Become a member of Hog’s Back Farm

Shares for the 2012 season are now available, you can download our pdf signup form and automatic payment form here. Shares are sold on a first-come, first-served basis until they're sold out for the year.

Thank you for your interest in a CSA share with Hog’s Back Farm. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and offers a way for people interested in quality food and sustainable food production to be assured of where their food comes from. At Hog’s Back Farm we sell shares of our produce for the season and each week you receive a box overflowing with fresh tasty vegetables at one of our conveniently located pick-up sites. See map for our pickup sites, or click to view larger map.

About Hog’s Back Farm

Our farm is perched on a beautiful ridge in northern Pepin county, overlooking the Chippewa River Valley, between the towns of Plum City and Arkansaw, Wisconsin. We are about 65 miles southeast of St. Paul. We practice organic and sustainable farming methods, without the use of any chemical herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers.

What’s in a Hog’s Back CSA share?

Your share includes over 40 different crops, click here to see a list. Our main season runs for 18 weeks, from June to October. Our veggies are picked at the peak of ripeness, flavor and nutrition, and delivered to your pick up site within hours. Our share comes in a large reusable crate which, depending on the time of year, contains 6 to 26 pounds of produce. This is a good amount for two serious vegetable eaters, or four to six lighter vegetable eaters. If you think a share may be too much food for your household, we encourage you to split a share with a friend, or preserve some of the produce to use in the winter. You also receive our highly regarded weekly newsletter that helps you stay connected to what’s happening on the farm, what’s in your box, and contains a recipe or two. In addition to the vegetables we offer maple syrup, honey, fruit and some organically raised meats for sale from other farms and friends.

We also offer our popular winter shares so that you can extend the good eating later into the year. The winter share consists of 4 deliveries every other week from October until Thanksgiving. The winter share comes chock-full of storage crops like carrots, potatoes, beets, squash, onions and garlic, as well as cold-hardy crops like spinach, broccoli, cabbage, kale and cauliflower. Our last share delivery is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and crammed full of things to make your big meal something to brag about.

New for 2012 we are offering certified organic fruit in the form of a fruit share. The fruit is not grown by us but sourced from small organic farms around the country and selected for ripeness and flavor. Often the fruit is delivered within days of being picked. It's a chance to get certified organic tree-ripened peaches, hand-picked blueberries, cherries, grapes, nectarines, apples, pears, pluots and more. We're offering a summer fruit share, which begins in early July and continues every-other week for 7 deliveries, and also a winter fruit share which coincides with each of the 4 winter share deliveries.

We also encourage members to take part in farm activities, from helping with the harvest and share pick up, to joining us in the fall for our harvest party.

There are risks inherent in a CSA membership. We all share in the ups and downs of a summer in the Upper Midwest. We plant successive plantings of the most important crops so that there is rarely a complete lack of an item, and typically any shortages are offset by the abundance of another crop. Factored in to the cost of a CSA share are things which have no value in the industrial agricultural model. Things like air and water quality, sustainable and organic farming practices, control of soil erosion, macro and micronutrient management, working with nature, rather than against it and sustainability for farm families and rural communities. By joining our CSA you are paying the genuine cost for genuine food and are helping to move us in the direction of a sustainable food system.

Join us!

We are excited about the upcoming season and look forward to growing a wonderful experience for you and your family. If you have any questions please donÕt hesitate to call or email. WeÕd love for you to be part of the HogÕs Back Farm family.

- David and Melinda Van Eeckhout
www.hogsbackfarm.com