Community Share Agreement

Updated March 1, 2024

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.

We work hard to cultivate and curate apples for your family and ours. Community Shared Agriculture connects you to this heritage by giving you a connection with the farming that provides your food. (You can read more about CSA at Local Harvest.) In return, we need you to commit to us! Please read this community share agreement fully, as it requires you to make some choices upon subscription and you to indicate your agreement upon payment.

Are you new to our CSA? We are glad to have you along, and we want you to be happy with the varieties of apples you may receive. Please see our description of the many varieties we grow! Please note that 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 selection of these apples, depending on harvest dates and available quantities (not all trees bear the same). We will ensure that you have a quality variety in each box. We pick the apples that you receive at the right time, but some varieties benefit from aging. In your boxes, we will always indicate which varieties we’ve packed for you and any special instructions for them.

Risk and Reward

Shared risk and shared reward are at the heart of a community share. 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, consistent, or transportable. The result is that our orchard takes special attention and effort to provide you with excellent apples.

The success of the 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. 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 discounts on our other farm products to subscribers from time to time.

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 occassional subscriber newsletter to inform you about happening in the orchard.

- For a large share, you can expect to receive five deliveries of 10 to 12 pounds of apples between October and December.
- For a small share, you can expect to receive three deliveries of 10 to 12 pounds of apples between October and December.
- For a winter share, you can expect to receive two deliveries 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 delivery of about 80 pounds of apples. These will be primarily cider varieties. (You may subscribe to a other shares as well.)

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. Bushels are especially useful if you’d like to make apple sauce or cider. Unlike the other shares, these apples may be seconds and look less-than-perfect but they will still be wholesome. We will never deliver you apples from windfalls.

Please note that due to local zoning regulations, we cannot welcome you to our orchard site. However, we are eager to communicate with you about our farming activities through the year on our subscribers’ mailing list. We would also love to hear from you about our apples!

Payments, Refunds, and Cancellations

To reserve your share as a subscriber, all payments are due in full at the time you join our CSA community. Our Shop page will list the current rates.

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 subscription. 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 our orchard.

If we cannot fulfill our obligations to you, our subscribers, for reasons other than pest, disease, or weather events, all subscribers will receive a prorated refund for the remainder of the season.

We are glad you are interested in our CSA. We will provide pick-up locations in northeastern Wisconsin — and delivery options — when our orchard comes into bearing.

Communications

We need good communications for any strong community. Upon subscribing to a share, you consent to receive a subscriber-only e-mail newsletter from Cider Blossom Farm before the harvest season 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!

We will deliver essential information about cancellations, delays, or other problems to the e-mail you provide. (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 as well. Contact us.

Sign Me Up!

When the orchard is ready, you can join our CSA by subscribing to shares through our Shop pages. It’s that easy. If you don’t already have an account with us, one will be created at that time. You will need to acknowledge that you have read this community share agreement. Until that time, you can join our CSA wailist at the link below.

Each household must have a primary subscriber who has an account at our website. 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.