What is the Bounty Box program?
The Bounty Box program is a partnership between the local community and Petaluma Bounty. By joining our Bounty Box program you not only receive a weekly box of the highest quality, freshest produce, you are also directly supporting Petaluma Bounty’s mission to make healthy food available to all. As a member, your weekly Bounty Box fees help us cover the costs of providing produce at affordable prices to families and seniors. You’re also helping to support the Bounty Farm, which teaches the community about sustainable agriculture.
What is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and how is it related to the Bounty Box concept?
CSA refers to a model of farming in which farmers sell harvest shares (vegetables, flowers, meat, etc.) directly to people in the local community. It was adopted in America from Japanese and European models, largely as a response to the disappearance of the small farm. CSA represents a shared commitment - shareholders commit to the farm for the season, providing farmers, or in this case Petaluma Bounty, with a secure customer base. In return, the farmers commits to doing their utmost to provide their shareholders with the best-quality, most nutritious food around. This direct connection between farmers and consumers bypasses the middleman (e.g., marketers, long distance shippers) and benefits the farmer by increasing farm revenue in the early part of the season when many of our expenditures take place. It also benefits the environment by decreasing packaging and pollution, and benefits consumers by providing fresh, high-quality produce at competitive prices, from a farm that they know and trust.
How does the Bounty Box Program work?
We prepare Bounty Boxes all year round (except for certain holidays). A typical box feeds 2 to 4 people per week, depending on your family’s cooking habits (and appetite). Boxes are delivered weekly to pick-up sites in convenient neighborhood locations around Petaluma where members pick them up.
What do you get in a Bounty Box?
Every week our members receive a box of 6-9 different vegetables, herbs, and fruit harvested at their peak ripeness from the Bounty Farm and other regional farms who meet our food growing and quality standards. (The Bounty Farm is not large enough to grow the full selection of food year round for the Bounty Boxes, so we include great produce from other local and regional farms in the Boxes as well.) You also receive a weekly newsletter with recipes, nutrition information and news from the Bounty Farm.
Our Farming Practices
The Bounty Farm is an educational urban farm designed to be a model of ecological health. Our diversity of crops is our greatest strength against pest and disease problems and we maintain a soil preservation practice through compost additions, cover cropping and rotations. We grow healthy soil that feeds healthy plants that nourishes healthy people. We never use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, or materials not approved for Organic production.
How much does it cost?
Bounty Boxes are $22 a week. Bounty Box members pay on-line (via PayPal), with automatic monthly payments, which can be cancelled at any time after the first month of membership.
How do I sign up and pay?
It’s easy–just visit our Bounty Box registration form. PayPal will automatically debit your credit card every four weeks.
How much food do I get in my Bounty Box?
Each box includes a selection of 6-9 items of produce. The produce will be a variety of items we have in season on any given week, and the box will weigh between 5 and 12 pounds (depending on the season, you may have a lot of light items such as greens or many heavy items like tomatoes and melons). We estimate that receiving one box weekly is a good amount of produce for a family of two to four who cook meals and eat at home at least 3-4 times a week. Only you can determine what works best for your eating habits. If you are vegetarian or always eat at home, a weekly box may work for a single person or smaller family. If you aren’t used to cooking with a lot of produce and/or eat many meals from restaurants, you may decide that you want to share a box subscription with someone else and switch off picking up the boxes every other week. We do not set up an arrangement for every other week pick up so you would need to work this out on your own.
You can see what we are sending our members by checking out our weekly update to give you a sense of a typical week of produce. This often helps new members get a sense of what they can expect. Here are some examples of what you might find in the Bounty Box throughout the year:
June-July - Salad Mix, Chard, Lettuce, Cucumbers, Spring onions, Cilantro, Carrots, Strawberries
August-September - Tomatoes, Peppers, Green beans, Beets, Basil, Corn, Peaches or Plums, Zucchini
October-November - Beets, Cauliflower, Spinach, Kale, Butternut squash, Onions, Apples, Pears
February-May - Carrots, Bok choi, Chard, Salad mix, Baby salad turnips, Cilantro, Oranges, Tangerines or Mandarins
Can I choose what I get in my Bounty Box?
Unfortunately, we cannot customize the boxes and still keep our prices low. What we offer you each week is a diverse selection of best produce available. CSA programs that allow you to choose your box items are more expensive, and they tend to be delivery services rather than farms. We know you may not be able to use certain items, so we have a “trade box” at the farm. You can leave items you don’t like in this box. For each item you leave, we invite you to take a different item. We leave a few extra items for the trade box when we drop off the deliveries, so there should often be something you can swap.
