CSA

Our Practices  

At Flatwater Farms, we strive to innovate and sustainably produce high quality and nutritious food in a way that enhances our land. While certified organic, the farm also strives to go beyond the certification in our creation of a carbon rich soil full of nutrition for the plants and for us.

Flatwater Farms has always placed an emphasis on soil building practices. These practices include utilizing cover crops for fertility, weed control, and soil health. We intend to build a mulching program to feed earthworms, protect the soil’s fungal web and structure, and to control weeds. We will also fertilize using local and some farm based materials.

We understand that people want to eat locally and seasonally year round, not just in the summer, so we have been constructing mobile greenhouses that extend our seasons on both ends of the year. Our houses will jump from spinach, to tomatoes, to carrots and more, giving each plant the environment that it needs at the time it needs it. Doing this will naturally strengthen our plant’s defenses and make a delicious and nourishing product to be eaten at its peak freshness. At the end of this season, we will likely be adding a Winter CSA addition to this Summer CSA option.

We plant new vegetable crops regularly throughout the season to keep our selection ever changing and to respond to the items that our CSA members appear to like most. We welcome input on what our members like and don’t like.

We at Flatwater view the farm as part of an ecosystem and strive to create a place for a wide diversity of plants and animals. Our hope is that as we build this farm, you will join us on the journey, and in so doing, become a vital part of what we create.

We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto—a recent book written by Alice Waters, talks about how the way we eat is symbolic of how we live our lives, both as individuals and as a culture. Fast food values, like uniformity, convenience, cheapness, and speed, have infiltrated our entire lives, numbing us to natural beauty and our own capacity for change. Her solution? Living by what she calls slow food values, like beauty, seasonality, stewardship, and simplicity. Doing so, she writes, can change our relationship with food, each other, and the planet. We hope to do our part to share the bounty of the farm with you and connect you to our place.

Arugula

Asparagus

Asian Greens

Basil

Beans

Beets

Broccoli

Brussel Sprouts

Cabbage

Carrots

Celery

Celeriac

Cilantro

Cucumbers

Eggplant

Fennel

Flowers

Garlic

Kale

Kohlrabi

Leeks

Lettuce

Melons

Mixed Greens

Onions

Parsnips

Peas

Peppers

Potatoes

Pumpkins

Radish

Raspberries

Rhubarb

Spinach

Strawberries

Sweet Corn

Sweet Potatoes

Swiss Chard

Tomatoes

Turnips

Watermelon

Winter Squash

Zucchini

blackberries

apples

…and more!!!

How Does it Work?

A CSA Share  

By joining our CSA, we will be planting with your eating in mind. We highly encourage you to embrace seasonal eating (and drinking) by coming to the farm each week.  The reason for this is that the food we are growing for the CSA is perishable.  The availability of produce will depend on the seasonality of vegetables and fruits in Southwest Michigan. We will provide you with weekly updates on what’s available and what’s coming, along with a few recipes now and then to help you navigate what to do with items that you may not have eaten before!

This year, the cost structure will remain the same as 2023, with one share at a price of $400.    As a benefit to purchasing the $400 share, Flatwater Farms will add  an additional $80 worth of credits to your share for a total of $480.   Our CSA essentially functions as a debit card. Within a few weeks of purchase, you will receive a Flatwater Farms gift card that has preloaded credits in the amount of $480.  If you use up your allotment, you can always add funds to your card.  Members can add funds to their card by paying $100, and we will add $120 to the CSA card, which is the same rate of credit increase that came with the original CSA purchase.  

Typically, all unused credits expire at the end of the season.

CSA Season and Hours

The CSA runs from May 18th through November 9th.  Pick-up will be available to CSA members during the following times

Flatwater Farms Tuesday 4:30 - 6:00 pm

Market-style pickup OR Farmer’s Choice pre-packed box pickup

Farmer’s Choice Box or shopping self serve at Plants and Pints farm stand at River St. Joe/Flatwater Farms in Buchanan.

