a citrus box from them, it’s $65 for a full box of mixed fruit/$35 for a half share.
• They deliver anywhere (seriously, anywhere). But they’re keen on developing drop offs for multiple shareholders in one place. So if you’ve got a business, a big enough apt., etc, and want to set this up, contact them at heavensorganic@yahoo.com. You can get a free share if you’re a host.
• Use the same email address to sign up.

Enterprise (Whately, Mass)

• Their Winter CSA  is about $110/month for a small share and $150/month for a large share. Sign up any time and they’ll pro-rate what you owe.
• They’re delivering in JP, Arlington and in Davis Sq — though they’re running low on slots in Davis. Home delivery is also available through Metro Pedal Power in Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown. If you’re in some other ‘hood and want in on this action, they might be able to negotiate with you.
• Click here to see what was in the first delivery.
• Info on their citrus boxes is also here: $50 for a large order/single variety; $55 large order/variety box; $27 small order/single variety/$30 small order/variety box.

Also, both farms have open enrollment for their regular season CSA shares. They’re doing rather innovative work in terms of coordinating with these East Coast regional farms and I encourage you to investigate this and consider signing up.

If you wanna do any of this:

…But you think you can’t handle a full or half share on your own. Write to us and we’ll help connect you to a neighboring good eater to split the loot (and the cost) with! Just send us your name and where you live, info@bostonlocalvores.org.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 3:08 pm and is filed under CSA. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.