In today’s world, there’s a lot of focus on buying local, going green and supporting the “little guys” in society. Concord, in particular, is big on this idea, as it’s home to so many small and local businesses and people who support them steadfastly.
Concord is therefore a big player in community-supported agriculture, and we checked out two CSAs that have pickup sites here in the city.
Local Harvest CSA
Local Harvest CSA has a pickup site at Unitarian Universalist Church on Pleasant Street. Pickups are every Wednesday from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Local Harvest gathers and distributes products from six New Hampshire farms: Kearsarge Gore Farm in Warner, Blue Ox Farm in Enfield, Good Earth Farm in Weare, Middle Branch Farm in New Boston, The Vegetable Ranch in Warner and Stoneridge Farm in Bradford.
How it works is you sign up for a share by season, pay in advance and show up each week to pick up your stuff.
We talked a lot about Local Harvest CSA not too long ago, so let’s find out about the other operation in town.
Brookford Farm CSA
At the Brookford Farm CSA, it’s all in-house stuff.
“We do all of our own products – meat, produce and dairy,” said Hillary Bailey, outreach coordinator for Brookford Farm.
The farm is in Canterbury and sports about 35 acres of organic vegetables and about 70 grass-fed dairy cows. There are also pasture-raised pigs and poultry – and everything on the farm is organic.
If Canterbury is a little far for you, don’t worry, there’s a CSA pickup site in Concord. It happens to be somebody’s home – Scott and Laura Morrison’s, to be exact, on Jordan Avenue.
The Morrisons volunteered to use their house as a pickup site because they’re close to several CSA members who live in the area and it makes for a nice central location.
“We started hosting in May, and we really haven’t had any problems,” Scott said.
Pickups are Thursday evenings from 6 to 8, and the Morrisons set everything up on their porch. There are some coolers in there for things like dairy and cheese, and the house is also a drop-off site for glass milk bottles.
Brookford Farm CSA runs all year, so there’s no need to be sad when the end of fall approaches.
To join, go to BrookfordFarm.com/register. Prices vary depending on how many weeks of the season are left. Call 742-4084 for more info.
