You’ll eat with the seasons, and get the most delicious and nutritious produce possible! Although there is a lot of talk about eating with the seasons, unless you grow your own food in your own backyard it is pretty much impossible to do. It’s oxymoronic, but these days you can even get locally-grow out-of-season produce, thanks to season extension technology, much of which uses lots of electricity from coal-fired power plants, plastics, and fossil fuel. But our motto at Henry’s Farm is “Make Our Farm Your Backyard Garden.” Just as you would go out to your garden and pick whatever is ripe and ready, we do the same — just on a larger scale.

As a member of Henry’s CSA, you will eat what Nature wants you to eat that week. Each week we pick what Nature (the soil, the weather, the ecological web of organisms) did best at growing to its peak of taste and nutrition that week.

I can usually get lettuce to grow even in August, but it is not very happy then. I still sell it at the farmers market because the customers want it even in the heat of summer, but you and I won’t eat lettuce then. Why bother, when the long, hot days of summer are heaven for tomatoes and cucumbers, and they taste like it, too. A tomato in October? It won’t be very happy at that time of year. The plant is chilled, pining for sunlight and worn out from producing fruit through a long, long season. But a butternut squash? It holds within its shiny, laquered shell all that summer sun, now converted to sugars and Vitamin A, fiber and phytochemicals, bursting with flavor and nutrition. That’s what you and I will eat in October.

As a CSA member, you will eat like I do--truly with the seasons. And you don’t even have to work at it, don’t even have to think about it. Nature does the thinking for us, selecting what is best for us--one of the threads in this Midwestern web of life--each week of the season.

Every farming season is an adventure in growing and eating and living. And as a CSA member, you will be an active participant in that adventure

You get super-delicious, just-picked-that-morning vegetables for 26 weeks, starting the last Tuesday in May and ending the middle of November. The selection of produce varies from week to week (see typical shares at the bottom of this FAQ page), but usually you‘ll fill a bag to overflowing with 7-9 types of vegetables at the peak of their flavor.

Best taste and highest nutritional value. Henry grows only the best-tasting varieties, and food scientists have shown that Taste = Nutrition!

No GMOs, Pesticides, Herbicides, Fungicides or Synthetic Fertilizers.

Convenient Weekly Pick-ups of super-fresh, delicious and nutritious vegetables. The produce we hand-picked that morning is in your hands that evening, after traveling 20 miles or less to reach your table. Pick-up locations are in Bloomington, Eureka, Morton, Peoria, Peoria Heights, and on Henry's Farm in Congerville. The specific locations are on the Join page.

Henry's Farm Cookbook, full of time-tested recipes that are simple yet delicious, arranged alphabetically with a page for every vegetable we grow, from Arugula to Winter Squash.

Seasons of Change on Henry's Farm, an award-winning documentary film by Ines Summer.You'll get a link for a free online screening. Deborah Madison (author of Vegetable Literacy and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone) calls it "spectacular and memorable . . . a very important film . . . Watch it!"

This is a difficult question to answer. Weight is not really a good measure because in the spring when you are getting lettuce, spinach, and other light things, a big bag full of produce might not weigh more than several pounds. Conversely, in the late summer when you are getting heavy things like melons, sweet corn, and tomatoes you might lug home as much as 10 pounds of produce.

Volume is not really a good measure either, for the same reasons as above, but generally you’ll be able to fit a weekly share into two plastic grocery bags, and some weeks it will fit in one if you really work at it.

Because neither weight nor volume are good measures, the way I measure a weekly share is by value. When I decide what to give you each week, I make sure it comes to around $21 worth of produce because that is what I am charging you for it. In reality, however, you almost always get more than $21 worth, because I think that you should get a better deal through the CSA than you would at a farmers market. Most years, CSA members would have had to pay nearly 20% more if they would have bought all the produce in their share at the farmer’s market. And if they’d bought the same amount of all the vegetables in their share at a local grocery store, they would have spent even more!

The best way to measure a share would be to say how many people it can feed. Unfortunately, this too is a very difficult question to answer because people’s dietary and cooking habits are so varied. However, most CSA members find that a share is adequate to feed a family of four “omnivores” or a family of two vegetarians. That said, I have had a family of two consume a double share and I have had two families of four members each share a single share. It really comes down to two factors: how often (how many meals) you cook at home as opposed to eating out or eating prepared dishes and how many vegetables you include in your diet.

