Fresh out of the box

In early July, when the first tomatoes, peas, arugula and strawberries turn ripe on Tam Andersen's farm, they also quickly show up on the kitchen tables of some St. Albert residents.

One of them is Cheryl Lehan. Instead of buying at her local grocery store, she goes to Prairie Gardens and Adventure Farm near Bon Accord, and uses their community supported agriculture program to get fresh, local and mostly organic food.

She and her partner started using the farm-to-door delivery service because they "didn't like the way that things are looking," she says.

By that, she means the taste and origin of store-bought produce.

"We just wanted to have more control over the food that we were eating and where we were getting it from," she says.

Now Lehan heads out to the farm three to four times a month to help out in the gardens, pick up some planting tips and bring home a box of produce.

It's a system for food-conscious people who want to know where their food is coming from and want to eat produce that is mostly free of preservatives and pesticides – food that would make them feel healthier, she says.

Prairie Gardens is one of several farms in the area that provide community supported agriculture, known as CSA.

Others include Riverbend Gardens, 30 minutes east of the city, and The Organic Box, an Edmonton-based delivery service.

Every week, each company posts a list of available produce on its website. Customers order what's available, often with an option to add additional products such as milk, cheese, eggs, or meat from collaborating farms and businesses in the area.

The services then take the orders, spend a day or two gathering the goods, pack their boxes and deliver them to one or numerous pickup locations, or a person's home.

Economic stability

Prairie Gardens has existed for nearly 30 years. The farm grows more than 10 acres of produce, you-pick strawberries and pumpkins. The community program is still new to them – Andersen says she's now in her third year – but it allows her to plan ahead.

A typical Alberta farm needs about 3,000 acres of land to be feasible. Andersen has 35. She had to find other means to generate revenue, she says.

Rather than taking her produce to a farmers' market where some things may not get sold, she can take stock of how many people order with her, and then plant accordingly.

This eliminates waste.

"And added to that, when you are a farmer it's nice to have an income in March when you have nothing in your field," she says.

A full share at Prairie Gardens costs $650, and feeds a family of four for 16 weeks, starting the first week of July and ending on Thanksgiving. A half share membership for couples costs $350.

That comes down to about $1.45 a day per person. Depending on the time of the year, baskets include everything from tomatoes, rhubarb, and potatoes, to squash, beets, corn and pumpkins.

Early in the season, Andersen grows some of her produce in a greenhouse. That way, she can fill the first baskets with fresh tomatoes, onions and herbs, or exotic fruits and edible flowers, such as South African cherries and violas.

She can also grow komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach) and bok choy (Chinese cabbage) in her garden, which make for a nicer variety in the spring, she says.

"We've come to know that it is easy to grow vegetables in August and September but it's a little harder to come up with a nice basket for the first of July," she says. "So we've been testing the boundaries of what we can do, and what we can't do."

It's about the farmer

As a smaller farm business, creating a direct relationship with your customers is important, says Janelle Herbert of Riverbend Gardens.

The family-run business has grown vegetables for 50 years and started its community shared program three years ago.

Delivery starts in July and runs for 15 weeks. A family box costs $395 (a couple's box is $320) and usually comes with five to seven items per week.

The farm also works in collaboration with different businesses in the area, such as D'Arcy's Meat Market, where they leave their boxes for pickup. In return, those businesses get more customers that day, she says.

"Looking for farm direct sales, it's sometimes tricky reaching the customers that are just used to buying everything at the grocery store," she says. "So we are tapping into that mainstream market."

But the program does more than that, she says.

It also advocates for the smaller, local growers who would not be able to survive otherwise. In return, people spend their money locally, which keeps it in the community longer.

"What we advocate is that you know your farmer and know where your food comes from so that you have direct contact," she says. "So they can ask lots of questions and we ask for a lot of feedback."

All organic or nothing

The Organic Box has taken a larger scale and a production line approach to the concept of local food delivery.

The business also emphasizes organic, sustainable and locally-grown food, but owner Danny Turner has expanded his "local" radius to farms in British Columbia, the United States, Mexico and South America.

The Box offers fruit and vegetables combined with a choice of add-on items year-round. These include grass-fed and organic meats, eggs, milk, yogurt, breads and even cooking sauces, wheat and tea. Everything's organic, he says.

"Ultimately, it was about making the market for the organic growers in Alberta," he says. "I knew the market was there. I knew the growers were there. We just had trouble stitching it all together."

Turner and his wife Miranda are apple and cherry farmers from British Columbia. They moved to Edmonton in 2007 and started their delivery business three years later.

Since then, they've grown their customer base from 40 to 4,000 people, employ 55 staff and own a fleet of 10 cars to carry their boxes to people's homes in and around the Edmonton region.

Memberships usually run for 13 weeks, and cost $715 ($494 for a couple).

For Turner, selling organic is a choice of knowing what's in your food and where it comes from. He believes it's healthier to go fully organic, although he admits the research is still divided on that.

He also believes in putting the farmer first. That means his produce may not always be cheaper than store-bought products, but it will support local industries, he says.

"I don't want to compete with price, ever, because I want to build a food system which ensures that the people in it are able to survive," he says. "What we do, we take the cost of production, we add the margin that people need to live, and that's our price."

While he will only sell what is in season, he did have to merge "reality with local," he says.

That means his boxes always include bananas because families want them, he says. They import them from Peru.

But other items, such as apples, are not in season year-round and will run out for two to three months, he says. That's because they still try to provide most of their produce from the region, he says.

"And when I say here, I mean Alberta and B.C.," he says. "Let's be honest, I am an apple and cherry farmer from B.C. and you can't get apples and cherries grown in Edmonton in any quantity."

It takes (some) commitment

Andersen and Herbert are not registered as organic farmers but they grow all their produce quite naturally, meaning without the use of mainstream chemicals or insecticides.

Becoming certified organic is also costly, they say.

"But we are local, and I think local is almost as important nowadays as organic because you know it's healthy and you know it's fresh," says Andersen.

Whereas The Organic Box delivers directly to someone's home, the farm-run programs are not cut out for everyone, she adds.

There's a certain commitment that's expected from the people signing up. That can include time (voluntarily) spent at the farm helping with or just learning about the planting and picking process.

And because these are smaller businesses, it also means that customers have to be at a specific pickup location in Edmonton once a week to get their basket, or show up at the farm on Saturdays, she says.

Otherwise, the produce goes to a local restaurant, or the food bank.

"It's a two-hour commitment," she says. "That's one of the toughest things for people to come to grips with because we are so used to convenience."

For Cheryl Lehan, none of that should really concern anyone.

People often ask if using locally grown produce takes more time to manage. But unless you eat Kraft dinner every day, you are still cooking and preparing food every day, she says.

"And I don't see the difference really between having to walk up aisles in the grocery store and going to Tam's and picking up a basket," she says. "It's just that I know what's in it."