2024 Season Info
Join Newark’s Freshest: CSA Newark
The 2024 Season:
Season
Our season runs for 24 weeks, from June to November.
First pick-up anticipated for June 12th - TBC.
To sign up, first register here, then we will email you payment options, after payment you are set for the season.
Pick-Up
Every Wednesday during our 24 week season.
Core pickup time is 4pm to 7pm. Early pickup is possible, late pickup is no problem at all.
CSA Newark has two pick-up locations: one in the Ironbound, one in Forest Hill- details HERE.
Circle Brook Farm provides CSA shares on other days to other locations in NJ and Staten Island NY - find our sister locations HERE.
Share Options
All veggie shares for the Newark pick-up site will be pre-bagged on the farm.
Most of our sister-locations offer the amazing veggies from Circle Brook Farm in a not pre-packed form, which saves $75 for the season - find those locations here.
All veggies (and melons) in the veggie share are certified organic and grown at Circle Brook Farm in Andover, NJ. We offer three different sizes of the veggie share.
In addition, we offer an egg share, a fruit share, a mushroom share and a flower share as optional add-ons.
We offer 3 pre-packed share sizes in the 2024 season:
The Pre-Packed
Premium Share
$1,115* ($46.46/week)
*Price includes cost of pre-packing (material and labor)
aka: Full share
Share will contain, on average, 10-12 items and a larger quantity of most of the items in the basic share. Over the course of the season the Premium share will in addition include various less common vegetables, such as escarole, radicchio, fennel and frissee, not found in the Basic or Medium share.
Share price includes the cost of bagging.
The Pre-Packed
Basic Share
$935* ($38.96/week)
*Price includes cost of pre-packing (material and labor).
aka: 3/4 share
Share will contain, on average, 9-10 items. It will be approximately 80% the size of the Premium share.
Share price includes the cost of bagging.
The Pre-Packed
Medium Share
$690* ($28.75/week)
*Price includes cost of pre-packing (material and labor).
aka: 1/2 share
Share will contain, on average 9-10 items and half of the quantity of many of the items in the premium share.
Share price includes the cost of bagging.
Plenty of veggies for singles or couples that eat an average amount of veggies.
A note from John:
We will again offer a 24-week farm share program for the 2024 season. We anticipate beginning deliveries during the week of June 9th. The final delivery will be during the week of November 17th.
Labor costs, our single largest expense, will increase by 5% for the 2024 season. For this reason, a small increase in share prices is necessary to maintain already slim margins and keep the farm profitable. I believe that the CSA program will continue to be an excellent value and I appreciate your understanding.
Farmer John
CSA Veggies are seasonal, and thus, the size of the shares as well as items included vary throughout the season. Generally speaking, shares are generous and varied, with the exception of the first two weeks, which are typically smaller than typical shares throughout the season and are also quite heavy on leafy greens. You can read examples of the items in the shares throughout a (prior) season from our sister site in Bloomfield/Montclair (different pick-up location, but same farm providing the shares) here.
We currently offer only pre-bagged shares at the Newark pick-up location. The additional cost for pre-packing on the farm (material and labor) is included in our listed prices. Other pick-up locations for Circle Brook Farm veggies (in Montclair, Bloomfield, Hopewell etc) continue to offer members to pick and pack their own share at the pick-up locations, which saves the pre-packing cost. Find a map and list of our sister locations here.
CSA Newark 2024 /Beyond Veggies
(Optional add-on shares)
Add-on shares (Eggs, Fruit, Mushrooms or Flowers) are only available to CSA members. Purchasing a veggie share makes one a CSA member for the season.
Egg Shares
Birds are free range and are on pasture for 8 months of the year. They are not certified organic and there is soy in their feed.
The egg share runs parallel to the veggie share, so it is 24 consecutive weeks.
Egg Share: 1 dozen/week: $135 ($5.63 per dz/per wk)
Egg Share: 2 dozen/week: $250 ($5.21 per dz/per wk)
Egg Share: 3 dozen/week: $360 ($5.00 per dz/per wk)
Egg Share: 4 dozen/week: $480 ($5.00 per dz/per wk)
Please note: egg shares are available to members only - purchasing a veggie share makes you a member.
Fruit Share
Fruit is not grown by John Krueger at Circle Brook Farm like all the veggies, but instead sourced from other small farms in NJ or NY (Hudson Valley) - see Fruit Share details below for details and exceptions.