Just dive in with a single share and see how it goes. If it is not enough, you can always buy another share. If it is too much, you can find another family to share it with you.

No, I only offer full shares. If you don’t think you can use a whole share, I encourage you to pair up with a friend, family member, or neighbor to share your CSA with. I have many members who do this. Some of them divide up each week’s produce while others alternate who picks up every other week.

Sharing is also a good idea if you think you might miss a lot of pick-up days because of travel, work, or kids’ activities because your share partner can pick up for you when you cannot.

While we do give you plenty of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet corn, almost every new CSA member is introduced to some vegetables that are completely unfamiliar with. To help out, our weekly Food and Farm Notes email lists what vegetables you’ll get that week and gives simple-to-make and delicious-to-eat recipes for them, particularly vegetables that aren’t traditional central Illinois fare. Food and Farm Notes are also archived on this website, so you can search for past recipes there too.

Furthermore, all new members receive our self-published Henry’s Farm Cookbook. It covers (almost) every vegetable I grow from arugula to zucchini and features all our time-tested favorites. We also provide information about putting up extra produce for the winter, since there are times of the year when you may have more tomatoes (for example) than you can eat in a week.

It depends on your family’s dietary preferences and cooking habits. However, for most families, I think the answer is no. You will probably find yourself buying a small amount of produce. There are a couple reasons for this.

First of all, it is difficult for me to grow some of the staple crops in large enough amounts at low enough cost. Potatoes, onions, and garlic are good examples. If you use these in most of your meals throughout the year, you will probably have to supplement what you get through the CSA. That said, I am working on increasing my production of these crops so that I can cover more of the demand through the CSA season. At the end of the season, you can tell me how I did and I will continue to produce more if needed for future years.

Secondly, I can only supply what is growing on my farm in that season. You are not going to get a tomato before late July no matter how much you or I want one. Personally, I hope that you won’t go out and buy a tomato before mine come into season. I encourage you to wait. If you are diligent about using and enjoying the produce in your share each week, you won’t even miss those tomatoes until it is time for them. And when that time comes, they will taste so much better for having waited!

Another reason you may supplement the vegetables in your share is if you need a large amount of a particular vegetable for a specific dish. For example, if you want to make a big batch of borscht (beet soup), you may need to buy extra beets.

But please remember, belonging to a CSA is all about flexibility. The CSA members who re-join year after year are those who learn to roll with the seasons and learn how to make dishes based on what’s in their share that week. If there are enough beets for borscht, they make borscht. If there aren’t, they make a cold beet salad with raisins and walnuts. Or they put those beets in the refrigerator until the next time beets are in the share and then have enough for a nice big batch of soup.

As you learn to be flexible in your meal plans and eating habits, and learn how to prepare and eat what you have when you have it, you will find that you are buying less and less outside of what you receive in the CSA.

Finally, you may find that you just eat more produce in a week that what the CSA share provides. Well, congratulations! That means you have a very healthy diet, are skilled and versatile cooks, and eat most meals at home as a family. Unfortunately, you are the exception and I have to tailor the size of the CSA share to what a normal American family can consume in a week. The most common reason I get for members not rejoining my CSA is that there is too much in the share and they wasted too much of it.

If you find you need more vegetables than are offered in the CSA, you can always purchase a double share and I’ll offer you a discount on the second share. I love to encourage good vegetable eaters!

I have yet to come across a vegetable CSA less expensive than ours anywhere, calculated on a per-week basis. It is even less expensive than buying the same vegetables at a farmers market or grocery store—even the non-organic ones! Over the years, I have gone to the Jewel grocery store in Normal with a list of the produce that CSA members received from me that week and priced out how much it would have cost to buy the same items there. In the worst comparison, in a week when my share contained several things that are produced for the wholesale market on a massive scale for the wholesale market and thus very cheap--such as potatoes, onions, carrots, broccoli, etc.—you could have bought your share at the grocery store for close to same price. Every other time, the grocery store produce was more expensive, sometimes even double the price of your CSA share.

