Dear Farm Supporters,
We hope your year is off to a great start!  2010 has already proven to be a busy year for us as we have been diligently making improvements on the farm and upgrading our packing facilities in anticipation of spring.  We’ve got an exciting line-up of produce planned for the Spring/Summer season, and we can hardly wait for the first signs of warmer weather.

As a part of our winter efforts, we have been adding new drop sites throughout our distribution area.  We are pleased to announce the addition of the following public sites:  Woodley’s Garden Center in Irmo and Columbia, The Plant Depot in Orangeburg, and Whole Foods Market and I’On Health in Mt. Pleasant.  Several of our drop sites are close to filling up, so if you have not yet made your reservation for spring, now is the time to do so!

In signing up, you will notice that we have made a few changes to our website.  Many of our members had issues with the Paypal payment system, so we are now accepting credit cards directly on our site.  We hope this will improve your online ordering experience!  There will be many more changes to come including a Recipes section and an enhanced Community area in which we hope to bring you all together with the latest news, photos, and events on the farm.

We are also happy to announce that Pinckney’s Produce is now on Facebook.  Be sure to “Become a Fan” of our farm, so you can receive regular updates as they occur.  We hope you will use this outlet to talk to one another, share recipes, and offer feedback about your experience.

Speaking of feedback, we will be sending out our very first farm survey in the next few days. If you were a subscriber to either of our 2009 harvest seasons, we invite you to participate!  As a special treat, we will draw the names of two lucky participants who complete the survey, and they will win a FREE small share for the Spring/Summer 2010 season.  This drawing is retroactive, so if the winners have already signed up for our next season, we will send them a $170 credit.

In closing, I’d like to mention that we will be participating in the Southeastern Wildlife Expo next weekend in Charleston as a part of the SC Department of Agriculture exhibit.  If you are in the area, please come say hello!  We’d love to meet you.

Once again, thanks for being a supporter of Pinckney’s Produce.  We’ll be in touch again soon with the latest from the farm.

Regards,

Jody

Greetings Farm Friends!

We hope you all had a happy and delicious Thanksgiving.  Pinckney and I took a much-needed day off from the farm to relax with our families and enjoy a day long feast of traditional Turkey Day fare.

It’s hard to believe that our last delivery was a little over a week ago.  Since that time, we have already jumped into planning for our Spring/Summer 2010 season: plotting out the new field layouts, estimating crop percentages, and recruiting new drop sites. We have even begun planting some of our earlier Spring crops such as sweet onions. The work never ends, but that’s what we love about our CSA!

As mentioned, our website is now ready to accept new Spring/Summer subscriptions for 2010.  Click here to be directed to the new sign up page! While it may seem early, we need all the head-start we can get in planning, especially when it comes time to order seeds!

We have made a few changes to the program for 2010 that I’d like to share with you.  First, we have renamed our shares to more accurately portray the volumes of the boxes and the number of people for which they are best suited. In signing up, please note that the Family, Small, and Single shares of last year have been renamed (respectively) Extra Large, Large, and Medium shares for 2010. In addition, we have added a new, premium share for individual subscribers. We feel like this will be a welcome and popular addition to our offering. Please contact our office at 803-492-3521 or email info@pinckneysproduce.com if you have need any help with your order.

In addition to the changes in shares, we found it necessary to institute a delivery surcharge for certain drop sites, so that we can improve and maintain our convenient delivery services.  This fee will amount to a $12 delivery charge per season to areas more than 35 miles from our farm and a $24 charge per season to areas more than 70 miles from the farm. These fees break down to between 1 and 2 dollars per delivery week and will go towards the cost of fuel, drivers, insurance, and perhaps even an additional delivery truck.

In the next few weeks, we will be sending out a 2009 member feedback survey to all of you.  We hope that you’ll take the time to give us your thoughts on a variety of topics from the quality of our produce to your favorite and least favorite vegetables. Your feedback is invaluable to us, and we will use it to continue to improve our programs and your overall member experience as a part of our farm family.

Thanks again for being a part of our farm family.  Our first year as a CSA was a great challenge, and we learned much from it. We truly appreciate your support, and we look forward to delivering high quality, fresh, local produce to you next Spring!

All the best,

Jody