Flatwater Farms Saturday 10:30 am - 1:30 pm

Market-style pickup: you make your own box

At Flatwater Farms/River St. Joe, we lay out a spread of all of our produce for members, market style as in previous years. Members shop with their credits and we deduct those credits from their CSA card

South Bend, Kohl’s Parking Lot Wednesday 4:30 - 5:30 pm

Farmer’s Choice pre-packed box pickup

We will bring our refrigerated truck with CSA member’s produce to the Kohl’s parking lot at  4410 Grape Rd, Mishawaka, IN 46545 . We will be stationed on the west side of the parking lot near Grape Rd. for the season. On this Wednesday pickup, the Farmer’s Choice box is the only option available to CSA members. All members can utilize this pickup option if they choose, even if they shop with us elsewhere on other days of the week (more details below about the Farmer’s Choice box). Note, we may add additional South Bend days and times if demand justifies

Chicago Green City Market  Saturday 7:00 am - 1:00 pm

Market-style pickup: you make your own box.

CSA members can use their credits at our booth at Green City Market in Lincoln Park, Chicago

For the Saturday CSA hours, we will staff the farm stand and ensure to the best of our ability that items that may sell out (i.e. strawberries, green beans, whatever else is in high demand) will be retained for CSA members only. 

Non-CSA members will also be able to shop at this time, but they will typically not have as wide of a variety as CSA members, nor will they have the bonus credits that CSA members received.

In 2022, we introduced a farm stand called “Plants and Pints” that is located in the RSJ beer garden. The farm stand will often be open during RSJ’s daily hours except that it will close 1 hour prior to RSJ's closing. The farm stand will again showcase our produce as well as house additional outdoor beer taps for River St Joe.  This building will allow us to extend the hours available for CSA members and brewery customers to shop, however, it will not often be staffed by our farm team, and it will usually be self-serve with an honesty and first come first serve policy in place. To use CSA credits when the farm stand is not staffed, members will gather their groceries in the new farm stand and then have their card swiped at the River St. Joe bar inside the restaurant. In the heat of the season, there may be times when the farm stand runs out of items, so the best bet for the widest selection is to show up weekly during the above referenced CSA pickup times. 

We will also be offering a compost service and have compost buckets available for sale in two sizes. We hope to share the benefits of composting with you and allow you to drop off your collections weekly if you choose. Details about how to compost will be available with the buckets and at the farmstand.

Please note: We do not allow split CSA shares. The credits you purchase are for you and your immediate family only. We believe that a commitment of a full $400 share is necessary for the program to thrive. The reason for this belief is that the year is long and involves many changes. We need people in this program that are committed to weekly farm eating so that we can sell our midweek harvests rain or shine. If you feel that the CSA commitment is too big, you may want to visit us at our farm stand at your convenience on the hours that it is open.

For those interested, we will offer 2 options (dates and times TBD) for a brief and free farm tour. For those that can't make these dates, we will be available to answer questions and guide members through the process.

Farmer’s Choice Box Addition

For our South Bend pickup and our Tuesday pickup on farm, members will weekly get to choose to pick up a Farmer’s Choice box and will indicate to us using an online interface whether they want a small ($15 will be deducted from your credits) or a large ($25 will be deducted from your credits) box. The “box” is a reusable plastic crate. Members will come with bags and transfer the food in their box to their own bags. In each box, we will make every effort to provide a diverse selection of our best seasonal produce available at the time. We will also help with recipes. Think of it as a chance to eat with the seasons and try new foods. 

As a reminder, members don’t have to get a box every week. Instead, they can opt to come to the farm and shop market style with their farm credits as in years past. If members are away for a period of time, they don’t need to order a box for that week. They won’t lose credits if they don’t show up in a given week. Those credits will remain throughout the 2024 CSA seaon. Each week, members will have to opt in to receive their box, and choose either the Tuesday or Wednesday option for us to pack their box on that day.

How do I apply to join?

Sign up online by filling out the form via the button below and then either pay online or mail a check.

Questions?

Please email or call Marc Luff, Farm Manager

812.212.1196

marc@flatwaterfarms.com

We look forward to seeing you on the farm!