By Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – For Clarksvillians who value purchasing produce grown without pesticides or genetically modified seeds, there may be an opportunity to get it delivered here each week. Paradise Produce Farm, of Joelton, Tenn., would love to make Clarksville one of its weekly stops as part of its community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, provided it can get enough members.
With a CSA, the farm skips the grocery store middleman and offers value to customers by delivering a generous box of produce each week to a local drop-off spot. Members pay a one-time fee in advance to buy “shares” – either half shares or whole shares – in a farm’s seasonal produce. Paradise Produce Farm delivers produce for 25 weeks.
The sign-up deadline for this CSA is May 8. If Paradise Produce Farm gets enough members, the deliveries will occur at Silke’s Old World Breads Bakery and Café, 1213 College Street, Thursdays from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Full shares cost $700 and half shares cost $400 for the 25-week season. Payment is due by May 15, which will most likely also be the first delivery
date, depending on how the crops continue to grow. The season ends in October.
“It’s such a huge chunk of money up front,” said Sonia Geny, who operates the farm with husband Stacy. “We realize that. But in the long run it is a better deal than going to the farmer’s market every week. So we like to help people out that way, too.”
Stacy Geny likes to tell people that the farm grows everything from A to Z, or “artichokes to zucchini.” The farm’s soil is enriched with homemade compost and natural fertilizers, including fish meal, and it grows no genetically modified foods and uses no chemicals, pesticides or herbicides.
Sonia says that while the farm doesn’t have official “organic” certification (which is costly for most small operations), “We do things more strictly ‘organically’ than the expensive certification requires.”
Depending on the season, the farm will offer the following for CSA members: peppers, artichokes, zucchini, summer squash, winter squash, watermelons, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, onions, radishes, carrots and more.
Sonia says the CSA boxes of produce contain a wide variety. Members who have a full share will get about a half bushel of produce each week while a half share is more like one-fourth of a bushel, with the type of produce depending on the season. (A bushel is a dry measure equal to 32 dry quarts, so a half bushel is equal to four dry gallons). An early summer half-share box might include, for example, one pint of cherry tomatoes, one head of lettuce, one-and-a-half pounds of summer squash, one to two pounds of onions, one bunch of kale and one herb bunch of basil.
A full share would include all of those items, plus one bunch of carrots, one-and-a-half pounds of cucumbers, four to six turnips and two bulbs of garlic.
“It’s not only a good way to support your farms, it’s also a good way to eat locally and seasonally,” Sonia said.
Contact the farm’s owners, Sonia and Stacy Geny, at paradiseproducefarms@gmail.com or at 615-476-9203 to sign up. More information is available at www.paradiseproducefarm.com, where Sonia will post weekly recipes to match up with the produce available in members’ boxes.