Where does the food in my Bounty Box grown?
Our goal is to make healthy food available to all throughout the entire year. Our small acreage at the Bounty Farm does not allow us to grow all of this food throughout the year. Six months of the year most of the vegetables and some fruit (strawberries and melons), come from the Bounty Farm. If we cannot grow it at the Bounty Farm, we first look to purchase it from other local farms like County Line Harvest or Greenstring Farm. In order to maintain good diversity in the boxes throughout the fall and winter seasons, we may also source additional produce from our organic distributor that purchases from farms within a 150 mile radius of San Francisco. Occasionally, during the late spring when there is limited fruit in this 150 mile radius, we will purchase fruit from good farms in Southern California. We do the best we can to minimize food transportation miles and supporting our fellow local farms. If you ever have any questions about the origin of an item in your box, don’t hesitate to contact us. We can provide you information about the farm that grew the item.
Is all the produce in your box certified organic?
The Bounty Farm has chosen not to seek organic certification, although we meet or surpass all organic certification standards. We are an educational urban farm designed to be a model of ecological health. Our diversity of crops is our greatest strength against pest and disease problems and we maintain a soil preservation practice through compost additions, cover cropping and rotations. We grow healthy soil that feeds healthy plants that nourishes healthy people. We never use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, or materials not approved for Organic production.
Some of the local farms we purchase produce from are certified organic and the farms that are not, we know and trust. All of the produce that comes from our produce distributor is certified organic. If you want to know more about how the produce in your box is grown, we encourage to drop by the farm at one of the designated visiting times to see how we grow your food.
Do you offer half boxes or every other week options?
We are not able to offer half boxes or every other week options. If you are interested in this arrangement consider finding a friend or family member that you could split the box with or trade picking it up every other week. We cannot make these arrangements for you.
When do I pick up my Bounty Box?
Your pick up time depends on the pick-up site that you choose. When you sign up, we will email you the exact address of your desired pick up site along with the pick-up times.
What if I forget to pick up my box?
If you did not pick up your box during the set hours on your pick up day then you may pick your box up by 10 am the following day. After that your box will have been donated to the Bounty Hunters program You will be charged for this box (so do your best to remember to pick it up!)
Can I postpone deliveries if I go on vacation?
You may postpone deliveries for any reason at all, but we need to know 7 days prior to your pick up date. If you miss this deadline, we cannot credit you for your missed box, since we will have already picked or ordered the food for the box. If you know that you’ll be missing a pick-up, another option is to donate your box for the week. We will arrange to have your box delivered to COTS’s homeless shelter, where it will be greatly appreciated!
Do you have events?
Yes. We have big events periodically throughout the growing season. We have a Petaluma Bounty membership event in mid June, a Dinner on the Bounty farm fundraiser in mid August (this event sells out quickly) and a Harvest Party in early October (See our upcoming events calendar on our website for more information. We encourage Bounty Box members to attend all of these events. We also have Farm Work Days on the second Saturday of each month and classes and workshops throughout the year at the farm.
Can I visit the Bounty Farm?
Yes-come out to the farm and see how your food is grown, or, better yet, help to grow it or harvest it by volunteering at the Bounty Farm. Click here for volunteer and visitor times at the farm.
If I want to buy more produce than what I receive in the box, what should I do?
If you are an enthusiastic vegetable and fruit eater and you need more produce for the week, check out our Mobile Market and farm stand schedule for convenient times and places. We also sell our produce at the Petaluma Farmer’s Market on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. For the exact times and locations go to: www.petalumafarmersmarket.com/.
Can I buy a gift subscription for someone?
We are happy to offer gift certificates for any number of weekly Bounty Boxes. Please contact us, amy@petalumabounty.org.
Is the Bounty Box program right for me?
Below is a link to a great article on determining if a community supported agriculture (CSA) subscription is right for you. The Bounty Box program is not exactly like the CSA model but it is very similar. (We do not make you pay for the whole year in advance, for example.) http://www.localharvest.org/newsletter/20100223/choosing-a-csa.html?r=nl
If you have additional questions that were not covered here, please email us at bountybox@petalumabounty.org or give us a call at 707/775-3663, ext. 213.
