The Burnt Hill Herb Co. launch their "Tomato Club" CSA
JOIN TOMATO CLUB Summer 2023 is set to be a very busy but exciting period for The Burnt Hill Herb Co. as we launch our new "Tomato Club CSA", offering local...
Summer 2023 is set to be a very busy but exciting period for The Burnt Hill Herb Co. as we launch our new "Tomato Club CSA", offering local customers an opportunity to sign up and become members of our exclusive Tomato Club.
It’s a bit like a fresh tomato subscription - a celebration of the wonderful fruit, sharing growing tips, variety choices and best of all; some fantastic recipes and serving suggestions for you to use with your tomatoes.
Each time you receive a new variety, you'll receive a beautiful exclusive info card describing the unique characteristics and features of that particularly variety.
This year in the tomato club, during farm tour events, we’ll be learning about creating more plants from taking cuttings and also because we mainly grow heritage varieties, we’ll be learning about how we can save seed from this years crop and store them for growing next year.
The idea is that the members buy farm shares of our fantastic Tomato Season crops, whilst learning lots more about this versatile and much-loved Fruit and its vast variety of shapes, colours, sizes and flavour profiles.
For those of you who don't know much about the CSA farming model, it's essentially a way for farmers to interact directly with local families and individuals who are searching for the very best local and sustainable produce, grown in their area, (achieving hyper-low "field-to-plate" miles which is great for a healthy diet and can really make a difference to our collective carbon footprint), making the shortest possible food-chain. It's already very popular in the States and Canada but is becoming increasingly popular here in the UK too.
The benefit to the consumer is obvious; they receive their fair share of the very best seasonal local produce, which is picked at it's peak perfection, providing a higher quality product than any supermarket or wholesale-driven food chain can provide, all whilst knowing exactly where their food has come from, who's growing it and how it's being produced.
For the farmer there are benefits too, they can plan more precisely how much produce to grow, based on numbers of members who sign up and also they can spend more time dedicated to the task of farming, in-turn creating a better product, because they don't have to spend time or resource away from the farm, in delivering to markets / wholesalers and the associated marketing.
If you would like to read and learn more about the benefits of the CSA farming model here in the UK, follow the "Community Supported Agriculture UK webpage link here for more info.
Here in Yorkshire we have quite a short production season (usually 3 months starting in August and ending in October), but our advantage being located so far North is that we get really long daylight hours during May and June which is just when the plants need all the daylight they can get to become healthy and strong to bless us with dozens of tasty and super sweet tomatoes.
Tomato sowing season kicks off in February for us, we have sown nearly 50 varieties this year, inside heated propagators, under LED grow lights, with a specific light-recipe for encouraging young seedling leaf growth. Once the risk of an overnight frost has passed (early May) we slowly move our small plants out into our large commercial polytunnel. It’s here that our plants are looked after by our unique and innovative aquaponics growing system.
Our beautiful rainbow trout provide a complete nutrient-rich fertiliser source, which the plants in-turn clean up ready to be recirculated back to our fish. By early August, our first fruits start to arrive, keeping us in plentiful supply right through until October.
So, how does it work?
It’s really simple, you decide how much you’d like to commit to the farm share scheme, you can choose either a small share (£10/month), a medium share (£15/month) or a large share (£20/month).
How many tomatoes are included in each size share?
This year we’re selling all of our fantastic tomato selection by weight at £15.00 per kilo. So even a small farm share (333g per fortnight) will give you a good selection and quantity to enjoy every two weeks .
I’m not sure we’ll get through that many tomatoes, can I still join?
In this situation, we’re suggesting that people can join together and buy shares in teams. However, considering how tasty our tomatoes are and that we’re going to be sharing plenty of tasty and inspiring recipes and serving suggestions for you, it’s unlikely you won’t be able to polish off a small share!
When will we collect?
You’ll be able to collect a good mixture of perfectly ripe tomatoes every 2 weeks from our farm site in Farnley Tyas.
This years collection dates are;
August -
Sunday 13th - 14.00-15.00
Sunday 27th - 14.00-15.00
September -
Sunday 10th - 14.00-15.00
Sunday 24th - 14.00-15.00
October -
Sunday 8th - 14.00-15.00
Sunday 22nd - 14.00-15.00
If we’re on holiday for one of the collection dates, can we still become members?
Yes, of course! Everyone deserves a holiday! you can either choose to let someone else collect on your behalf that day, delay your collection by 2 weeks or we can just process a refund request for that portion of your share.
How do we store our tomatoes?
Believe it or not, Tomato’s don’t enjoy being refrigerated! They taste much much sweeter and flavourful if they’re kept out at room temperature. And we only package in recycled brown paper bags which are biodegradable and a good storage solution before you eat or create with them.
Ok, this all sounds fantastic, how do we sign up?
You head over to our shop page, where you can find “tomato club farm share” products.
Pick which size you’d like, and complete the checkout process, making sure you enter your correct email address. We’ll use your email address to contact you and send you your exclusive bonus codes for booking tickets to the tomato club farm tour events and tasting/workshop events.
