Buying in quantity, preserving and running a group
Once you have two or three farms you trust, the next step is not buying better: it is buying at the moment and in the quantity that suits the farm.
The moment of the glut
Every harvest has a week when it all comes in at once. That is when the price per kilo drops and the farm badly needs it gone. If you ask them to «let me know when your glut comes», you buy at the best moment of the year and you solve their worst.
Order it before it is sown
What helps a small farm most is knowing something is sold before it is planted. Saying in January that in August you want thirty kilos of tomatoes for preserving changes what they sow. It is the neighbourhood version of a contract.
A group of four households
Four families ordering together turn an impossible delivery into a worthwhile one: one stop, one invoice, one hour. Agree on the pick-up point and take turns going. You do not need to set anything up, no co-op and no app: you need a message group and somebody to count the money.
A round between farms
Nobody has everything. One strong vegetable grower, one stone fruit, eggs, and a market stall for whatever is missing: with three or four names you cover the year. The pages of one comarca are cross-linked to each other so you can put your round together.
Keeping what you buy
Always ask how they store it themselves — they have been doing it all their lives. And buy with the jar in mind: at the August glut, tomatoes for twelve jars come cheaper than twelve one-kilo shops in winter.
Say so on the page
If you buy at a farm, say so on their page. There are no stars and no scores: just «I buy here» and one line on what you take home. For a farm with no website it is the only thing that makes it visible, and for the next person to arrive it is worth more than any mark.
Carry on here
This page is also in Castellano