Page 10 - Cuisione fo Arizona - Volume 8

On The Vine
The Gillespie’s Farms are fifth generation Arizona farmers and Guy Gillespie of On The Vine Farms is of the third. Guy branched out to farm on his own land in Casa Grande with his wife. He grows naturally and does all the planting, harvesting and selling himself. He’s recently started offering CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares, and took time from planting tomatoes to answer a few questions about it.
by Kathleen Porter
Q. Tell us a little about why you adopted a CSA model for your farm.
We adopted a CSA model for our farm in order to move fresh produce on a more local level directly to consum- ers with the ease of online ordering.
Q. How do you as a farmer bene t from the CSA? How do your cus- tomers bene t?
As a farmer, the CSA model enables us to sell on multiple levels and helps us determine how much to harvest on a weekly basis. It also allows us to gage the amount of rows needed to utilize successive plantings.
As a customer, there are multiple options that one can chose from. They have choices of standard shares or custom- ized options such as pick and choose. A CSA provides cus- tomers with local Arizona pro- duce primarily grown on our farms.
Q. Has offering CSA shares helped or stabilized your farm?
By offering CSA shares through the local farmers’ markets and by offering local home delivery, we were able to expand our business and reach more geographic areas.
Q. Why would you join a
CSA if you already shop at Farm- ers’ Markets?
When someone joins our CSA, we are able to reserve the best produce. We harvest our produce within 24-hours of the customer receiving their order. We also make homemade soap on our farm using some farm ingredients and make it available on our CSA ordering system as well.
who travel or are here for the winter months. Customers may change their orders weekly or we simply duplicate their previous order based on availabil- ity.
Q. Do you offer add-ons for your CSA?
Customers who order standard shares have the option of adding ad- ditional items onto their order through the webstore. Customers who select
the pick and choose option au- tomatically can add or subtract each week what they want.
Q. How can one sign up for your CSA? Can you purchase CSA shares for others?
Customers can go to www. onthevinefarms.com and click on Order Online. Customers may purchase shares for others, however we have found in the long run that most customers choose to add additional items to their order and then separate the items out from home.
On The Vine Farms
Casa Grande, AZ
Guy Gillespie, owner
(520) 252-5050 info@onthevinefarms.com facebook.com/onthevinearizona twitter.com/onthevinellc Instagram.com/onthevinefarms
The Brothers Gillespie
Cuisine of ARIZONA
The Premier Culinary Guide to the Grand Canyon State
cuisineofarizona.com 9
Q. How does your CSA stand apart from other CSA’s in the valley?
Our CSA system is customer man- aged. Customers may pay as they go or pay ahead along with weekly or biweekly options. Our customers may also place their orders on hold when needed which is excellent for those
Farmers Market Magazine