S.O.S. (Save Our Shares)

We are so sorry to come to you with such unfortunate news. As members of a CSA program, you share in both the risk and the reward of a local farm. Fortunately for both our farm and our members, we've been blessed with abundance and reward, and experienced very little risk. This season, however, has not been as kind as seasons' past. For the first time in the history of our CSA program, we need to suspend the delivery of vegetable shares.

As you all know, we have been dealing with wet fields and small floods for the past several weeks. The rain we've received over the last few days--especially last night--has taken the fields from muck to flood. Over the last two weeks, in total, the farm has received more than 20 inches of rain. We are now in a standing water situation that is, at the very least, delaying the crops and at the worst, threatening their existence.

Not only is the water a source of concern, but also the sudden invasion of vast amounts of weeds. Because we are a farm that refuses to use pesticides, we often harvest the vegetables through the weeds. While the pervasiveness of weeds is often a joke among those of us in the fields, the continuous rain has given the weeds the upper hand and they are now a second major threat to the crops. We are furiously hand weeding the fields in every hour of light we have--and we need your help. If you are able to offer any amount of your time, at any time this week, to help us clear the fields we would be so grateful. Please call Jaime at (937) 644-0786 or (614) 327-0102 if you are ready and willing to help.

So what does this mean to our shareholders? These fields are yours as much as they are ours, and it's our promise to you that we will do everything possible to get vegetable shares up and running as quickly as we can. Quality and service are of the utmost importance to us, and we will work tirelessly until we are able to once again resume delivery of vegetables to our members. We would rather suspend shares in the short term than give you anything that does not meet our standards of cleanliness and quality. We will still be delivering fruit, milk and coffee shares this week, so please continue to pick up those shares as usual. We are taking this situation day by day, but for the week of June 15th (today) through Monday, June 21st, we will not be able to deliver vegetable shares. If you are a vegetable-only member, there is no need to pick up this week at your location, unless you'd like to speak with us personally. If so, we'll be there.

This current situation in no way means that the entire season's harvest is at risk. At worst, we are hoping this is simply a very short term scenario that will turn around with the sun and dryness we so desperately need. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this difficult situation, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. We will be sharing this information and updates online as well as via email. We will always email you, and we will also offer updates via our blog A Well Fed Seed, Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned--we will share some pictures of the farm as well as a volunteer schedule very soon.

With gratitude,

Jaime Moore & Adam Welly