Now Certified Organic!

For years now we've been following organic guidelines on the vegetable operation.  But only just now are we officially, legally, certified organic. Thanks to Carole Grunberg, an outstanding volunteer and CSA member, for paying the hefty application fee, completing the application, drawing the maps, re-drawing the maps, re-doing the application, calling the certifier at least a dozen times and pestering him by e-mail.  I'm sure if she knew what she was getting into, she never would have accepted the challenge.  But we're glad she did! 

This won't change our CSA share prices, so it's not clear that we benefit financially from becoming certified.  But it's nice to know we're legitimate, and if we decide to sell any of our produce to restaurants or grocery stores outside the regular CSA season, our organic certification will allow us to charge a higher price.   

Only the vegetable operation is certified.  To certify the beef, we would have to start using only untreated fenceposts.  Locust posts and recycled plastic posts are permitted and wouldn't rot, but they are too expensive, and it's too time consuming to find and cut our own locust trees.  So we have decided to continue using treated posts and not try to certify the pastures.  

If you have comments, feel free to post them on this blog.  We're curious to hear your opinions.

Thank you, Carole!

-Carrie  

Comments

[Craig Jones]

That's awesome. There wasn't much you guys could do to improve on your produce (it's so good), but this is certainly a nice designation to have.