And remember, that is how much it would cost you to buy the factory-farmed, chemically-grown equivalents of my produce. So, in other words, produce that was raised with chemicals, picked days if not weeks earlier and shipped across the country or (more and more) around the world—produce with little nutritional value and less flavor--cost more than my produce bursting with flavor and nutrition that was raised locally with love and care and picked that morning. Go figure!

Yes! As we like to say, “Our Farm is Your Backyard Garden.” Please come for a walk in your “backyard away from home!” The best days for visits are Monday through Wednesday but don’t come out on Tuesday mornings unless you plan to help us pick the produce for your share that week, which you are welcome to do! Just arrange your visit with me by email or cell phone. Kids of any age are welcome. I will try to find time to show you around a little, but mainly it will be a self-guided tour. You are welcome to wander around at your leisure.

You are also asked to attend the Orientation Meeting/Farm Tour for new CSA members, where we tour the farm and explain how the CSA works. We serve drinks and snacks.

And in the fall, you are invited to our Farm Tour and Festivities the first Saturday in October. For details, click on over to our Tour page.

If you know ahead of time that you won’t be able to pick up your share, the best thing to do is ask a friend, relative, coworker or neighbor to pick it up for you.

If that’s not possible, or if something suddenly comes up, or if you just forgot, you have a number of options for getting your CSA share, depending on your pick up location.

All CSA members: You can arrange to pick up your missed share at Henry’s Farm, 432 Grimm Road, Congerville (see map). To do this, you MUST text me Wednesday (309-613-2696) before noon and tell me what time you want to come out to pick up.

• Don’t email me because I won’t see it in time.

• Don’t text me before Wednesday morning or after Wednesday noon.

Bloomington/Normal CSA members: You have an additional option. You can pick up a double share at any regular pick up in the future. Important: come during the last 15 minutes of the pick-up period to get a double share, so I can check that I have enough extra for you. Don’t bother to notify me beforehand; just ask for a double share when you get to the pick up.

Eureka, Morton, Peoria Heights and Peoria members: You can contact the coordinator at your pick up site and ask if they will hold your share until you can pick it up. It is entirely up to the coordinator as to whether they can honor your request or not. Please respect the privacy of our volunteer coordinator

First of all, the amount of time and record-keeping it would take in order to allow members to choose the vegetables in their share each week is mind-boggling. Each week I would have to make up a list of available produce and communicate it to you. You would have to respond with your order, and I’d have to make up a master list. If I didn’t have enough of something to give it to everyone who ordered it, I would have to figure out some fair way to make substitutions. Furthermore, I‘d have to run all over the field picking a little of this and a little of that and harvesting would take forever. Then I‘d have to pack each member‘s share up separately. I‘m starting to pull my hair out just thinking about it (in my dreams I still have hair).

And all that extra work does not come for free. I would have to dramatically increase the price you pay for the CSA share.

The other part of the answer is that the ability to choose which vegetables to pick gives me great control over the quality of the produce you get and the health of my farm. Each week I look over my fields and choose which vegetables are at their absolute best that week. If the green beans are ready to pick this Tuesday, by next Tuesday they will so stringy and over-mature that they won’t be worth picking at all. The spinach that is sweet and succulent on June 1 will be bitter and tough on June 8.

The ability to select which vegetables to harvest each week also helps me manage all sorts of problems in the field. For example, say it’s mid-June and the weather forecast is calling for a week of dry, 90-degree weather. I can harvest out the last of my lettuce, radish, and other cool weather crops for you that week before the hot, dry weather cuts their eating quality in half. In the fall, you’ll know when the first killing frost is in the forecast because you’ll get lots of peppers, eggplants and other tender vegetables that I’ve rescued before the frost.

As an organic farmer, timely harvesting is one of my most important tools for controlling insects, weeds, and disease. If the weeds in a carrot bed are starting to flower, for example, I’ll harvest those carrots as fast as possible so I can till down the weeds before they start dropping seeds onto the soil. The best method of controlling weeds is to keep weed seeds out of the soil to start with.

If I start seeing swarms of cabbage butterflies fluttering around my cabbage patch, I’ll start harvesting the cabbages even if they aren’t full-size because I know that it won’t be long before voracious green cabbage worms will be feasting on them.

