Hi there!
I'm new to this site and forum, but a few google searches during my research for a garden project at work led me to some threads. I thought I'd reach out and see if anyone would be willing to share advice, information, anything really!
A little bit of back story - I work at a new farm animal sanctuary in Sonoma, CA. Over the summer, I headed up a very small garden program (4 raised beds), primarily to grow greens and other produce for our animals, and give some produce to volunteers, etc. Right now, we're looking to expand our garden program and branch out to selling our produce - mainly in the areas of local farmer's markets, and starting our own CSA program. We reached this decision mainly based on many area farms operating under a "we sell what we grow" model, thus proving difficult to get our produce into an existing CSA.
We want to start on the small side, and then scale up as we can / as needed - thinking of starting off with 20 boxes. I'd also like to keep it relatively simple - so any advice on that front would be great as well. Where I'm most looking for advice is in the planning stages of this. We'll likely need to use raised beds for the garden, as our soil on property is super compact and clay like. My main question is, how many raised beds would you recommend (a range is fine) for something of this scale (20 CSA boxes)? Should we scale back and just shoot for 10 boxes for our first season?
Basically, any and all advice, information, contacts, connections, recommendations are welcome! I'll be looking at other threads quite frequently, so will be here often. Feel free to also e-mail me directly at
amanda@charliesacres.org if that's easier. Thank you so much for taking the time to read!
