Community Share Agreement

Updated December 28, 2025

Welcome! We love to share our vision to preserve and enjoy the diversity of apples with sustainable farming. You can be an invaluable part of this commitment through Community Shared Agriculture, or CSA. (You can read more about CSA at Local Harvest.) We work hard to cultivate and curate apples for your family and ours, and in return, we need you to commit to us! Please read this community share agreement fully, as it requires you to indicate your agreement before purchasing shares.

To be able to buy CSA products (“shares”), you’ll need to register for an account and agree to these terms. This allows us to keep you informed about the availability and delivery of shares.

Risk and Reward

Shared risk and shared reward are at the heart of community shared agriculture. As a subscriber, you are helping to preserve our apple heritage and diversity for our community in a sustainable way. Many of the apple varieties we grow for you were treasured in the past, but are … finicky, which is why many major growers now harvest modern cultivars of apples that are more dependable, less disease-prone, or more tolerant of long-distance transportation. The result is that our orchard takes special attention and effort to provide you with excellent apples.

The success of any orchard depends on many unknowable factors — including what insects find tasty and what havoc the weather might cause. Together, we agree to share the risk and reward of farming through CSA. In a good year, you can expect the reward of exceptional diversity and quality from our orchard. Difficult years — with heavy insect pressure, poor weather, or unusual disease outbreaks — may yield fewer varieties or apples of lesser quality. In extreme cases, such as in the case of an early heavy frost, flooding, tornado, or severe hail, you may receive no further products for the year.

But there is also reward. You can enjoy the abundance of the orchard! Most of our subscribers do not want more apples than we provide in our box deliveries, but we do offer subscribers discounts on bulk apples for those of you who want extra for saucing, canning, or cider making. We also offer a five percent discount (before shipping and taxes) on all non-CSA products in our online shop to subscribers who have purchased a share in the last 12 months.

Share Descriptions

We want you to be informed of the varieties of apples you may receive. Please see our description of the many varieties we grow! Most of our varieties are unlikely to be at your grocery store and will look, feel, or taste differently than more familiar varieties (we think they are better!). You can expect to receive a quality selection of these apples in each box, depending on harvest dates and available quantities (not all trees bear the same). We harvest the apples that you will receive at the right time, but they not always be ready to use immediately — some varieties benefit from aging in your fridge or other storage. In your boxes, we will always indicate any special instructions for the varieties we’ve packed.

We offer four basic levels of apple shares. Our Shop page lists the current rates and availability. The large, small, and winter shares are for eating and baking apples; the other is for cider apples. You may subscribe to more than one share. In addition to the shares, we provide an occasional subscriber newsletter to inform you about happening in the orchard.

• For a large share, you can expect to receive five boxes of 10 to 12 pounds of apples between October and January.
• For a small share, you can expect to receive three boxes of 10 to 12 pounds of apples between October and January.
• For a winter share, you can expect to receive two boxes of 10 to 12 pounds of apples between January and March. Note that these apples will be from storage and some varieties may be wrinkled, but they will be wholesome.
• With a cider share, you can expect to receive one box of about 80 pounds of apples. These will be primarily cider varieties, and may include seconds.

During the harvest season, we will announce opportunities for subscribers to buy additional bushels of apples (laundry basket-size; about 40 pounds) in addition to your regular share by e-mail newsletter. Bushels are especially useful if you’d like to make apple sauce or cider. As with the cider share, these apples may be seconds. “Seconds” look less-than-perfect but are otherwise wholesome. We will never deliver you apples from windfalls or any punctured apples.

Please note that due to local zoning regulations, we cannot welcome you to our orchard.

Payments, Refunds, and Cancellations

When purchasing CSA shares as a subscriber, payments are due in full at the time of purchase. Our Shop page will list the current rates. There is no charge for becoming a CSA subscriber.

In general, there are no refunds. We do not offer more shares than we expect to be able to fulfill (and don’t make them available until late spring for this reason). However, pests, disease, or weather events may destroy part or all of our crop during the growing season. We cannot offer refunds in these cases — we have to care for the trees regardless in hopes of a better next year! This is the meaning of shared risk. Also, we cannot offer refunds for shares that are not picked up; see “Receiving your Shares.” If we cannot fulfill our obligations to you for reasons other than pest, disease, or weather events, you will receive a prorated refund for any undelivered shares.

There are no refunds for already-purchased but not-yet-delivered shares if you choose to unsubscribe from our CSA with the following partial exceptions: If you move out of the area or suffer a hardship that prevents you from using your boxes, you may be eligible for a partial refund of your share purchases. Refunds are given at our discretion, but please do contact us to discuss your options. Our orchard depends on our subscribers’ commitment to cover expenses for everyone’s enjoyment of the orchard.

Receiving your Shares

We will provide pick-up locations in northeastern Wisconsin when boxes are available. These may include farmers’ markets where we have a stand. For select ZIP codes, we may provide home delivery (if available for your ZIP code, you may choose this option at the time you purchase a share).

Because our products are perishable and packed for you, you are responsible to come to the scheduled pick-up location at the published date and time for your shares. If you do not pick them up, you forfeit the share purchase, and we may donate, sell, or process the produce for others. No refunds will be given.

That said, if something comes up and you know you will miss a pick-up time, contact us in advance of the scheduled date and time, and we will try to make something work, at our option. These may include

• Your authorization of another person to pick up your share on your behalf at the scheduled date and time. We will not release your share to another person without written (or e-mailed) permission from you.
• Replacing your share with a different, equivalent share box at a later date (for example, we may substitute a November share for a September share);
• Offering to ship you your box at current shipping rates; or
• Delivering your box to your address for a $10 delivery charge (if you live in a ZIP code where we deliver).

If none of these are available — for example, no shares are still available or you do not live in a local-delivery ZIP code — and you do not wish to pay for shipping, you will forfeit your share as described above.

Communications

We need good communications for any strong community. Upon subscribing, you consent to receive a subscriber-only e-mail newsletter from Cider Blossom Farm. We will send this when shares are available and occasionally at other times of the year. The newsletter will contain updates about our farm’s activities and the apple varieties we grow for you, including likely harvest dates and delivery plans. We may also provide shorter e-mail updates about the crop when necessary, but we won’t spam you! This e-mail newsletter is different that our general farm newsletter, to which you may also subscribe.

Subscribing to the CSA newsletter is required as a CSA subscriber. You may unsubscribe from the CSA subscriber e-mail newsletter at any time, but if you do, you will no longer be a CSA subscriber, nor will you be eligible to purchase shares from us. Any already-purchased shares will be assembled for you under the terms of this agreement.

We will deliver essential information about cancellations, delays, or other problems to the e-mail you provide. We are not responsible for lost or delayed e-mail, or errors in your e-mail address. (Please note that our Privacy Policy protects our use of your e-mail address and other information.)

Of course, we would be delighted to hear from you about our apples! Contact us.

Sign Me Up!

It’s very easy. There is no cost for subscribing. Each household must have a primary subscriber who has an account at our website. At the “CSA agreement” tab, you will need to acknowledge that you have read this community share agreement.  Once you have done this, you are eligible to purchase shares through our Shop. The primary subscriber is responsible for payment and will receive e-mail communications from us regarding the CSA and your shares. This account will also allow us to ensure you receive any applicable discounts for any of our other products.

If, at any time, you wish no longer wish to be eligible to purchase shares, you may update your preferences at your account page. You may do so at any time. Any already-purchased but not yet delivered shares will be assembled for you under the terms of this agreement.