If you missed our updates on social media a little while ago, here's what happened, and how we've adapted.
Up until recently, we've sold our produce directly to customers via our farm gate shop and click-and-collect orders. For six years we put all our efforts into this, and saw it grow, with many customers supporting us when they could. We've made many friends through the farm gate, and built a wonderful community around eating from the farm.
However, we began to realise that the farm gate model was not sustainable long-term. We still weren't earning a wage for our work, and customer numbers were dropping, despite our ongoing improvements. We increased our offerings through our local IGA, but still our produce wasn't selling fast enough to keep up with the harvest.
I'm not going to try and analyse why customer trends changed so much in 2025-2026, but we had to adapt to this change, so we closed our farm gate in March. We continued the online orders for a while (pick up and delivery) but the uptake was unpredictable, and we were starting to see vegetables go to waste.
We were busting our guts on the farm, but not making ends meet, so we made the difficult decision to cease all sales and production, and consider our options.
We didn't stay idle for long though. We are genuinely passionate about selling produce directly to consumers, and we wanted to continue offering something to those people who bought from us regularly. It was time to try the CSA model.
Community Supported Agriculture is a popular model around the world, and involves customers signing up to receive produce for an entire season. Customers contribute financially before the season starts, and in return they receive a guaranteed share of the harvest. More CSA info here.
The CSA is a model we talked about in the early days of the farm, but we didn't have a customer base yet, and we needed to get better at producing food. Now though, the timing feels perfect - and if we didn't get takers for the CSA, we would just try something else.
Well... we were absolutely blown away by the response to the CSA launch. Our first season (Sept 2026 - May 2027) is already fully subscribed, with some out-of-region interest as well. We're grateful to every person who has signed up, as they are enabling us to keep doing what we do, and we can't wait to spoil them with great food come spring!
You can still apply for one of our CSA spots, as our waiting list will be offered subscriptions before anyone else if a spot becomes available.
We know this model will disappoint some customers who only needed produce from us occasionally, but we believe this is 100% the best option for our farm, and hopefully the CSA members will agree!
If you're a producer who has been considering starting a CSA, know that the interest is there in our communities. And if you're a producer just starting out, don't be discouraged by our farm gate closure - it was wonderful for many reasons, especially in helping us grow, and we would highly recommend having one, even if just to build trust with your customers before progressing to something like a CSA.