CSA shopping in Chapel Hill

January 11, 2009 10:17 AM

CSA recommendation in Chapel Hill/Carrboro/Durham, NC?

We're considering buying a share in a local CSA. Looking through the localharvest.org site, I managed to narrow down the choices to about six. Can anyone specifically recommend or derecommend any of these, or any others?

Our criteria include lots of yummy vegetables, dependable, prefer Saturday morning pickup, emphasis on green veggies over starchy veggies, and if possible some control over what we get (although I realize that's not normal).

Current front runners:

• Coon Rock Farm
• Eco Farm (Chapel Hill)
• Lee Farm Produce
• Maple Spring Gardens
• Timberwood Organics
• Genesis Farm (not sure if they're still in the CSA business

Thanks; I know it's kind of a long shot that anyone has relevant experience, but if you do that would be very nice.

posted by amtho to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

Response by poster: Nobody?

In case anyone else searches for this information in the future - I just found out that Genesis Farm is not offering shares this year.
posted by amtho at 4:38 PM on January 11, 2009

We use Brinkley Farms and I think they meet your needs well. They have a good variety of vegetables, as well as pork, beef, chicken, eggs. Each week they send out a list and we pick what we want (adding up to the amount of money of our weekly share). If we want more than our share, we can order it and pay them when we pickup.

They only do weekday pickups, though, I think (ours is Tuesday evening at Duke Gardens).
posted by hydropsyche at 4:38 PM on January 11, 2009

I've also heard good things about Brinkley.
posted by rachelpapers at 4:44 PM on January 11, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks! I'm not really into meat, so that's not so much a selling point, but it's good to know they've been dependable.
posted by amtho at 5:44 PM on January 11, 2009

amtho, you don't have to get the meat. For what it's worth, I don't think any CSA in the area allows for a week-to-week choice of veg. There's a choose-what-you-want model out of Athens, GA called Athens Locally Grown,, but we don't have anything like that here.

If I were selecting from the ones you narrowed it down to, I'd pick Maple Spring, if only because they have strawberries and blueberries in addition to vegetables. Yum berries.

Look at the harvest charts to see what produce is offered when.
posted by Stewriffic at 6:35 PM on January 11, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks, Stewriffic! I should have mentioned that Brinkley does seem to have choose-your-own, every week, which is cool...

Thanks for the tip about Maple Spring.
posted by amtho at 1:53 AM on January 12, 2009

It's funny that you mention Athens Locally Grown, Stewriffic, because we were members there before we moved to Durham and chose Brinkley because they most closely matched what we were used to.

(ewagoner is one of the farmers there and we used to pick veggies up weekly from him at Big City Bread back in the day.)
posted by hydropsyche at 10:40 AM on January 12, 2009