Porter Farms

Great selection of veggies and fruits. Love the local porch pickup system they use! Fast, easy and fresh produce on Saturday.

This summer will be fifth year doing Porter Farms and I love them.

1. Best price per pound of any CSA, by a long shot. $330 gets you five months of brown paper bags brimming with organic veggies.
2. Tons of pickup locations, so you can get it anywhere.
3. Just about everything is regular main stream veggies - lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, spinach, zucchini, winter squash, etc. Except for the kohlrabi, I knew what everything was the first time I saw it.
4. Melons are included. Most CSA's have no fruit or it is a separate fee. They are working on some orchards, too.
5. The pick up locations are people's porches, so the veggies arrive and you can get them at your leisure. Depending on your pick-up site, you can get them as late as Sunday morning, which is great if you're gone for the weekend. Our host even puts it in the fridge if you let her know ahead of time and puts it back out at the pre-arranged time.
6. You get to visit the farm once to pick up all the vegetables for your group. The farm is great to see, you meet some Porters, can see their sheep AND you get to pick from whatever extra produce they have that week that didn't divide evenly among the shares.
7. To date, they have never run out of share. You can sign up last minute where as most other shares sell out months ahead of time.
8. There is an early bird discount if you sign up before April 15.

Pick up is Saturday after 11am, which is a pro for some and con for others. Sometimes they post the veggies ahead of time which is nice if you were planning a trip to the farmers market before you pick up. If I were to make one change, it would be to allow people to skip a week and make it up later which Native Offerings does.

I've got no complaints. I love this CSA. Your pick-up location might not have great parking, but you can't blame the farm.

You can get a free guest bag if you want to test it out. Info is on the website.

Wide variety of organic vegetables. Multi-generational farm. My family had been satisfied customers for over ten years. The CSA had helped us promote healthy living and nutrition.

One of the flexible Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) options in WNY where you can pick up your vegetables off the farm in over 10 locations (located in Elba). This CSA is one of the larger CSAs in the region. They sell their onions and cabbage to Whole Foods stores (Boston, NYC, and CT), Tuscarora Organic Growers Cooperativefor stores in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore; Boston Organics; and Hawthorne Valley Farmin Ghent, NY.

You get about 10-12 lbs of organic produce per week for ~ $330 per season (pricing depends on early bed sign up and whether you are picking up in Buffalo or Rochester).

From website: "The bags are filled on Saturday morning from 6am to 9am. If you are a local member you may pick up any time after 9. If you can't make it before 11:00am we will put your bag in the cooler, where it will remain until you can pick it up. If you are a driver from Buffalo, we ask that you arrive between 9am and 11am, this will insure that the bags arrive at their drop off sites by 12:00pm. Buffalo area members will choose a pick-up site most convenient for them, and then will rotate driving to the farm to pick up the bags for their group. Depending on the size of the group, the members only have to drive between 1 and 3 times over the 22-week season."

While larger supermarkets in the area direct their produce through warehouses in Ohio or Pennsylvania before trucking it back here to sell, our CSAvegetables are distributed the day after they are picked, bringing maximum flavor, freshness and health benefits directly to your table.

This summer will be my fourth year at Porter Farms. I had never participated in a CSA prior to theirs, and I am extremely lucky that I made them my first choice. They are a family owed and operated CSA, located in Elba. Considering the amount of organic, fresh vegetables you receive in the bag each week, it is well worth the price. They have a huge variety of vegetables and have started planting fruit trees. They also have melons and watermelons that are incredible, esp. the yellow watermelons, one of our personal favorites. The vegetables are always fresh and taste wonderful. You can eat them as soon as you pick up your bag. When you pick up at the farm, if they have extra vegetables after the shares are bagged they put them out for you to take extra if you would like. I personally have had a great experience with Porter Farms and enjoy the new friends I have made there. You can pick up at the farm, or they have several different locations through out the area including Rochester and Buffalo, and different areas in between.

They also have available other organic products for purchase from other area producers such as eggs, honey, chicken, alpaca products.

They also have several different varieties of farm animals, and you can bring the kids to see them.

If you live in the area, on Saturday mornings you can go to the barn and volunteer to help pack the vegetables into the shares everyone receives. I have done this for a couple of years and have found it very rewarding to be a small part of the Porter Farms family..