The Season Start Isn’t a Signup Deadline

Farmer Laci at Tagge’s Famous Fruit & Veggie Farms (Brigham City, UT) is running her first season on Farmhand with 1,500 CSA members. We asked her what actually moved that number. She didn’t start with a marketing tactic. She started with a decision most farms make without thinking about it. Here’s Laci, in her own words.

Every farm treats the season opener like a deadline. Signups close, the boxes start, and whoever didn’t commit in February is a customer you get to try for again next year.

We stopped doing that. Keeping CSA signups open into the first part of the season has been one of the best decisions we’ve made.

Leaving the door open works

A lot of people are interested in joining but aren’t quite ready to commit before they know what they’re getting. That’s not hesitation about us. It’s a reasonable thing to feel about paying for produce you haven’t seen yet.

Once they see pictures of the boxes, or hear friends talking about what they’re receiving each week, they’re much more likely to jump in.

The pro-rated pricing makes that an easy decision because they aren’t paying for weeks they missed. And it gives them a little incentive to sign up before they miss any more of the season.

“The more, the merrier” is also a harvest plan

This is the part most farms get stuck on. If you don’t know your membership number in February, how do you plan what to put in the ground?

Our philosophy has always been the more, the merrier. We get the majority of our signups during the first half of the year, so we have a pretty good idea of where we’ll land. But we also plan for some additional growth, knowing that a lot of people wait to see those first CSA boxes before deciding to join.

The bigger thing is that the CSA is only one outlet for what we grow. We plan around our fruit stands and farmers markets too, and this year we added our own Tagge Kitchen. The kitchen gives us another way to reduce waste and use produce that may not sell at the stands or be quite right for a CSA box. We turn it into baked goods, pantry products, and other items.

Having several outlets gives us the flexibility to grow a little more without needing to know our exact CSA membership months in advance.

Our Porch Partners recruit for us now

Many of our Porch Partners are returning CSA members who volunteer their homes as pickup locations year after year. If someone isn’t able to host again, we’ll usually reach out to members who have picked up in that area before. They already know how it works.

A nice perk for hosts is having their own CSA box delivered directly to their home with no delivery fee.

What’s new this year is how much of it has started coming to us. Customers have found us through the website and reached out because they want to bring a CSA pickup location to their neighborhood. Then they help spread the word to friends and neighbors themselves.

That’s a really natural way to grow into new communities. Someone who wants a pickup site badly enough to ask for one is going to do more recruiting for you than any ad would.

The stands are the top of the funnel

The same thing happens at our fruit stands and farmers markets. People stop by to try fresh produce, ask questions, and learn more about what we do.

It’s the perfect opportunity to explain that everything they’re seeing can be part of a weekly CSA subscription, and that they can also add pantry items, baked goods, and other local products to their weekly order.

The thing customers won’t stop mentioning

One thing our customers have absolutely loved is the communication.

We constantly hear how much they appreciate getting a notification as soon as their CSA box is delivered, and it’s made it so much easier for us to keep everyone informed throughout the season.

Having those communication tools built right into the platform has taken a lot off our plate and given our customers a better experience. It’s a small thing that turns into a lot of goodwill, and a lot of “where’s my box?” emails we never have to answer.

Trial and error

Our first season on Farmhand has been awesome. But like any time you switch to a new platform, there was definitely some trial and error as we figured out what worked best for our farm.

A great example was setting up our delivery routes. Before the season started, the Farmhand team helped us prepare and talk through how we thought everything should work. We had a plan that made sense on paper… and then the first delivery day happened.

Once we actually put everything into practice, we quickly figured out what worked for our operation and what needed to change. Farmhand was incredibly responsive, helping us make last-minute adjustments and troubleshoot different solutions until we found what worked.

It’s been refreshing to work with a company that really listens to feedback and wants to help make the platform work for your business.

The growth we couldn’t have handled before

Probably the biggest difference this year is how much we’ve been able to grow. We’re serving more customers than ever before while offering a much larger selection of products.

Trying to manage all of that without Farmhand would’ve been incredibly difficult. Having customer communication, delivery notifications, marketing, ordering, and product management all in one place has made a huge difference.

Instead of spending hours trying to keep multiple systems in sync, we get to spend more time focusing on our customers and growing the business. It’s honestly been a game changer for us.

— Laci, Tagge’s Famous Fruit & Veggie Farms

What to take from this

If you’re trying to grow your CSA this season:

• Leave signups open past your start date. The people who wouldn’t commit in February will commit in June, once they can see what’s in the box.
• Pro-rate it. Nobody pays for weeks they missed, so the price drops every week they wait. That’s the nudge that gets them off the fence.
• Build outlets, not just a membership number. Stands, markets, and a kitchen for the seconds mean you can plant for growth you haven’t sold yet. That’s what makes open signups safe.
• Recruit pickup hosts from your existing members. They already know how pickup works, and returning hosts carry a site year to year.
• Give hosts a real perk. A free box, a fall pumpkin display – whatever you can offer.
• Make it easy to ask for a site. Some of the best new neighborhoods came from customers who found the website and asked for a pickup location, then recruited their own neighbors.
• Treat every stand and market as a CSA pitch. They already came to you for produce. Tell them it can show up weekly.
• Automate the delivery notification. It’s the single feature members mention most, and it deletes an entire category of customer service.
• Expect your first delivery day to break your plan. Everyone’s routes look right on paper. Build in room to change them in week one.

Laci helps run Tagge’s Famous Fruit & Veggie Farms, a Utah family orchard and produce farm growing since 1977, with CSA delivery, Porch Partner pickup sites, fruit stands, and farmers markets across the Wasatch Front.