Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

I first learned of Community Supported Agriculture a few years ago.  It's all the rage in the foodie world and is a frequent topic of conversation on many of the food blogs that I follow.  CSA has been described as "linking consumers with a local grower.  It is not a home delivery service. CSAs spread the risks inherent to any farming enterprise over a larger group of supportive people.  Rather than a difficult year being potentially disastrous to the business, Sharers help make small-scale, local farming a sustainable option.  We do not guarantee amounts of produce for each week.  We are professional market gardeners and have been doing so for many years.  You are going to get a wide variety of tasty, fresh, certified organic produce.  Anticipating variety and change in each week’s harvest is the key to enjoying your Share: we recommend you do not expect a certain amount of produce.  You will have to supplement your weekly Share with produce we don’t have available that week, particularly in June and early July: this is, after all, Alberta, and it takes at least eight weeks for the garden to really take off." Graham Sparrow, Sparrow's Nest Organics


I was quite keen on the idea of supporting local farms to continue to stay in business and I try  to follow the tenants of the 100 mile diet  as much as possible.  I began to research CSA options for the Bow Valley and found that there were no farms delivering to our area.  I later learned that there was a business who picked up fruits and vegetables from farms in BC and Alberta to sell locally but I was interested in developing a more direct relationship with a farm.  After contacting numerous CSA farms in Southern Alberta, Noble Gardens Farm responded to my request to establish CSA delivery in Canmore.  They held a community information session last spring and were able to sign up enough participants to make CSA delivery a reality in Canmore!  We received vegetables (and some fruit) weekly from the beginning of July to almost the end of October.  All in all, I was pleased with my CSA baskets.  Last year was a difficult growing season so we did not receive as much produce as we had hoped but that's what it means to belong to a CSA.  I loved chatting with the farmer about the produce that I was picking up and I was happy to know that I was supporting farming in Alberta.  I have decided to sign up for another CSA basket this year and am sharing the information about Noble Gardens in case others are interested in signing up as well.  They deliver CSA shares to both Calgary and Canmore.   Info from their most recent email is below:


Hello everyone,
We hope you have all had a wonderful start to the new year.  We are gearing up for summer already and wanted to touch base with our members once again.  Today we put the plastic on the new greenhouse ( it is about 3 times larger than what we worked out of last year!).  It was a good feeling to get it up without the wind blowing it away on us.  Seeding time is just around the corner and we are trying to get a feel of how much we will need to plant.  As such we would like to ask you to register now if you have not already done so.  Hoping you will join us again for another season of fresh, delicious veggies.  A big thanks to those who have already gotten their registrations in! ( If your deposit has been payed, the remainder of your payment is due by March 15)

Registrations can be placed on our updated website 

Tim and Brenda

Noble Gardens

***Again, I get no financial benefit from referring people to Noble Gardens.  I'm just sharing this information for your consideration.***