By Taylor Smith 

With 35 acres leased from Duke Farms, Dogwood Farms is a USDA certified organic farm in Hillsborough, N.J., owned and operated by Jon and Kim Knox. Since its opening, Dogwood Farms has more than tripled its vegetable and meat CSA programs and expanded its business into a retail space selling hot sauces, salsa, and other specialty items all grown, produced, and cultivated on the farm. 

CSA (community supported agriculture) is a membership program where participants receive weekly and/or monthly shares of locally grown, high quality fruits, vegetables, dairy, and meats. CSAs are great to join during the summer months, as members can expect to receive a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, salad greens, eggs, and herbs on a weekly basis. Membership packages are priced according to quantity. For example, “single” or “double” memberships allot for the size of a particular family or group of friends. 

CSA pickups at Dogwood Farms are market style, meaning that members travel to the farm each week for pickup. The hours of operation for market pickup are Thursday and Friday from 2 to 6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

The veggie CSA membership at Dogwood Farms runs for 20 weeks from June to October. In order to mitigate environmental factors like weather and pests, Dogwood Farms plants over 80 varieties of different fruits and vegetables each year. 

For those who can’t dream of going without organic produce during the winter months, Dogwood offers the Fall Five Veggie Share. This share consists of cold weather crops for five weeks in November and December. CSA members will also receive jarred salsas, sauces, and pestos. Winter produce includes beets, spinach, sweet potatoes, turnips, leeks, potatoes, broccoli rabe, chard, kale, salad greens, arugula, onions, garlic, and apples. 

The 2019 Meat CSA program runs for five months from June through October with one pickup per month. A single share includes four different protein options and weighs anywhere from 5-8 lbs. depending on your selections. Meats are broken into five categories where members choose one item from each category. This type of sampling enables families to curate their selection, month to month. All of the USDA certified organic chicken, pasture raised pork, and grass-fed lamb is raised at Dogwood Farms. The certified USDA organic beef is raised in Pennsylvania at Sugar Hill Farm (https://www.sugarhillfarmpa.com). 

Becoming a member of the CSA programming at Dogwood Farms is a great way to positively impact the state of the world and your local environment. As a USDA certified Organic farm operation, all produce is grown without chemicals, herbicides, and fertilizers. Chickens are certified organic and pigs are sustainably raised and fed certified organic grain, protein whey, and excess produce from the farm. Dogwood Farms’ lambs eat nothing but pasture and hay, untouched by chemicals and fertilizers. 

To purchase a CSA share for yourself this summer, visit http://dogwoodfarmsnj.com/csa.