In general, when I get to choose, I can run my farm much more efficiently, with much less waste and far fewer pest and weed problems. And again, that is a large part is why my CSA cost less than any other CSA I know off, often as much as half! And you get to eat produce that is always at its absolute best--even if you aren‘t able to choose what you get.

I am conscientious about putting together a nice variety of different vegetable in your share each week. I make sure you’ll get a mix of salad greens, root crops, cooking greens, herbs, and the "fruit" vegetables like peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squashes. And I can absolutely guarantee that no two weeks will ever be alike.

Yes, we have two methods to give you some choice in what you get.

First, often when you pick up your CSA share you’ll see a sign with an “or,” e.g. “Take 1 bunch Parsley or Cilantro” or “Take 1 bunch Beets or Carrots.” Most weeks of the season, there will be at least one choice like this in the share.

The second way to tailor your share to your preferences is to use the Exchange Table or Exchange Box. See the next FAQ for how that works.

Each week, I prestock the Exchange Table (or Box) with extras of each thing in the share that week. This is the place where you can exchange the vegetables you don't want for ones you do. It's important to use it correctly because Henry picks the exact amount needed for each CSA member. So if someone messes up and takes more than their share, someone else won't get their full share of vegetables. (NOTE: There is not an exchange box at the On-Farm Pick-Up.)

Please read the instructions below carefully because every year we have problems with Exchange Table etiquette during the first few pick-ups.

1. Go down the CSA line and take exactly what the signs say, picking up all the vegetables in your share that week -- even ones you have no intention of eating!

2. When you get to the end of the CSA line, place a vegetable you don't want on the Exchange Table. Then select something you do want from what's there, making a one-for-one exchange.

For example, if you hate cilantro but love beets, put your cilantro on the Exchange Table and pick up beets. If there are no beets on the table, you'll need to pick up something else from the table instead. Do NOT go back to the main CSA line and grab another bunch of beets from there, because those beets belong to someone else.

DO NOT make exchanges as you go down the CSA line. For example, if you love carrots but hate cilantro, do not leave the cilantro on the table and then take 2 bunches of carrots instead. If you do this, one of your fellow CSA members won't get carrots.

3. In summary, take exactly what the signs say. Then place unwanted items on the Exchange Table, and take an item from the table that you do want.

If everybody uses the Exchange Table properly, no one will take home something they don't like or are are allergic too, and people who come to the pick-up later won’t have to go home less than their full share of vegetables.

A
It’s better for the environment.

Waste:There is no wasted produce with the CSA. If I have 200 members in the CSA, I pick 200 bunches of beets and every one of those bunches is not only already paid for, but every one of them will end up on a member’s dinner table. With the farmers market, I never know how many beets I will sell in a given week. If one week I underestimate demand and under-pick, I lose money, and produce that could have been sold goes to waste in the field. If the next week I overestimate demand, I’ve wasted time, labor and resources harvesting, washing, packing and hauling the produce unnecessarily and in the worst cases, end up having to throw extras away. This does not happen with the CSA.

Efficient management of the farm. This is perhaps where I as the farmer get the greatest value from the CSA. The fact that I am able to decide each week what to harvest for the CSA makes my farm incredibly efficient. It gives me the latitude to harvest crops exactly when they need to be harvested for best taste, best nutritional value, and best use of time and space. I can tailor my harvests to avoid crop losses due to pests, weeds, and inclement weather. The result is that very little goes to waste and the farm is more sustainable and more environmentally friendly.

B
You’ll save money. (Please see #7 above.)

C
You’ll eat better. Joining a CSA is the best way to ensure that you will eat better. Despite your best intentions, you may find that it is hard to stick to the diet that you know is best for you—a diet high in vitamins, minerals, fiber and whole foods and low in fat, sugar, salt and processed foods. Not only will picking up your CSA vegetables each week make you more likely to actually prepare and eat them, you will find the fresh produce so beautiful and flavorful that you will in fact want to eat more vegetables!

Our handy recipe book and our many recipe ideas in the weekly email and on our website will make preparing the foods easier, too.

