Join our 2024 Flower CSA
To sign up, visit our online shop…
New to flower CSA’s? Read our Q & A section below.
Summer CSA
Enjoy the bounty of our short Vermont growing season with a beautiful fresh bouquet of vibrant summer blooms! Each week you’ll receive a luscious bouquet full of different specialty blooms in season. Bouquets come wrapped in a recyclable brown paper sleeve for you to carry home. Exact pick-up dates, location and time will be confirmed before the season starts.
Giving the CSA as a gift? Add the item to your cart then enter the recipients’ info in the required form that pops up.
~What you’ll receive: 1 hearty bouquet/week
~Duration: 6 weeks
~Dates: July 3-August 7
~Pick-up day/time: Wednesdays 12-8 pm
~Location: 12 Pearl Street, Montpelier Vermont
Autumn CSA
Celebrate leaf peeping season with a bountiful bouquet of gorgeous autumnal blooms! Each week leading up to frost you’ll receive a beautiful fresh bouquet teeming with unique fall blooms, ornamental grasses, grains and pods. Fresh bouquets include many flowers you can dry at home! After frost comes, you’ll receive a weekly dried flower surprise (everlasting bouquet, dried floral decorations, etc) for the rest of the CSA season. Bouquets come wrapped in a recyclable brown paper sleeve.
Giving the CSA as a gift? Add the item to your cart then enter the recipients’ info in the required form that pops up.
~What you’ll receive: 1 hearty bouquet/week
~Duration: 6 weeks
~Dates: September 4-October 9
~Pick-up day/time: Wednesdays 12-8 pm
~Location: 12 Pearl Street, Montpelier Vermont
Flower CSA Question & Answers
Q: What exactly is a CSA? How is a flower CSA different than a veggie CSA?
A: CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Members support a local farm by pre-paying ahead of time for a portion of the farms’ produce, which gets distributed to members regularly throughout the season. The CSA model provides farmers much needed cash flow in the lean time of the year when expenses are high and income is low. Most veggie farms provide CSA members with a box of fresh veggies every week. The Old Time Flowers CSA provides members with a bouquet of flowers every week throughout the Summer and Fall.
Q: Can I give the CSA share as a gift?
A: Absolutely! CSA shares make great gifts and many of our members have joined because they were gifted a share. The best way to give the CSA as a gift is to buy the CSA through our online shop and enter the recipients’ info into the required form that pops up. We will confirm with you that we got your order, contact the recipient and let them know they received the CSA share as a gift. We’ll tell them all about the CSA pick-up details and add them to our weekly newsletter list. Easy!
Q: Is the flower CSA a good fit for me and my schedule?
A: We hope so! The CSA pick-up dates, time and location are the same every week and are posted well in advance. This helps folks decide if they’ll be able to make it to all (or most) of the CSA pick-ups. We also communicate with members via a weekly email, send reminders and recommend you put the CSA pick-ups on your calendar at the start of the season. If you have a very busy schedule (work, kids, school, travel, etc), it might be hard to fit our weekly CSA pick up into your life and is probably not a great fit. If you totally love local flowers but just can’t commit to the weekly CSA, please contact us to place an occasional special order for delivery or pick-up.
Q: What is required of me as a CSA member?
A: CSA members are expected to read the very short weekly email reminders to keep up to date on any changes with the CSA pick-ups. When you sign up for the CSA we add you to our e-newsletter list too. The newsletter goes out to all customers ~ once or twice/month throughout the season and is a more in-depth update about farm goings on, gardening tips to use at home, and lots of pretty photos. You’re not required to read the newsletter but it’s a fun way to stay connected to what’s happening on the farm.
Part of being a CSA member is sharing in the ebbs and flows of the growing season with your farmer. Some weeks the bouquets will be a bit smaller, some weeks larger, depending on how productive the farm is. Sometimes unexpected events happen—like a massive flood!—and we do our very best to roll with the punches and get your flowers to you every week. In these emergency cases we notify members as quickly as possible via email and change the CSA pick-up details for that week. If for some rare reason we have to cancel a week, we tag on a make-up week at the end of the CSA season.
Q: What happens if I miss a CSA pick-up day or can’t make it one week? Can you deliver or make other pick-up arrangements for me?
A: Don’t worry, it happens! If you can’t make it to the regularly scheduled CSA pick-up day, we will leave your flowers out for you the following day at the pick-up site. You’re welcome to swing by and grab them during the missed pick-up window that day. Any flowers left at the end of that day will be donated. You are also welcome to send a friend or family member to pick up your bouquet if you can’t make it yourself. Unfortunately we can’t offer pro-rated CSA shares where you choose what dates you want. We’re incredibly busy farming and we just don’t have time to deliver missed CSA shares or make alternative pick up arrangements. We leave it up to members to take responsibility for picking up their CSA every week.
Q: Are local flowers really worth spending money on every week? I can just get cheaper flowers at the grocery store…
A: Local flowers are totally worth it in so many ways! As farmers, we work crazy hard to grow these beautiful blooms that bring joy and support peoples’ mental well-being, which is essential to living a good life. Our flowers are incredibly fresh—typically harvested the day before getting to you—and are grown organically on our small farm, contributing to a healthy local ecosystem. They have a minimal environmental footprint, traveling just a few miles from our farm to your home. Most grocery store flowers are grown and processed in other countries using loads of nasty chemicals on big industrial farms, which is why they’re cheaper. These flowers travel thousands of miles to reach you and are typically over a week old by the time they arrive.
As our climate and times change in the world, we’re excited to be part of a sustainable working landscape and local economy by creating a healthy, more resilient future for all. Having support from CSA members who share our vision inspires us keep growing flowers for our community!
Q: I can’t afford to buy a CSA share, but I would love to! Are there are any options for bartering or doing work-trade for a share?
A: We get it, our flowers aren’t cheap. Yes, we reserve one CSA share per season for members who want to barter or do a work-trade on the farm. We want to make flowers accessible to everyone regardless of barriers. If you’re interested in this option, please get in touch—we’re open to all sorts of creative arrangements!
