SWEETER SONG FARM

a Certified Organic CSA
4955 S. Schomberg Rd.
Cedar, Michigan 49621
231-228-7301

Dear friend and potential shareholder,

Thank you for your interest in becoming a shareholder at Sweeter Song Farm. We are a CSA farm. That means that each spring our shareholders pay for their share up front for 20 weeks of produce during the growing season. The share is intended to be enough to feed 2 to 3 vegetarians, or a family of four. There are no work requirements except for coming out each week during the season and packing your basket, or if you choose, picking up your produce at our Traverse City pickup locations. 

A share provides a wide variety of vegetables weekly for twenty weeks (See: Product Availability section on this site).  Our abundant herb gardens, with both annual and perennial herbs, are near the pickup area and we encourage you to snip what you can use each week as part of your share. Also included in the share is some fruit including strawberries, melons, grapes, and pears.  Finally, we have flower beds from which you may purchase a u-pick option or a pre-made bouquet.

In addition to the food we grow, we are coordinating with other local farms to provide a variety of other products. The offerings are either directly grown in the area or are connected closely with a local food producer. Among the products we expect to have available this year are shiitake mushrooms, eggs, free-range beef, maple syrup, organic apples, and organic fair-trade coffee. These items are ordered on a week-to-week basis and paid for on delivery on pick-up days.  This has become a rewarding and tasty way to build stronger networks between our shareholders and other local food producers.

The share price for 2008 is $425.00 ($467.50 for Traverse City pickups). Shares in exchange for work are also available. These would require 60 hours of work in exchange for the 20 weeks of pick-ups. We also sponsor four families a year with their fees waived. We are also offering 6 working shares.  If you know of anyone who might benefit from these opportunities, let us know.

We thought you might like some of the information we shared at our shareholders’ meeting on February 10 this year. This might help you in your decision as to whether our CSA is right for you. In the 2007 growing season, everyone received a total weight of 289 pounds of food, with a total market value of $580.00. That averaged out to about 14 pounds a week, worth an average of $29.00. We were successful again in completing the full 20 week commitment. Total harvest for the year was 41,500 pounds of food. Our production has been improving each year. We still have a ways to go and are focusing much of our time and resources on soil building and weed management. Besides being a sandy loam, the soil on this old farm is very depleted but we are woking hard to get it more into balance. Because we use organic methods, we focus on building the soil’s health, rather than dumping on fertilizer. Soil improvement takes more time, but is a sustainable practice, contributes to health of the environment, and, not incidentally, produces better tasting and more healthful vegetables and fruit.

Shareholders Bronwyn Jones and Joe VanderMeulen are continuing to develop and grow the Fresh Food Partnership to connect farmers and food pantries in the Grand Traverse region to provide food for the hungry. We sell and donate food to this program.  Please click on the name and check it out. Consider a donation. They will be glad to talk to you about this project when they see you here on the farm (or elsewhere). The seed for this wonderful effort germinated here on the farm several years ago as Bronwyn handled the CSA tasks of finding a family to give a share to and distributing extra produce to food pantries. We are excited to see how an organic farm can sow seeds both in the ground and in the community. A truly organic farm needs to be an integral part of the social and economic systems of the community, as well as work in harmony with the local bio-system, to be successful. We are excited that you are considering partnering with us at Sweeter Song Farm to help make these kinds of things happen.

If you would like to do a little farm work, we could always use a little help with some of the chores. Compensation for helping out includes some extra veggies, good company, ice tea, lunch, and wonderful sunshine. We plan on having workbees on occasional Saturdays. We are also looking for folks who would be willing to take on small jobs that they could attend to on a regular basis on their own schedule. If you have a morning or afternoon at any time, and you would like to come and help, let us know and we will schedule some important task for you. We can also use help in the greenhouse during potting-up, and in May for transplanting into the fields. These can be real work bottlenecks for us.

We hope you will consider joining us this year. A share contract can be down loaded from this page, so you can respond if you are ready. If you have any questions, ideas, comments, or requests, please contact us by phone, or by e-mail at Sweeter Song Farm

Your farmer friends,


Judy Reinhardt and Jim Schwantes