Chris Frankovic, who co-owns Haystack Farms with his mother Mary (not pictured) works a vegetable field during a past growing season. (Submitted photo)

COLUMBIANA — Residents have a way to regularly share in the bounty of one area farm.

Haystack Farms, which is located out of Columbiana, has been a full-time family produce farms for more than a decade.

Chris Frankovic, who owns the farm with his mother Mary, said Haystack is introducing a Community Supported Agriculture program, where consumers buy shares of their products in advance and receive regular shipments of the resulting products.

“By paying upfront, you are enabling your local farmer to stock up on seeds for the season, fix equipment from the previous years and prepare the fields for a new harvest,” he explained.

Haystack curates its CSA to include what is fresh and bountiful during a particular week –so the farm cannot guarantee specific produce in a given weekly. But there is a weekly add-on program that is limited to members as well.

As Frankovic explained, “We work to maximize the diversity of our products. But just as members share in the risk of crop failure, they also will enjoy the benefits of crop surplus, finding those items will located in a CSA-only area at a reduced cost for members on pickup days.”

In the case of Haystack, there are two membership levels for their CSA program: biweekly and weekly.

For a weekly share, members receive five-to-seven items per week. For example, a CSA member may receive one quart of peppers, one squash, one bunch of beets, one quart of tomatoes, one pint of strawberries and one quart of pickles during one week. This depends on what produce is in season, weather, pests and other events that impact production.

Some of the expected produce at Haystack ranges from more standard fruits and vegetables, such as carrots and sweet corn, to a plethora of various tomatoes, peppers, beets, lettuce, and squash.

Sometimes weekly boxes may include unfamiliar ingredients like kohlrabi (think a cross between a turnip and cabbage) or a romanesco (looks more like cauliflower but tastes like broccoli). If so, there will be an accompanying recipe provided.

Add-ons also can take the form of bulk produce (like a sack of potatoes), bouquet of flowers, one of Haystack’s signature jellies, jams, sauces or spice blends or even with one of the area purveyor partners that carries goat milk soaps or lotions, honey, maple syrup or baked goods.

This past growing season, Haystack was able to provide more than one ton of beets from its field. Joining its multiple varieties in 2025 is the Behold the Badger Flame beet, which provides “all the vegetal sweetness of the beet, without the polarizing earthiness.”

In addition to pickup, home delivery within a specified area is available for an additional fee.

Members receive emails on Monday of available produce and add-ons and need to get back to claim theirs by Wednesday.

The cost is $30.19 per box, or $362.28, for the biweekly option. The weekly program is $24.15 per box, or $555.45 for a CSA membership.

Before 2015, Haystack Farms sold most of its produce either to area farmers’ markets in Lisbon, North Canton or Cortland as well as to local restaurants.

The CSA advances the goal of getting higher quality produce to customers, Frankovic concluded.

For more information about Haystack Farm or its CSA program, call Frankovic at 234-946-1494.