What are the benefits to a CSA?

CSA programs are beneficial to both the farm and the CSA member.  Memberships help support the farm with early revenues so that start up costs for purchases of fertilizer, seeds and other supplies can be met. Having a set membership number also helps the farmer to plan what he has to grow and to get the crops started early.  

For the members of the CSA, there are many benefits.  Share members help preserve open space by supporting the continuation of a viable, working family farm.  Participation also helps to reduce their individual carbon foot print by purchasing locally grown organic vegetables and lessening the amounts of food trucked in from distant areas.  Members come to know who grows their food, become more aware of how it is grown, and come to understand the seasonality of produce.  

Joining our vegetable CSA gives you the oppoprtunity to provide more fresh organic vegetables to your family's diet.  The CSA helps you make healthy choices for your family meals.  The best benefit is of course simply enjoying the fresh, delicious, local organic vegetables. 

What will I get as a Sang Lee Farms CSA member?  

Each week you will receive a box ( 1/2 to 1 Bu. box )  of fresh certified organic vegetables.  We have 2 size boxes, a FULL and a PARTIAL.  Please refer to the 2011 HARVEST LIST under the CSA tab above to help you decide which size is best for you and your family.

Some items may be the same in the full and partial boxes, and at other times it may be different.  We will always try our best to distribute the varieties of produce we have available to both full and partial shares somewhere over the course of the season.  We grow over 100 different varieties of vegetables, so there is plenty of opportunity for variation.  

In addition, our best efforts will always be made to maximize the value of your weekly share.  Our goal is to give you more value than what it costs you to participate in each of our vegetable CSAs.  Excluding any major inclement weather issue, our pledge is to provide you with an abundant weekly supply of delicious Certified Organic  "Fresh-Lee-Cut"@   vegetables in a mix and variety that will please you.  For the 2012 season, we hope to continue to expand the variety of vegetables we offer.    

 Additional CSA Programs:  Once you are a vegetable share member you may join our other CSA programs.  For 2012 we have joined with other local farmers to bring you additional products. 

 These include:

• Fruit Share       from Briermere Farm
• Cheese Share   from Catapano Dairy, Mecox Dairy, Goodale  Farm, Harperfield
• Eggs Share       from North Fork Egg Farm
• Oysters Share   from the Noank Cooperative
• Dairy Share       from Goodale Farm
• Flower Share      from Salt Air Farms and Andrews Farm 

When does this start? 

START DATE:  May 29th & 30th, 2012

 When does the CSA Stop?

END DATE:  November 20th & 21st, 2012

The CSA is a 26 week program.  CSA memberships will be granted on a first come basis for the season.  We may also limit the numberof CSA shares depending on the number of memberships received.  

The EARLY BIRD SPECIAL DEADLINE IS FEBRUARY 15,2012

This means, the early bird price of $399.00 for a Partial vegetable CSA membership is valid only if paid by February 15th, 2012.  The price of a Partial Vegetable CSA increases to $425.00 if paid on or after February 16th, 2012.  The postmark on your envelope determines your payment date. 

Accordingly, the price of an earlybird Full Share Vegetable CSA is $599.00 only if paid on or before February 15th, 2012.  The price of this Full Share vegetable CSA increases to $665.00 if paid on or after February 16th, 2012. 

The deadline for all Vegetable CSA memberships is May 1st, 2012.

Where do I pick up my weekly share?

FARM PICKUP  Pickup will be at the farm in our barn.  Members can go there directly to get their box.  Families on vacation or unable to pickup their share on a particular day can have others, such as a neighbor or friend,  pick up their share at the farm.  

FARMER MARKET PICKUP  Pickups can also be made at the Westhampton Beach Farmer's Market, the Northport Farmers Market or the East Hampton Farmer's Market only while those markets are operating.  Since the CSA share schedule extends ahead of and after the operation of some of the Farmer's Markets by a couple of weeks, the members normally picking their shares up from those markets will have to come to the farm to pick up their shares on those weeks that the market is not in operation.  This arrangement of picking up CSA shares at a picticular Farmer's market is by prior arrangement only.  Members can not switch back and forth for their pickup arrangements by week.

East Hampton Market - Fridays 9:00 - 1:00  2012 dates  TBD

West Hampton Beach Market - Saturdays  9:00 - 1:00  2012 dates TBD

Northport Market - Saturdays  9:00 - 1:00  2012 dates TBD

Jericho LIE Exit 41:  pickups are at the Jericho Kosher Deli located off exit 41 in the Whole Foods Supermarket Shopping Plaza  Tuesdays  2:00 - 6:00 PM

When do I pick up my share?