D
It’s an adventure. Even if you shop regularly at a farmers market, you probably tend to pick up the things that you are already familiar with and know how to cook. In the CSA, you are going to receive some vegetables or varieties that you have never even heard of before. We will give you suggestions on how to prepare everything you get, particularly things that are unusual. After a season in the CSA, you’ll probably realize that some of your favorite vegetables are things you didn’t even realize existed before, whether it’s arugula, kohlrabi, Aunt Ruby’s German Green heirloom tomatoes, or Okinawan purple sweet potatoes.

E
It’s a great incentive to live better. Joining a CSA is kind of like joining a gym. If you are like most people, if you pay for a membership at a gym you are going to end up exercising more regularly than if you had just made a general resolution to exercise more. A CSA membership works the same way. You may resolve to eat better by shopping at the farmers market each Saturday, but chances are when push comes to shove you are going to end up missing going to the farmers market for a whole variety of reasons. When you join the CSA, you are locked in to picking up those vegetables every Tuesday no matter what, and you adjust your life accordingly. End result? You eat better and are healthier and happier.

F
It’s the best way to support a local farmer!

The reason I have CSA members pay up front is that I need to know in the spring how many people I will be feeding throughout the summer and fall. When I plant the first broccoli and pepper seeds in the greenhouse in early March, I need to know how many broccoli and pepper plants I need to grow this year, and the only way I can know that is to know how many CSA members I have.

The other reason I like payment up front is that it shows you have made a hard and fast commitment to me and to the CSA. My commitment to you begins when the first seeds go in the ground in early spring. If members could pay as they go, some members would drop out as the season progressed just due to the law of entropy. Members would drop out in late August, for example, as life becomes hectic when the kids go back to school. Unfortunately, I would have already invested months of time and work and money to grow that member’s vegetables for September and October. Finally, if I had to spend time keeping track of who paid what and when, I would never have time to actually raise the vegetables!

Full of bugs? No.

Will you ever find an insect on your produce? Yes. You might find a corn earworm on the tip of your sweet corn one week for instance, or a cabbage worm in your broccoli now and again. But it will be rare. My philosophy is live and let live.

I know some people are so squeamish that if they see a bug on a vegetable, they’ll throw the whole thing out, but I think that is silly and wasteful. Look at it this way. Say you have an earworm on your corn. Earworms come in at the tip of the ear and they eat the silks and the kernels at the very end of the ear. Now all you have to do take a knife, flick out the worm and cut off the tip of the ear. Voila! You have a perfect ear of corn.

The other alternative is to spray the corn with a toxin that will kill all the earworms in the field (and other life as well). As someone once said to me, "Would you rather have a worm that you can see or a poisonous chemical that you can’t?"

Besides earworms and cabbage worms, few insects are dumb enough or slow enough to stick around after a vegetable is picked. Sometimes you will see the telltale signs of where insects have eaten a little of your produce before it got to you. Often the greens will have tiny holes in the leaves where flea beetles were munching, or the beans will have some gnaw marks from bean beetles, but I see nothing wrong with sharing a little of our food with our insect brethren.

Sometimes insects can feed so heavily on a crop that it’s no longer worth it to harvest or try to eat. But if the damage is light and only cosmetic, I will go ahead and harvest a crop with a little insect damage. I certainly won’t go out with insecticides (even organic insecticides) just to ensure cosmetic perfection of a crop.

Remember, just two generations ago, before the rise of chemical farming, everybody dealt with insects and their handiwork everyday--and were healthier for it.

Until this year (2025), the answer to “Is Henry’s Farm Organic?” was quite simple. I began by saying: “My farm and therefore everything I grow on it is 100% USDA Certified Organic. What that means is that I not only meet, but go above and beyond, all the USDA standards for organic production.”

Well, the answer is no longer so simple. Although I was certified organic by the USDA from 2012 through 2024 (and before that certified organic by OCIA), I’ve decided not to get certified this year. I’m not going to change any of my farming practices and will continue to exceed all USDA organic standards. The only thing that is going to change is that I won’t spend the time, effort and money doing the paperwork, jumping through the hoops, and losing a day of work to the on-farm inspection.

So you’d think I could simply do a “Delete all” on the term “USDA certified” from my pre-2025 website and be good to go. For example: “My farm and therefore everything I grow on it is 100% organic. What that means is that I not only meet, but go above and beyond, all of the USDA standards for organic production.”

Unfortunately, life in our modern litigious world is not that straightforward . . . click here for the full story!