LI Community Supported Agriculture plans offer custom produce picks

If there ever was a time to be picky, it’s now. Farmers across Long Island running Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs are offering more in the way of week-to-week customization to please even the most particular herbivores.

Typically, CSA members pay a set fee for a weekly box of whatever is harvested from the field during the growing season. While some love the surprise (Kohlrabi! Beets!), others want more control over their crops.

“The number one reason CSA customers choose not to continue is they want more choices,” says Sean Pilger, head farmer at Hamlet Organic Garden in Brookhaven. “They don’t like the inflexibility of ‘this is what you get, use it.’ ”

ADDING IN FLEXIBILITY

This year, the farm is using a new website, Harvie.com, to let members rank how much they like specific vegetables when they sign up. Love beets and zucchini but hate bitter greens? Tell Harvie. Then, during the season, Pilger says, there will be weeks where people can choose carrots or radishes, for instance. Members also can use the site to add more items or freeze their account for vacation. All that info helps the farmer gauge how much to harvest and how to customize individual boxes. Quite a change for a CSA program that’s been running since 1996.

“Customers are getting picky, and this is a good compromise,” Pilger says.

Annemarie Gordon, 42, a mother of three from Bellport and 10-year Hamlet Organic Garden CSA member, hopes the new system will help her get more of what other people don’t want, like the “tough sell” beets and cabbage to make her own sauerkraut — although she may pass on the salsify root vegetable offered last year.

Garden of Eve in Riverhead also is offering members new software to rate crops. Each week, the interface notifies customers of items that can be swapped, ditched or doubled.

“We want our members to be satisfied,” says owner Eve Kaplan-Walbrecht. “If they are getting what they want and like, they are happier.”

MARKET-STYLE OPTIONS

Other growers, such as Thera Farms in Brentwood, are using a market-style approach, letting members fill up a bushel with farm stand items. One week, customers might choose to load up on fresh cucumbers for pickling, while the next might call for a mix of salad fixings.

Since opening Thera at the Sister’s of St. Joseph’s Peconic Land Trust two years ago, farmer Teddy Bolkas says his tailored program was created in response to the main complaint of CSA members. “People get things they don’t eat, and it turns them away,” he says.

Local customers don’t want “fancy” vegetables like heirloom tomatoes or tomatillos, he says, but rather the classics like red tomatoes and radishes. They also like being able to pick the size and shape of their veggies. “Some like large tomatoes, while others like small ones. This allows them to choose,” Bolkas says.

At Old Bethpage Restoration Farm, growers are offering another alternative to the traditional CSA, called “shoppers share.” The pay now, get a discount at the stand later model allows customers to support the farm by paying upfront, then using that money to buy vegetables during the season — with no weekly commitment.