Eastie Farm CSA 2026

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. CSA is a subscription to a farm’s harvest throughout the growing season, also widely known as a farm share.

When you subscribe to our CSA, you receive a bag full of local produce and other goods. The Eastie Farm team procures local goods, packs the shares, and distributes them at many locations and times throughout the week. In other words, we do everything for you- all you have to do is pick up your bag and enjoy the farm-fresh goods!

The shares are locally-sourced, packed in a geothermal greenhouse, and delivered in an electric van, reducing your food’s carbon footprint.

Not only that, but you will receive an email with information about what’s in your share, what local producer it’s from, event invitations, recipe ideas, nutrition information, and storage tips to make the most of your produce. If you’re receiving something unique in your bag, we’ll teach you about what it is and what to do with it.

You’re also joining a community. With a CSA subscription, you are invited to our CSA events that have ranged from cooking workshops to supper clubs to farm tours.

You get some flexibility with our swap box, which allows you to exchange an item that you may not like for a preferred one.

Another element of this community is our Eastie Farm CSA member Facebook page. Here, CSA members share cooking tips, pictures of meals they’ve made, and connect with the CSA community.

Oh, and did we mention you get to keep a reusable Eastie Farm cooler bag at the end of the season?

• You receive high-quality produce and other items throughout the growing season
• Most of the produce is harvested just a few days before you receive it, making the freshness unbeatable. Say goodbye to plastic-wrapped green beans that go bad 2 days after you buy them from the supermarket.
• You know where your food is coming from. You learn about the local farms who are producing your food and you can learn about their farming practices.
• Farmers have a reliable market for their crops. This is not always the case. Plus, farmers don’t have to worry about marketing during the growing season, which takes time away from farming.
• You learn about seasonality (when certain fruits and vegetables are in season).
• The environmental impact of your groceries is lowered by supporting local farms. Additionally, you cut down on food packaging and support an environmentally-focused non-profit supporting other sustainability-driven farmers.
• You’re supporting the local economy, helping to preserve MA farmland, and supporting Eastie Farm, community-based non-profit instead of buying groceries at a big box grocery store.

Our CSA is different than a traditional CSA model. Traditionally, a single farm grows produce for their customers. Instead, Eastie Farm sources produce from over 40 farms in Massachusetts to provide CSA subscribers with the best produce available. Our CSA adopts a more resilient model because we don’t just rely on one farm to succeed. Individual farms can struggle with flooding or other extreme weather events, pest problems, quality concerns, labor shortages… the list goes on. By supporting dozens of farms, we don’t put all our eggs in one basket. Additionally, we financially support more farms in Massachusetts, making the local food system stronger and helping to maintain competition in the market (this is a good thing!)

We are also an urban farm and a community-based non-profit. Eastie Farm’s mission is to pursue climate justice, food security, and build an equitable food system. Our CSA is a large part of that mission. We offer a tiered pricing system to make local, healthy food more accessible. We accept SNAP and we are a HIP vendor, which means SNAP CSA subscribers receive money back on their SNAP cards when they purchase our CSA every month. If you’re able to support our CSA through our Helping Hand share, you help cover the cost of a CSA for someone who is purchasing a discounted share at the price that they can afford.

East Boston is a food desert. Food deserts are geographic areas where residents live more than one mile away from a supermarket in an urban area. The goal of our CSA is to increase access to healthy food in East Boston. Urban CSA’s are not as common.

Subscribing to our CSA means you’re voting with your food dollars. Support our mission and join our CSA community!

Share sizes will typically range between 10-20lbs. We usually include 5-8 different produce items. Below is what a typical CSA bag includes (note: produce will vary seasonally)

1 fruit, 1-2 root vegetables, 1 bunch of leafy greens, plus additional items such as mushrooms, eggs, microgreens, and value-added items like honey.

We partner with farms that practice sustainable growing methods. Some farms are organic, while others use sustainable growing practices without having the organic certification. For example, most farms we partner with don’t use any pesticides and practice minimal tilling. The organic certification is expensive, it can take years to become eligible, and it requires a lot of documentation. This makes organic certification a barrier for many farmers who are already so busy farming. Long story short, some farms are organic in practice, but not on paper. Others practice some organic growing methods, but not all of them.

To allow for some flexibility in the contents of your share, we offer a swap box. Swap boxes contain extra produce or produce we harvest from Eastie Farm’s sites. If you don’t like something in your bag, swap it out for anything in the swap box.

