Summer Season (Changes) Ahead

Summer will be here before we know it and with it will come some changes here at the CSA. Some of those changes will be the regular shift in season as we move out of leafy greens and into melons, cucumbers, and other ripe summer produce. Other changes have been a few years in the making and you might not even notice so we want to take the time to give you the “behind the bag” scene here at Tucson CSA.

First things first: summer break (NO CSA pick-ups) will be from June 15 – July 14

Yes, that is a longer break than we have ever taken in the summer, but some of those changes we are here to tell you about are the reasons for that longer break.

We have been fortunate enough to work with Farmer Frank of Crooked Sky Farms since our humble beginnings. Please read more about his history and our long-term relationship. His farmland in Phoenix and Duncan, Arizona allowed Frank to farm year-round. As Frank has gotten older, his health conditions have kept him away from his own fields more than he would have liked. We have been slowly reducing the number of items we receive from them over the past several years as a way to make both TCSA and CSF sustainable, and at the same time developing, investing in, and working with a wider variety of smaller farmers to make up that difference.

You may have noticed produce in your weekly shares from New Roots Farmers, and more recently from Arevalos Farm and Double Adobe Farm, among others. We have been making these intentional efforts, all of which have been consistently and compassionately communicated with Frank and all of our farmers, as a way to continue to have a future for TCSA amidst a widely aging farmer population across the country. Many of our newer farmers are younger, and are choosing to do things on a smaller, more manageable scale for them. Some are also choosing NOT to farm during the hottest (and getting hotter!) summer months.

This means that there will be larger gaps in time in between seasons for our different and newer farms that we are working to manage. As has been agreed upon with Frank and his crew at CSF, we will be ending our weekly ordering from them in June 2025 with the start of our summer break. We are taking those 4 weeks off as this will be the hardest of the weeks during the summer for us to source enough local produce to fill shares. With a few of our farms at different altitudes and growing different items, we hope to capture the bounty of summer again when we come back from break on July 15th and throughout the following months.

We want to take this time to HONOR AND THANK Farmer Frank and his crew at Crooked Sky Farms for over 20 years of working with Tucson CSA! Before the summer break we will have cards for folks to sign to share our gratitude for their contributions over the years. Tucson CSA would not be what it is today without the tireless work of Farmer Frank and CSF. It is time to invest more in our next generations of farmers and the future sustainability of Tucson CSA.