About Hungry Toad Farm

The Hungry Toad Friends of the Farm program is our form of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) that helps us fund early season costs and pays back the supporters over the year as crops come in. Plants and people in all their forms and natures are what keeps us motivated and happy to do the work we do here.

It is limited each year to the number of members we feel we can serve.  Membership opportunities open in January/February and are effective until the end of the calendar year. 

Members receive 10% discount on all plant, flower, and produce purchases throughout the year. They also have first access to any  limited item. 

In addition to our regular produce and flower sales through the season, in Spring we have young plant starts for your garden. We offer tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, herbs and more in the sale and we are eager to give gardening advice throughout the season to help you grow food for yourself. The Friends’ discount applies to all those purchases.

Cost for 2026 membership is $50.

The Friends of the Farm program is Michael’s brainchild.  He once operated a CSA and clearly saw that he was filling up boxes with produce that just seemed to weigh enough or take up enough box space. Unhappy with what he was doing, he spoke to shoppers and customers, CSA members and not, and realized that people were not particularly pleased.  Some had joined other CSAs, some were his own members, and some who did not even know what a CSA was.  

Gathering up the feedback he received and thinking of what he would have desired as a customer of a CSA, he pondered about it over one winter.  It didn't take long for him to see that the thing that was causing him discomfort with the CSA was that the customers had no choice and that all of the choice was being made by the farmer who was heavily influenced by crop availability, self-interest, fear of what would be growing for the next week, and a certain degree of guilty indebtedness to his promises.  All seemed like bad reasons for what filled the weekly boxes.

After hours of dark musing, he looked at the matter from a customer’s eyes and did not find a happy experience for anyone. It was all looking like a farmer fulfilling his obligation and a customer having to quietly take whatever was being given -- like it or not. What was wrong?  What was missing?  It became clear that the farmer was in control (at least as much as crop success/failure allowed), and the customer had no control and had to accept what was offered.  If it was yellow squash and radish for weeks in a row - well tough. 

To give customers more control and for the farmer to escape the guilt of the squash/radish debacle there needed to be a way for customers to gain more control of choice and to help the farmer be relieved of guilt. Thus, the idea of Friends of the Farm was born.  Members contribute to the success of the farm, taking the risk that they may not get everything they want, and the farmer is free to grow a wide range of the best crops he can with less guilt and stress, while still fulfilling his promise to grow as best he can.  

The benefit for the farmer is monetary help when it is most needed, and the benefit for the customer is a 10% discount and the pride that he/she is keeping the farm going. 

In the end, the new "Friends" will not receive crops they don't like with little choice in variety or quantity.  They will receive some satisfaction that they are helping the farmer. By taking a small amount of risk, they give the farmer some degree of financial security and the confidence to give his customers the best crops he can grow.