The fruit share runs shorter than the veggie season:
Fruit Share, 14 weeks (non-consecutive): $250
(=$17.86 per week).
Two types of fruit each week, averaging 5-7 lbs./ week
Fruit Share Details
Locally sourced fruit to the greatest extent possible. Some local fruit may be organic, most will be eco-grown. This means organic methods are followed as much as possible, but some spray materials which are prohibited for organic production are used, primarily early in the season. It is very difficult to grow organic tree fruit on the east coast due to the high humidity (fungal diseases) and one particular pest (plum curculio). Eco-grown fruit is monitored and tested for pesticide residues. In the event of crop failures on local orchards we will source only organic fruit from non-local US sources (west coast- CA, WA) Fruit will likely include: blueberries, strawberries, cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines, pluots, hardy kiwi, apples and pears. There is no guarantee that all these items will be available in a given year. Shares which include higher value fruit- strawberries, blueberries, cherries and hardy kiwi will have lower total weight. The fruit for the final 5 or 6 weeks of the season will be primarily different varieties of apples and pears.
New since the 2023 Season: Mushrooms and Flowers!
Mushroom Share
Joe Aochoa is the owner/operator of Innoculated LLC. His company produces certified organic Exotic mushrooms in Fairfield NJ. We are pleased to partner with Joe, to provide members with a weekly mushroom share. Each week you will receive a half lb. box with an assortment of different culinary mushrooms. Varieties will include Blue, Green, or Yellow Oyster mushrooms, Lion’s Mane, Black Trumpet, Pioppino, and Shiitake.
The Mushroom Share runs in parallel to the veggie share:
Mushroom Share, 24 weeks: $240
(=$10 per week)
Flower Share
John and his team at Circle Brook Farm grows a large assortment of ornamental flowers. These are sold at Farmer’s markets for $12-15/bouquet. This year John will offer a flower share to the CSA members. Beginning in July and ending in October, 10 flower shares will be delivered as availability allows, there will be some consecutive weeks and some pauses.
Varieties will include: Snapdragons, Lisianthus, Sunflowers, and mixed bouquets featuring Zinnias, Cosmos, Celosias and other beautiful blooms.
Brighten up your Day!
Flower Share, 10 weeks (non-consecutive): $100
(=$10 per week)
What we require of our members (to make it all happen):
Share Purchase
Members purchase the share in advance of the season so the farmer has money available to pay wages, purchase seeds, or repair equipment. 100% of the money for the share goes to the farm and thus, checks for the veggie (and egg and fruit) share should be made out to:
Circle Brook Farm
You can also pay the farmer directly via Venmo - we will sent details after you registered.
Site Fee
The organizer’s (all volunteers) of the pick-up location (CSA Newark) are asking for a site fee of $20 for the season, to cover our expenses. This is independent from the share and covers our costs at the site and for our web presence. Please do not add this amount to the payment to the farm!
Volunteering
We are looking for volunteers to drive the veggies from the Ironbound site to the Forest Hill site. If you are able to do this once this season, it would be a great help. However, not everyone has a car or the flexibility to make it happen on a Wednesday between noon (when veggie arrive in the Ironbound) and 4pm (when we start pick-ups in Forest Hill). We get that.
If you can help out, please do.
Also: we always hope you will help us spread the word on CSA Newark or on CSA’s in general - please talk to your friends and neighbors!
If you are interested in writing a Blog or Instagram posts for the CSA - we always welcome this kind of help!
If this works for you and you want IN on the 2024 seasons, these are the steps:
register HERE
submit payment to the farm + submit the receipt to CSA Newark (you will receive details on payment options by check or Venmo)
receive an email from CSA Newark with site-fee payment details and details on the pick-ups
get inspired. Get cooking!
Sample Share
Sample of a CSA share provided by John Krueger’s farm - from week 21 of a prior year:
Buttercup (kabocha) squash, kohlrabi, two pounds of white potatoes, purple daikon, rainbow carrots, green beans, leeks, spinach, baby bok choy, arugula, red romaine, and cilantro. Gala and Spencer (a cross of Macintosh and Yellow Delicious) apples for the fruit share.
The photo is from our sister CSA: Bloomfield-Montclair CSA (same amazing farmer providing the shares, but different pick-up location)