PARTIAL SHARE - TUESDAYS   2PM - 7PM

FULL SHARE - WEDNESDAYS    2PM - 7PM 

Please note:  Our staff is often packing and finalizing the boxes between 1:00PM and 2:00PM.  Likewise, our staff must close up the barn each evening before finishing for the day.  We ask you therefore, to please pay close attention to the scheduled times.

 It is the CSA member's responsibility to pick up his/her share on the designated day.  We cannot promise to hold your box if it is not picked up on the designated day. Special arrangements must be made ahead for any changes to this schedule.  All shares not picked up will be donated to a local food pantry. 

Possible New CSA Drop Sites

If groups of (50) members/families or more can designate a particular site away from the farm, delivery options can be considered.  We will look at the options to facilitate efficiencies in distributing the weekly shares to certain neighborhoods depending on the distances of those groups from our farm in Peconic.

What happens to my box if I don't pick it up?

Your box will be given away to a family of need or donated to a local Food Pantry.  During the past  CSA seasons, we made many donations to individuals and families, CAST of Greenport and North Fork Parish Outreach. 

 Brooklyn CSAs

If you are interested in joining any of our Brooklyn community CSAs, please contact the coordinators directly for these neighborhoods:

Dumbo Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn, NYC   

Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NYC    

Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn, NYC

our egg farmers:  Egg shares will be provided by North Fork Egg Farm in Southold and/or Young Widows Farm in Orient.  

egg grading:  The eggs will be mixed in size with both medium and large.

daily life:  The chickens on both these farms are raised in are free range environment with fresh air, clean water, and rotating pasture to roam freely about during the daylight hours.  They are tucked safely into their coops at night.

diet:  Our chickens are fed a diet of organic feed with some supplements, and table scraps of other foods.  Please contact us for more details on the exact content of feed.

share size:  one  share is 1/2 dozen eggs.  Please order in half dozen quantities.   **Remember, you must be a vegetable share member to participate.

share cost:  $20.00 per share - $3.33 per half dozen x 6 weeks.  Multiply this cost by the number of shares you would like to order. 

share pickup:  pickups will be in the farmstand ONLY.   

Sang Lee Farmstand is currently closed but we'll be open before you know it.    Our plan is to re-open mid-April with some of our delicious organic veggies.

Currently our Winter CSA members are enjoying our certified organic items like potatoes, beets, fresh field carrots, cabbage, brussel sprouts, kohlrabi, daikon radish and a delightful selection of our delicate lettuce from our greenhouse.  

To accomplish this goal we are committed to using CERTIFED ORGANIC GROWING PRACTICES, with every effort made to farm sustainably and responsibly as stewards of the earth. 

We will follow the National Organic Production Standards and maintain our certification with NOFA-NY Certified Organic, LLC.  In addition, we will continually strive to improve all our growing practices with each season. 

• www.nofany.org

Sang Lee Farms is a second generation family farm originally growing produce for the Asian markets in New York City and along the entire east coast from Montreal to Florida.  

Over the last ten years the farm has shifted its focus to retail, farmers' markets and community supported agriculture.  In doing so it has added many new  specialty vegetable and herb products, including heirloom tomatoes, multicolored carrots, asparagus, potatoes and garlic.  

To compliment our wonderful produce that is "Fresh-Lee-Cut" @,  the farm has developed its own full line of prepared foods.  Dressings, dips, pestos, pickled products, jellies, and cooking sauces are now available, and are featured whenever Sang Lee Farms hosts special events and tastings.

East End Biz Show Premiers on Plum TV & 88.3 fm by Samantha Brix

A new show featuring East End businesses premiered Friday at 3 p.m. on Plum TV’s Hamptons channel — Cablevision Ch. 18 — and at 5:30 p.m. on Peconic Public Broadcasting radio, 88.3 WPPB-FM.  The show, called The Real Deal and hosted by radio personality Bonnie Grice features the history, challenges and successes of East End businesses.

The 30-minute pilot episode featured Karen and Fred Lee, owners of Peconic-based Sang Lee Farms

Read More...

Years ago, I wrote a snapshot of Sang Lee Farms, located out on the North Fork of Long Island. The Lee family grows some of the lushest Asian greens around. Standing in a field of bok choy with farmer Fred Lee, I asked him to tell me the secret of his perfect produce. He bent down, grabbed a handful of soil, and passed his magic on in two words: “sandy loam.

