Dukes Farm CSA:  Your Weekly Vegetable Box

We are not offering the weekly CSA for the 2024 season.  Our food storage boxes, like salsa and pickle boxes will still be available.

Our CSAs are customizable!  You can choose much of what goes in your box nearly every week during the season. 

Slicing tomatoes

Dukes Farm is offering CSA vegetable boxes for a 17th season in the Upper Peninsula!

What is a CSA?  The acronym stands for “Community Supported Agriculture,” a subscription practice invented by Booker T. Whatley, an Alabama horticulturist and professor.  What he called “clientele membership clubs” in the 1960s (to help Black farmers who were often denied farming loans and grants) are now called CSAs and allow farmers to sell produce in advance to subscription members.  Members get shares of the produce throughout the growing season.

While a traditional CSA suits the needs of many, Dukes Farm’s CSA box includes a number of customizable options, allowing for greater customer choice and flexibility.  We feel our CSA works better for the needs of families wanting to eat nutritious, affordable fresh produce.

Weather permitting, the Full Season CSA starts the week of Tuesday, June 21 and goes for 14 weeks.  You can also choose however many weeks you would like a box, during the season (and can choose your exact dates in the spring).

You can order your CSA by using our online store, and you will hear from us soon!

All 3 of this season’s CSA options cost only $39 a week for a Large Box, $27 a week for a Medium Box, and $20 a week for a Small Box:

Red lettuce
  • The Full Season CSA will run for 14 weeks (starting June 21, weather permitting).
  • We offer delivery and pickup on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  Workplaces can choose Tuesday or Wednesday; Farm pickup is Tuesday; and Home Delivery or Marquette site pickup is Wednesday.
  • CSA customers can choose either a Regular, Medium or Small box.  The Regular box typically feeds 2 people who eat a lot of veggies, or a typical family of 4.  The Medium box typically feeds 1 person who eats a lot of veggies, or a typical adult couple.  And the Small box is even smaller, for those who don’t want an overwhelming amount of veggies.
  • Customers who want more flexibility can also choose the Flexible Week CSA.  This CSA allows you to choose what weeks you would like a veggie box over the course of the 14 week season, allowing you to plan ahead for vacation and other out-of-town time.  Note:  the other 2 CSA options do allow for accommodation of an out-of-town week.

Some features of the CSA box:

  • As with the past three seasons, customers can choose many of the items in their box, helping to ensure you don’t get something you can’t use.  You can also choose to have no preference and get a standard box.
  • The freshest produce available, every week during the season.
  • Can be picked up for free at:  a Marquette drop site (Wednesdays); an approved workplace in Marquette, Negaunee, or Ishpeming (Tuesdays or Wednesdays), or on the farm (Tuesdays).  Or, can be delivered to your door for $5/week on Wednesdays.
  • Includes a virtual newsletter and recipes (feel free to share it with your friends and family).
  • Also, for Monday deliveries that fall on the 4th of July and Labor Day, boxes are delivered the following day (Tuesday).

Add-ons to the CSA are available:

  • Home delivery to the Marquette area for only $5 a week.  If you’re not in Marquette, let us know where you live to make sure we can deliver to you.   You can also pick-up for free in one of three ways:  at the farm; through a workplace or club CSA if you have 5 members or more; or at a Marquette pick up site).
  • Extra Greens for only $5 a week.  Three extra robust bunches of greens in your regular weekly box. Extra greens include: Kale, Chard, Collards, Lettuce, Arugula, etc.
  • Extra Herbs for only $5 a week.  Three extra bunches of herbs in your regular weekly box.  Extra herbs include: Cilantro, Basils, Parsley, Dill, Thyme, Sage, etc.

We believe Dukes Farm’s weekly box stands out for a number of reasons:

Garlic
  1. An affordable price on fresh local produce
  2. We prioritize heritage vegetable varieties and other varieties that taste better and are more nutritious
  3. We focus on the cleanliness of the produce
  4. We have experience doing weekly vegetable CSAs since 2006
  5. Every vegetable that should be fresh is delivered to members fresh.

According to the Michigan League for Public Policy, a Marquette County family of four (two parents and two children) needs to budget for about $717 on food every month.  Dukes Farm’s Large CSA would provide a box of fresh, healthy produce every week for less than 22% of that family’s food budget.

Please check out our webpage on farm food safety and accommodations for economic hardship:  https://lakesuperiorfarms.com/food-safety/

If you are just looking to purchase one of our salsa, pickle, pesto, Thai curry, tomato sauce, or Thanksgiving boxes, check out our Food Storage Boxes page.

New for the workplaces and groups we serve:  if you are an employee or member at any of the workplaces and other group locations we serve, and are not a CSA member, you can still order any of the special boxes (such as a pickle box) and anything in the online shop and have it delivered, for free, to your group location!

You can order your CSA by using our online store, and you will hear from us soon.  Let us know if you want to start a workplace or club CSA of 5 members or more, or if you want to purchase a CSA using your SNAP benefits.

If you have any questions, just let us know by email:  info@lakesuperiorfarms.com, or phone/text:  (906) 360-8710.  We hope to hear from you!