Know Your Food Source | Save Time, Money, and the Planet | Unsolicited Praise | A Note on Pesticides

Drawing from over 100 small family farms, personal vegetable gardens and fruit orchards in Central Virginia is the key to our bountiful harvest and unbelievable variety. We know you want to feed your family the freshest, most unadulterated produce, meats, eggs, and baked goods available – which is why we work so hard each week to bring these wonderful foods to your table.

Know Your Food Source

Most of our growers are members of a Mennonite community in the Shenandoah Valley near Bridgewater, VA. They have been farmers for generations. Their lifestyle still includes horse-drawn carriages for transportation, a choice that limits the distribution of their extraordinary abundance. Once a week, our service will link your table with their harvest.

Save Time, Money, and the Planet

By treating you and your family to the healthful goodness of Horse & Buggy Produce, you’ll not only be saving yourself precious time by letting us do much of your shopping for you, but also you’ll be contributing to the success of sustainable agriculture, small family farms, and the planet’s health, since all of our food is grown within 100 miles of central Virginia.

Top Three Reasons You’ll Save Money by Subscribing to Horse & Buggy Produce:

1. Fresh produce = tasty produce. This means your family is more likely to want to EAT it. Nothing wastes your food budget faster than tossing food out uneaten.

2. Fresh produce is GOOD for you. Call it preventative medicine and think of all the money/time/energy you save by doing all you can to stay healthy.

3. Having great produce around the house will prompt you to cook more and eat out less.

 

Unsolicited Praise

We swear our customers spontaneously emailed these wonderful notes:

“Based on my neighbors glorious review, I assumed I would receive good produce. But WOW, did I underestimate that. From corn that you could gum off the cob; strawberries that begged for a shortcake, but never made it that far; tomatoes that screamed to be immediately sliced and placed on a piece of homemade bread (never has my family had so many tomato sandwiches for dinner and been thrilled!); eggs that still seem to cluck; lettuce so good I wondered how the grocery store could call their offering by the same name; potatoes with that earthy quality that reminds you why you like potatoes; and on and on.” ~Pam Sullivan

My fiancee and I signed up for the couple’s share with Horse and Buggy and have had nothing but a fantastic experience. The couple’s share is more than enough to keep our refrigerator stocked with vegetables. We also paid extra for the bread and fresh egg shares – couldn’t be more pleased. The owners and operators of this CSA are wonderful to deal with and very open with communication. They send regular emails to customers with updates and recipes to try with the veggies of the week. They also aren’t afraid to pick up the phone if we have questions or to answer concerns. Unbelievably good customer service – with that and the quality of their produce it’s no wonder they’re so popular! I would absolutely recommend Horse and Buggy to anyone interested in signing up for a CSA in the Charlottesville, VA area, and I actually have given that recommendation more than once. I have been extremely happy and look forward to signing up next year as well… ~Chris M. Winebrenner

Read all of our glowing reviews

A Note on Pesticides

While we don’t provide certified organic produce, we make the best effort to find produce grown without pesticides or grown with certified organic sprays. The ratio of spray-free to low-spray items depends on the season and the year. It is easier to grow spray-free produce in the spring and fall, when the weather is cool, than in the summer, when the rain and humidity causes fruit to rot. Most of the fruit harvested in July and August must be treated with non-organic fungicides. That said, most of the non-organic (synthetic) pesticides our farmers use are chemically equivalent to their certified organic (plant-based) cousins.

We promise that crops labelled “low-spray” are exposed to the smallest amount of treatment possible – far lower than large-scale agriculture would consider. (After all, Mennonite kids play in these fields and orchards.) But given this reality, we advise that all of our fruits and mid-summer veggies be thoroughly washed before being consumed.