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The Cumming Harvest
thecummingharvest@live.com
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For those of you that have questions about how this all works, here’s a quick Q & A…

How do I order?
Each Wednesday morning, a list of available products is sent to all of our registered customers by e-mail. Customers must place their order for the week any time after that email goes out, but no later than Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Orders should be placed here on our website, but if you are having troubles you can respond directly to the e-mail. Ordering through this web site is Locally Grown’s preferred method as it is designed to reduce the amount of time it takes us to process orders as well as provide you with detailed information about our products.

Will I have to buy vegetables I don’t want?
Unlike some co-ops, buying clubs, or CSAs where everyone gets the same box of stuff (and you don’t know what you’re getting until you get it), with Locally Grown you get to order what you want, in the quantities that you want, from the farms that you want. The weekly email lists the produce, milled products, fresh flowers, and artisan goods available that week, and you can browse the items on this website before you place your order.

So there’s no minimum order amount?
Nope. Order as much or as little as you want, from the farms that you want.

How and when do I pay?
When you place an order, you are committing to paying for those items ordered. We take payment in several ways:

1. You can pay into your account in advance (via check or cash in person, or online via Credit/Debit card), and draw down over time. This is a very convenient method, since you only have to think about it every once in a while, but you can also:

2. Pay via credit/debit card online when you place your order. We support all Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB, and Diners Club cards. Or:

3. Pay via cash, check, credit/debit card, or EBT when you pick up your order. If you pay via card, there is a 3% convenience fee to help us cover processing costs.

If you pay in person when you pick up your order, we will have already paid the growers for you on your behalf. If you fail to come pick up your items, you will still be expected to pay the amount due.

Are there membership fees?
To help us with our overhead costs, we ask that you pay an annual fee of $25 per household for one calendar year. You are welcome to try us for two orders before officially becoming members.

The membership fee will be automatically added to your third order.

Are there taxes or other charges added to my order?
The growers set their own prices, and are all-inclusive, including any taxes (like gasoline at the gas station, or food at the airport). Since the growers are selling directly to you, they (not TCH) are responsible for collecting and reporting sales and other taxes.

When and Where do I pick up my order?
From 10am until 12pm on Saturday morning, customers can pick-up their produce at 106 Colony Park Drive, in the basement of unit 100.

We do not make deliveries.

Payment is still expected for produce that is ordered but not picked up.

When I come pick up my order, you guys run around, and return with an armload of stuff. What goes on?
It’s a major effort to get all the produce together, organized, and then distributed back out to the customers. Imagine taking a full farmers’ market, spread out over a park or other location, and condensing it down to a single room — that’s what we do.

Our volunteers helped the growers unload everything, and know, more or less, where everything is. They’re running from table to table finding and gathering your items.

Oh no! I forgot to pickup my order! Now what?
Well, I’m sorry we missed you.

About a half hour before we pack up to go home, we’ll call you if you haven’t come yet, using the phone number you tied to your account. If you have a cell phone, use that number!

Most times, we get an answering machine, so if we haven’t reached you when it’s time to go, we’ll try again.

If we still haven’t been able to reach you, your items will be donated or given away! We do not have a means to keep items until the next week, or to deliver them to you. If we were able to reach you on the phone, we may be able to work out an arrangement, but otherwise, your items will be donated or given away!

Since the growers harvested just for you, and (more importantly) since we paid the growers on your behalf when they brought them to our market, you are still responsible for paying for items, even if you do not pick them up. We’ll charge your account, and that amount will get added to your next order.

Why Support Locally Grown?
Enhance your local economy: By purchasing produce and other items from local growers you are providing stability to your local economy through the support of local businesses.

Save natural resources: Buying locally makes you an invaluable link in the process of saving resources such as fossil fuels and packaging materials. Also, we are right here in your community so the expense of transportation and delivery is kept to a minimum.

Provide learning opportunities: Locally Grown supporters provide member growers the means to help educate our community about the importance of sustainable agriculture.

Supporting a way of life: The number of small farms in the United States has decreased dramatically in the last decade. Please help us preserve an honest and worthy means of making a living.

We believe that small, diverse, family-owned farms contribute to society’s overall health.

Why are some of your products labelled “organic” and others are not?
First off, no “conventional” growers are allowed to sell through our market. Everything sold here is grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Everything here could be sold as “organic”, but many growers choose not to.

To use the word “organic”, a grower must register through the USDA and keep up with a tremendous amount of paperwork. The process is very expensive and intensive, and certainly favors the larger factory farms over the small family farm.

The state of Georgia has seen that, and has given the small producer who sells only a few thousand dollars a year of produce a means to register with the state department of agriculture. A few of our growers have gone that route, and they can legally use the word “organic” in Georgia.

Another system is “Certified Naturally Grown”. This nation-wide program seeks to correct the problems with the USDA certification system. The standards are just as strict (and in some cases, more so) as the USDA Organic program, but there is no cost to become certified. There is still some paperwork, but not as much. More importantly, the growers in the program inspect each other, rather than relying on an outside for-profit certifier. Several of our growers have gone this route.

Finally, a few growers are not certified by anyone but still use organic sustainable methods on their farms.

To find out more about our growers, and to see what certification, if any, they have, take a look at our Growers page.

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!