No, there is one size for our CSA share. If a weekly CSA sounds like too much for you, we recommend our split CSA share. This is a perfect option for those with smaller households or if you don’t eat a lot of vegetables.
With a split share, you pick up a bag every other week for 12 weeks. For smaller households, splitting the share will allow you to enjoy the food over two weeks and eliminate food waste.
Another option is to split a full season share with a roommate, neighbor family member, or friend. That way, you have more flexibility and can share amongst yourselves. If you can’t pick up on your week, maybe your friend can. If you don’t like strawberries, maybe your friend does and you get the watermelon next week. Bring the meaning of Community Supported Agriculture to another level!

On the first pickup day, you will receive your share in a reusable grocery cooler bag. The next week, you will bring your empty bag back to trade for a full one. For the rest of the season, you will alternate bags in the same way. At the end of the season, you get to keep one of the Eastie Farm reusable bags.

We want to minimize waste by only ordering the amount of bags that we will need for the season; if you are unable to return your share, we will provide you with a disposible bag to transfer the contents. You can also pack the food into your own bags if you prefer.

See the Pick-Up Schedule above

Additional locations and times may be added.

See the Pick-Up Schedule above

Additional locations and times may be added.

If you know in advance that you are unable to pick up your share on your designated pickup day, fill out the form provided on the weekly email. We can likely arrange for you to pick up at an alternative location or pickup time.

If you will be out of town, please give us a week’s advanced notice.

Shares that are not picked up in Winthrop may be donated to a local Winthrop-based food insecurity charity: Mi Amore. Shares in East Boston may be redistributed or may be donated to East Boston residents in need.

Yes, friends or family members can pick up your share for you. They simply show up at your designated pickup time and tell us they’re picking up for you. Make sure that they know the name that the CSA subscription is under.

By subscribing to our CSA, you are committing to your share. There are many ways to circumvent long periods of absence:

• Purchase a share with a friend or family member who can pick up on the weeks that you’re not around
• Purchase a split share, where you pick up every other week. Ask a friend or family member to pick up when you’re unable
• If you know in advance, you may be able to double up on the week prior to your absence
• In 2026, we will be offering an option to purchase the second half of the season’s shares (late August until mid-November). Please email csa@eastiefarm.com if this is of interest to you.
• Allow for the bag to be redistributed according to Eastie Farm’s discretion
• Request for the bag(s) to be donated

We understand that sometimes it’s hard to remember your bag. If you do not return your bag, we will give you a disposable bag to transfer the contents.
If you forget to return the bags on a regular basis, we recommend that you bring your own bag instead.
If a bag is faulty (broken strap, zipper falls off, etc.), bring it to us and we are happy to replace it at no charge.

In 2025, we will deliver to addresses with bulk orders. If 15 people in your building/organization order weekly shares, we can provide delivery to your building/office lobby.

If you are interested in hosting the pickup location for 15 of your neighbors or friends, we could deliver to you.

Deliveries outside of East Boston or that require on site staffing may incur a fee.

If you would like to request individual delivery, email us at csa@eastiefarm.com. We will consider the request.

Short answer: $20/week, $49/week, or $55/week for 12, 13, or 25 weeks.

Long answer: We offer a tiered pricing system, in alignment with our food equity mission. This means that you pay what you can afford. As a community-centered organization, we trust that you’re selecting the appropriate tier for what you can afford. More guidance on tier selection can be found here. The price of our CSA ranges from $20 to $55/week. You will select your price point when you purchase your CSA.

If you’re able, we appreciate if you pay for the entire season up-front. Otherwise, you may pay monthly. If you have SNAP, you will pay monthly and the money will be automatically taken from your account. Because you’re spending money on local, healthy food, SNAP will give you money back on your card. This is part of the Healthy Incentives Program, or HIP. See below for details.

To purchase with SNAP, you will fill out a form online that Eastie Farm can provide you. This is an agreement that you agree to pay a given amount each month for a CSA. If you have SNAP, you also have HIP. HIP is the Healthy Incentives Program. Buying local produce, including our CSA, puts money back into your account. Learn more about HIP here. En español. If you are buying your CSA share to also use HIP, your share will not contain eggs. If you’d like to purchase a share with eggs, or have any other questions related to SNAP, reach out to us at csa@eastiefarm.com.

No. All CSA bags have the same contents, no matter what price you pay. Helping Hand shares receive the same amount of food as free shares, for example.

Free shares are very limited and are reserved for East Boston residents who are experiencing acute food insecurity. To be considered for a free share, you must fill out this questionnaire and you may be selected.

We do not offer refunds for weeks when you are unable to pick up your CSA share. You are buying into a Community Supported Agriculture system, which means you’ve committed to an entire season of support for local farmers. See “What happens if I can’t pick up my share?” for solutions.

Check out the green bottle infographic above the FAQ’s.

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