Kale yeah, coming to a farmers market near you

Since 2012, we have been on a list to join the Holland Farmers Market and this is the year we received the call! While this is an exciting story to advance our mission and engage a wider audience, the decision to join the Saturday market was not an easy one.

The CSA distribution of veggies has been the model as the first seed was placed in the ground in 2010. And since then we have all engaged the mission of practicing gospel inspired creation care. In addition, the CSA approach to sharing our produce is how we have built a strong Eighth Day Farm community. You get to know your farmers and we as farmers know who believes in us. The truth is we’d hoped to be able to make our budget work with CSA sales alone this year. The reality is we are not on target to do this with the way sales have been going and the farmers market provides a chance to diversify our income. As we join the Saturday farmers market this year, we believe our original and shared mission remains the same.

As a CSA shareholder, you are our first priority for where our produce goes. You have prepaid into the farm and share the risk and the bounty. Our crop plan was created during the early snowy months of the year with you in mind. The only change is that we will direct a certain portion of the shares and some bounty to the farmers market. That is why we are limiting the 2018 available shares.

If you have signed up and paid for your share, rest assured that you are our first choice for the Eighth Day Farm veggies. For those who have procrastinated, there is no better time than now before we hit our new 110 limit for the season. That means that we only have around 30 spots available.

We are still working out the details of how our presence at the Saturday market affects the Saturday CSA pick up at the Holland Town Center. For some people, It makes sense to go to the farmers market to pick up their Saturday weekly CSA share, but for others this may be an inconvenience. If you are a Saturday shareholder we will be reaching out to you shortly to explore these new options.

We appreciate your support and patience through this exciting opportunity to share our mission with the farmers market community.