Read More...

  End of an Era: East End Agriculture's Lost Link to Chinatown by V. Troy

BOSTON lettuce and fresh basil sit in baskets next to baby bok choy and kohlrabi. Chocolate chip cookies and scones from a Southampton bakery share shelf space with soy sauce and black bean garlic sauce. It's hardly a typical Long Island farm stand, and Sang Lee Farms, in Peconic, is hardly a typical Long Island farm.

Sang Lee was once the biggest grower of Asian vegetables in the New York region. For several decades, when the average American's knowledge of Chinese food meant an occasional encounter with canned chow mein, Sang Lee fed fresh Chinese greens to the growing populations in Chinatowns stretching from Toronto to Washington.

Read More...

    SWAPPING WITH STRANGERS (G. Grookock; summer 2008)

                       GREENHOUSE GROWING (2009)

Recent Events

 Scho0ls

 SOUTHOLD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL-"A DAY AT THE FARM" (October 2011)

William Floyd High School Environmental Studies  (October 2011) 

WILLIAN FLOYD ELEMENTARY  “MEET A FARMER” (January 2010)

May 29th - November 14th 2012

Our Oyster Farmers:  Karen Rivara and James Markow provide the oysters through the Noank Cooperative.  This coop, formed in 2000, provides hatchery raised oysters, along with other shellfish, and is very involved with research, public education, and resource enhancement projects.  The cooperative is based at the former University of Connecticut marine research laboratory in Noank and at the Shellfisher Preserve in Southold, owned by the Peconic Land Trust.

• Peconic Pearls: oysters are raised by members who have cultivation areas in Southold Bay.  Oysters will predominantely be harvested from these water for your share.
• Mystic Oysters:  oysters are hatched in Southold and transferred to grounds in Noank to grow to market size in coves near the Mystic River's exit into Fishers Island Sound.  Oysters may be harvested from these waters if our farmers need to supplement the Peconic Pearls for any reason. 

share size:  50 count oysters in a netted bag

share pickups:  seven (7) monthly pickups, at the farm ONLY: 

• May 29/30 
• June 26/27 
• July 24/25 
• August 21/22 
• September 18/19 
• October 16/17 
• November 13/14

exceptions:  oyster waters may be closed following heavy rainfall or other weather event.  An alternative pickup date will be set if the harvest grounds are closed on the designated day.

share price:  $300 **You must be a vegetable share member to participate.

important considerations;  to maintain the freshness of the oysters at the proper temperature, we recommend that you transport the oysters in a cooler with ice.  We will also maintain optimum freshness here at the farm with special refrigeration during the pickup days.  We cannot hold the share past the pickup date due to the perishability and special holding arrangements.  Any share not picked up at the end of the day will be donated.  

Click Here to see a special video on "How to Shuck Oysters"

Many people ask if I'm enjoying the 'time off' during the winter months.  The truth of being 'off' can be a matter of perspective. 

There is some irony that while I have more time during this part of the of year, (to do things like my hair and nails), there always seem to be too few hours in the day for me to accomplish the tasks I have.  It is a fact that there are not any full time employees harvesting, planting or performing any crop care practices we normally do during the warmer months, nor is the farm stand open for vegetable sales.  The equipment repairs that were put off during the summer still remain to be done.   Monitoring temperatures and running both heaters and refrigeration units on our winter storage vegetables as well as checking the overwintered plants in the greenhouses as temperatures vary are a few of the things that keep me busy each day.

It may sound like whinning to some of you, but it really isn't.  I not only know better than to do that, but I made it a New Year's resolution a while back to cut that stuff out of my life.  I also just wanted to set the record straight for anyone that may have happened to see me lately, (on some of the colder days below freezing).  It really is the 'extra insulation' under the coveralls that makes it appear that I have been sitting around eatting Bon-Bons waiting for the spring to arrive.  

It was just last year at this time that I had to wear snow shoes to get across the barn yard.  Now it's a matter of deciding whether or not to take my jacket to step outside.  With some days being so mild, I almost forget what month of the year it is.

November 15, 2011

The last days of our local summer CSA distribution are this week.  I always have mixed feelings about the season's end.   This season being not really different from past ones in this regard.  For this season, I feel relief that the challenges we had weather wise are behind us as is the responsibility of tending the crops in the fields.  The other feeling I've had on my mind is one of gratitude.  With so many weather events over the course of the summer from wind and record rainfalls, I am surprised and thankful that we were able to harvest the produce that we've had over the past many weeks.  

