Frequently Asked Questions

What is CSA?    

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  The original idea was that a group of people in a community would join with a local farmer to have their food grown on the farm.  Everyone would put in some money at the beginning of the season to purchase seeds, fertilizer, etc.  The farmer would take the responsibility to grow food for the community members who joined.  Each week the farmer would bring in the harvest, perhaps with help from some of the community members and they would all divide up the produce.

 The benefits to the farmer were that he did not need to borrow a huge sum of money to get his crops into the field, and the produce was already sold before he planted it.  The benefits to the community members were fresh food straight from the farm where they could not only know how it was grown, but could actively participate in what and how it was grown. 

 At Wimer's Organics, the CSA is a little different.  We still have a group of people that join with us to have their food grown at our farm.  However, we also sell the extra produce at the Bryn Mawr Farmers Market, or to stores, co-ops and restaurants in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Our CSA members get a portion of the harvest for the week, although they rarely participate in the harvest due to the distance they would need to travel.  We deliver all of our shares to locations off the farm instead of having members come to the farm to pick up their share.

Here is a link to a short video made by one of our members in October 2011 explaining what CSA means to him.  http://healthjawn.com/?p=145

I will be out of town on a day when I am supposed to pick up my share.  How will that be handled?

There are a few things you can do:

1. Ask a friend or family member to pick up your share for you.
2. If you will be available the next day, ask your site host ahead of time if you can make arrangements to pick up your share the next day.
3. Login to your account on our store and put a "HOLD" on any deliveries you will miss from being out of town.  Your account will be credited for missed deliveries.

 Can I pick up my share outside of the designated hours?    

No.  At least, not on a regular basis, and only with permission from your site host.  Each site has a late pick up policy in case you forget to come during the designated hours or for some reason you are running late.  Many of the sites are at someone's home.  In order to allow them to have a life outside of being a site host, and in order to insure that your food items are fresh, we have established hours for pick up.  Please make every effort to pick up your food items during the designated time frame.  Wimer's Organics standard policy is that if you do not pick up your food items during the designated time frame, you forfeit your share.  Any late pick ups are solely due to the kindness and mercy of the site host.

Do you accept EBT cards for your CSA?    

No we don't.  We looked into accepting them, but were told we need to have a credit card machine to swipe the card and we would need to swipe it every week for the following week's share.  Members would need to come to the farm for that to work, and we don' have a credit card machine anyway.