2024 Farm Share Logistics & Member Agreement

Flower Shares.

You may also purchase a flower share from Belvedere Farm, to be picked up with your vegetable shares. This option is only available for members picking up at Kitchen Girl Farm, Belvedere Farm, and Prigel Family Creamery. Please indicate on the signup form that you would like to purchase a flower share, and then complete that signup and payment at here. Note: due to the growing season of flowers vs. vegetables, only the Spring Sunshine Bundles and Summer Bouquets options are available for pickup at Kitchen Girl Farm.

Visiting the Farm.

We invite our members to visit and explore the farm at any time, even if your pickup site is elsewhere. Gunpowder Falls State Park is nearby and provides many outdoor recreation opportunities as well. If you choose to enjoy the farm property, please dress appropriately and be respectful of boundaries denoted by fences.

Sharing the Risks and Rewards of Farming.

We want your membership to be a great value and a great experience. We’ll do everything we can to ensure an abundant share for you. However, we cannot guarantee how well crops will produce or exactly what the share will include from week to week. Extreme temperatures, too much rain, drought, pests, weeds, and plant diseases can all lower vegetable yields. When a crop thrives, you’ll have lots of opportunities to enjoy it. When a crop suffers, you’ll receive less of that crop. We appreciate your willingness to share these risks with us.

Packaging.

We are committed to reducing our use of single-use, disposable packaging products when packing your share. We pack shares in paper grocery bags. A reasonable amount of packaging will be used inside to contain items. We encourage you to compost or recycle your paper bag, and return paper pulp pint and quart containers and egg cartons for reuse. The structural integrity of these bags may be compromised by slightly wet produce or particularly heavy shares, so we recommend bringing your own grocery bags to get your share home safely.

Our Growing Practices.

We are committed to being transparent about our growing and animal husbandry practices and will happily answer any questions you have. We believe that everyone has a right to know how their food is produced.

Here is a quick overview of our growing practices.

• Soil fertility: We test our soil annually and amend it according to those test results. We maintain soil fertility by rotating crops, planting cover crops, and applying organically-approved fertilizers and micronutrients. The products we use include manure, feathermeal, bloodmeal, fish emulsion, compost, lime, and mineral supplements.

• Weed control: We control weeds with biodegradable plastic mulch, straw mulch, and cover crops. We remove them by hand, with hand tools, and tractor-mounted cultivators.

• Pest control: We plant and maintain a flowering farmscape and cover crops to attract beneficial insects to the areas around our crops. We hand-pick pests, and when necessary, spray our crops with organically-approved controls, including Bacillus thuringiensis (bT). Rotating our vegetable crops also helps with pest control.

• Plant diseases: We manage plant diseases by balancing soil nutrients, rotating vegetable crops, planting cover crops, and removing severely infected plants.

• Livestock care: We are committed to caring for our animals in a manner that allows them to live full lives. This means living outdoors on fresh pasture and providing a lifestyle that allows them to exhibit their natural instinctual behaviors. 

Compostable Kitchen Waste.

We would love to use your biodegradable kitchen waste on the farm to make compost to feed our soil. You may elect to bring your collected scraps to the farm and add it to the compost pile yourself. Please drop in the designated compost bay.

Communication.

We communicate weekly via email newsletter. Please read these emails to stay informed of share contents and farm happenings.

Please follow us on Instagram, like us on Facebook, and join our private Facebook group to connect with fellow members and share recipes and farm news.

Email is the best way to reach us. Our email address is farmers@kitchengirlfarm.com and phone number is 443-738-4602.

Sound Good?

By checking the Member Agreement box on the farm share signup form, you are declaring the following:

I have read this Agreement and accept the terms outlined herein. I understand that the Farm may occasionally need to make changes to this Agreement. I understand that Kitchen Girl Farm will contact me via email in advance of any changes to this Agreement.