I have seen better and more productive years, and I've experienced much worse seasons, so I can easily say that this is a season to be thankful for.  With many other farms in up state New York experiencing devastating losses from the same weather events that we had locally, I know it was just a matter of how the storm clouds blew over the northeast region that made the difference of having a crop or not.  For us, over the past few months, we were spared the worst of those weather events on not just one, but a number of occassions.  For this, I am most grateful.

What better frame of mind to approach the Holiday upon us.

January 2011

I can't remember when the ground was covered by snow consistently for so long a time period, (more than a few weeks).  Perhaps it was during the last Ice Age, or an equal number of years ago.  Usually around this part of Long Island, and this time of year, we are treated to a visual landscape of dull BROWN.  The trees, vegetation, even the vast herds of deer and few rabbits all seem to blend together in the same color scheme. 

I'm still trying to figure out if this is a good thing from the global warming perspective.  Maybe for each week the snow stays on the ground here and the whole northeast, it will translate into a fraction less incremental change in the average global temperature rise expected this year.  Then again, most everyone I know has their oil burner, wood stove and various other heaters cranking so the carbon emissions we are putting back into the atmosphere from burning all this incremental fossil fuel are probably balancing out the heat reflective qualities of the snow cover.

Perhaps it's best that I get back to the equipment maintanence and seed orders I started out this morning doing.  Hope your snow filled days are happy ones.     

Early Winter 2010

Thankfully the summer season went well with great growing conditions.  I could comment on the dry hot days of July and August that made me 'accidentally' spray my self with cold well water from the irrigation pumps on more than one occassion, but what I am most grateful for was the fact that all the named tropical depressions and hurricanes in the south Atlantic never made landfall in our neck of the woods.  Had that happened, there would have been depressions of a different sort, (and we're not talking about the barametric type), in this neck of the woods, so we're 'not going to go there'.

The mild weather trend that we are currently in has given us a huge jump on our first Winter CSA distribution, with almost every fall cruciferous vegetable representated in the box.  Our late fall bountiful harvest is simply passed on to our CSA members' full boxes, which is just super for all of us. 

We give thanks too, to a wonderful staff and field crew that help make the growing year of 2010 a great one.  We are grateful too, for our wonderful customers both at the farm stand and all of our Farmer's markets, and to all of our CSA members in Brooklyn and out by the farm who have changed our lives for the better in so many ways. 

Wishing everyone a Healthy and fun filled Holiday Season!

Be Well,

Fred & Karen

Early Spring 2010     Grower’s Note

With the spring Equinox just around the corner on March 20th, the longer day lengths are more than welcomed by this winter daylight deprived grower.  Our greenhouses are being prepared for our second round of seeding for transplants and plugs.  Some Polyethylene coverings on our high tunnels need to be replaced from the damage of the wind storms of last month. 

We’re on schedule for our plantings of bulb onions, baby Bok Choy and mixed lettuces.  We have many herb cuttings ‘cooking’ on our heating tables.  We don’t really cook the seed & plug trays, but we do use electric heating coils on tables to provide more efficient warming of our germinating plants.  With the warmer temperatures on these heating tables, we can keep the immediate root zones on our cuttings and seedings at an optimum 65+ degree F without having to heat the entire greenhouse.  Much like using an electric blanket on your bed, you can keep nice and toasty at night while the rest of your room and house remain at 57oF through out the evening hours.  Lucky Plants don’t even have to freeze their buns when they get up in the middle of the night and go into the bathroom for ‘a drink of water’.

We’re looking for a dry stretch of weather before we can get our first planting of spring sugar snap peas seeded outdoors.  Hopefully that will happen before the end of the month.

Wishing you a Sunny day,

Fred

Great day for the all who are interested in our farm and our CSA.

Tours, tastings, partner farmer info stations, book signings, potting......... 

 photosphotosphotosphotosphotosphotos

Westhampton Beach Farmers Market

 Saturday June 16th through Saturday,  November 17th, 2012

Located in the Public Parking Lot on Mill Road behind the Historical Society and Firehouse

Every Saturday 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, rain or shine.

Easthampton Farmers Market

Friday, May 25th through Friday,  September 28th, 2012

Located in the Parking Lot of Nick and Tony's restaurant

Every Friday 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, rain or shine.

Northport Farmers Market  

Saturday, June 16th through Saturday,  November 17th, 2012

Located along the Harbor in the Parking Lot by the public Park at the end of Main Street

Every Saturday 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, rain or shine.