an open letter to the csa and to garden of eve farm

To the Williamsburg CSA and the Garden of Eve Farm:

We were members of the Astoria CSA last year but the pickup night was Tuesday, so we looked around for another local group with a better pickup and decided to sign up with you. Although the Astoria CSA charges $378 for a full share (once a week), we were willing to pay Williamsburg CSA $357 for an every two week half veg, half fruit share from Garden of Eve Farm because your pick up was convenient.

We have not gotten anything resembling our money's worth. Ironically, last year's season was a tough one for local farmers, as I'm sure you know. Yet the Green Thumb Farm, the farm for Astoria CSA, still managed to get at least two varieties of leafy greens to us each week, and the tomatoes and squash kept coming. Every week we had two or three *full* bags of food. The reason we signed up for a half share with you is because we really had too much food last year. Now, in a summer with plenty of rain, we don't even have enough to last a week.

We should have recognized that this would be a disappointing experience from our first interaction with Williamsburg CSA and the Garden of Eve Farm. Williamsburg CSA never provided us with notice of the first week's pickup time and so we came at 11:15, and the food was all gone. People were still there, but no food. Presumably if we had gotten there on time, but had been last, we would still have gotten no food. We approached the Garden of Eve Farm at the farm stand and the staff gave us no help at all. Neither party has offered to make this up to us, so we paid for food that we did not get. Assuming that we will receive 15 shares this growing season, your combined refusal to provide us with a substitute share cost us approximately $23 in lost food budget.

As the season has gone on, we have found many other issues to be problematic.

Leafy greens have been nearly nonexistent (sometimes we get a little bag of mescalun mix and I think we got kale once, but that is all that I can recall. When we retrieved our share this Saturday, we found that the end of summer, Labor Day pickup had no greens.

The quality of the produce has also been very disappointing. The Labor Day tomato share (presumably the season's largest) consisted of one heirloom tomato, and a bucket of cherry tomatoes. The heirloom tomato rotted in two days, and the cherry tomatoes are of a variety that is so tough that they are only suitable for cooking. We also received several apples with this weeks share. One of the apples was so mealy as to be ineddible and another rotted through by Tuesday.

Your distribution policy for herbs is absurd and practically worthless. Whereas last year's farm bound the week's herbs into a useable packet, you offer one sprig of herbs. Rosemary, we can understand, you really only need a sprig, but basil?, thyme?, oregano? lavender?. We are certain that this is not how Garden of Eve Farm would chose to sell herbs to a customer purchasing from its farmstand, if it did then no customer would buy those herbs. Yet Garden of Eve Farm allows Williamsburg CSA to tell it's members to "take one or two sprigs" when we have already paid good money to sustain the farm. Again, by contrast, at this time last year, we had so much basil from the Astoria CSA that we made several pints of pesto to freeze for the winter.

We believe strongly in supporting local agriculture and sustainable farming.We understand that the CSA itself is a volunteer organization and that they got off to a rocky start. But the Garden of Eve Farm is a business and we consider ourselves customers of this business. Very unsatisfied customers.

We are sad to say that, next year, we will have to find another farm to support. Given the disappointing nature of this experience, we will also not patronize your farm stand at McCarren Park Greenmarket.

Regretfully yours,
Eva and Patrick Barnhart