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I'm Fred Wilklow, Wilklow Orchards, we're in Highland, New York.We grow about 100 acres
of fruit: berries, stone fruit, apples. Our family bought this farm in 1855. I think it's
about 5 years we've been doing fruit shares. Doing a fruit share isn't too difficult, the
more variety you have on your farm, the easier it is to do. One of the big considerations
for the farm, for us, for any farm looking at CSAs is if you have the variety to go through
the season. CSA members like to see something new all the time, so you really need a variety
of fruit in the summer and then when down to just apples they don't get quite as many
apples every week. Apples are a usually a little bit cheaper fruit, generally sell cheaper
per pound than plums and peaches, cherries. So if you have a $10 share you're getting
8 pounds of apples, which is a lot of apples to use every week. People just tend to not
be able to use that many. One of the things we just started doing this past year is higher
value for the share in the summer, when it's summer fruit and then lower, it should be
less money to the fall. They can get a variety in the summer, and when it's down to just
apples, they don't get quite as many apples every week. The time of year when we have
a lot of anything, we give a real extra share. Which It's kind of what I thought is the concept
of CSA. They're sharing the bounty of the farm. When we package the fruit, the CSA lets
us know in the beginning of the year whether or not we can get our boxes back. We don't
add on extra for that. We reuse our boxes until they fall apart anyway, so we just make
sure it's not new boxes going that day to their CSA. There's always a turnover with
boxes, you always have to get a few new ones, so we just try to make sure it's not a brand
new box going there that we'll lose. If everybody gets 3 pounds of apples or 2 pounds of something,
we don't weigh out the individual ones, because of the amount of time it would take. We try
to keep the labor to a minimum. If items like berries are in containers, pints or quarts,
the number of flats or cups. It's picked that way. We tell the CSA what the share is when
we deliver it. They like to know a day or 2 ahead of time. That can be difficult sometimes.
Even when I think I know Monday morning what's going to go on the Tuesday CSA, once we get
finished picking that day and start to load the truck we realize we don't have enough
of one item or we have a lot more of another, so it can change a little bit. I know what
we get for retail price, and I usually go like 20-25% less than the retail price I get
at the market. I kind of look at it as we're hedging on our crop. We sell it at a little
bit of a discounted price, maybe I could sell it all at the market, maybe I couldn't, depends
on the season. But, I'm getting the money up front, in the spring, which is the time
of year that any farm spends more money than they take in, so to get a couple nice big
checks in the spring is very helpful. The CSAs crave information about the farm. Sometimes
it's difficult to keep up with it. When they do a newsletter they'll call me and talk to
me about what's going on the farm, rather than me trying to write it, because that just
is not going to happen. That's what they want, connection to the farm.