Oxen-powered, pasture-raised. 21 weeks of CSA, seven pickup sites.
Her soil gets studied. Her spreadsheet got retired.
Farmer Melanie used to grow at the speed of one spreadsheet. Now renewals bring in over $40,000 in under two weeks and 90%+ of members come back season after season — while she's out in the field.
The only thing she scaled back was the admin.
15 minutes with Ari, our founder and a farmer.
I was aligning my work to my spreadsheet — limiting the number of memberships and pickup locations based on what it could handle.
Melanie Cunningham · Shakefork Community Farm · Carlotta, CA
Read her playbook"Hey farmhand,
can you…"
Melanie texts what she needs. Someone on the Farmhand team does it and texts back, usually before the truck's unloaded.
Anything that would otherwise mean opening a laptop fits in a sentence.
See what she runs ↓Melanie used to run renewals out of three places at once. Now she doesn't run them at all.
Renewal campaigns used to be an email in one tool, an announcement on Instagram, follow-ups from her phone. Now it's one campaign, scheduled weeks before the last boxes drop. Over $40,000 lands inside two weeks. For a seasonal CSA, that's seed money.
- Scheduled while the season's still runningThe renewal campaign goes out mid-harvest, not after the season ends — while members are still getting boxes and remember why they signed up.
- Tiered follow-ups for the early birdsPay-in-full opens first, deposits a week later, then a nudge to everyone still deciding.
- Every channel, one deadlineEmail, SMS, flyers at pickup, posts on Saturday. Members who see it more than once get a nudge, not a contradiction.
- Print that rides along in the boxQR renewal flyers, pickup-site signage and business cards, in members' hands with the last shares of the season.
Add-ons were the one thing they could never offer. Now there are three.
Melanie's spreadsheet was already tracking two share sizes, seven pickup sites, and every payment date. Adding eggs meant tracking who wanted them, at which site, on which schedule — so she didn't. Now members add them at signup and the billing sorts itself.
- Three add-on shares, billed with the boxFree-range eggs, a Greens Lover share, coffee from Humboldt Bay Coffee Company. Members pick them at signup or add them mid-season as available.
- Seven pickup sites, eleven pickup windowsTuesday - Saturday, from the pack shed in Carlotta to a front stoop in Fortuna. Each site carries its own day, time window, pickup instructions, and capacities.
- Holds members set themselvesGoing away for a week? Members pause it from their account, and Melanie hears about it from the pack list.
- Capacity caps and a waitlistEvery site has a cap. Members renew into their spot first, then the remainder opens to the waitlist in order.
November's turkeys, sold in July.
Melanie sells ahead of the harvest. A deposit in July holds a November turkey; beef by the ten-pound box, broilers three for $100 and seasonal items fill the rest of the year. Members get first look and their own pricing, and every balance charges before pickup.
- $50 down in July, $9 a pound in NovemberShe knows by midsummer how many birds are spoken for and plans the harvest around it. The balance charges by the pound before the November 24 pickup — nobody's writing invoices the week of Thanksgiving.
- Sold by text, picked up with the shareShe texts members when there's extra beef. They reply, the card on file charges, and it's at their pickup site Tuesday — no cart, no second trip.
- Members-only listings and pricingA listing can be hidden from the public or priced two ways. Members see the turkey pre-order open a week before anyone else does.
Melanie kept the relationships and handed off the questions.
Where a pickup site is, whether a box is ready, a missing item. A team that knows Shakefork answers them seven days a week, in the farm's voice — and she can read every thread.
- Seven days a week, in Shakefork's voiceChat, email and SMS, answered by people who know the farm. Pickup times, address changes, a hold someone forgot to set — handled before her phone lights up.
- Credits in one clickFull or partial. The member gets confirmation in the same thread and the credit lands on their account.
- Declined cards retry themselvesThe card retries on its own. If it fails again the member gets a branded notice with a link to fix it. Melanie never has to ask.
90%+ of members come back season after season.
Eleven pickup windows, four days, one pack list.
Carlotta out to Garberville, Tuesday through Saturday. The crew packs from one list, drives one route, and members hear from the farm twice — once when the box is packed, once when it's out.
- Labels and sign-out sheets, printed in route orderSorted by packing station, ordered by stop, on a thermal or office printer.
- Harvest reports before anyone walks the fieldWhat to pick and how much, broken out by item, weight or site. The crew starts the morning with a number instead of an estimate.
- Routes that reorder themselvesStops sequence for the shortest run out from the farm. When Melanie adds one the morning of, the route rebuilds around it.
- A photo at every drop, a text when the van's lateGPS-tagged proof of delivery, and members hear about a delay from the farm before they even have to ask.
BEFORE Pack day, Sept 2024
NOW Pack day, July 2025
Automate, delegate, or keep.
Melanie sorts every job on the farm into three piles: the work that was never the point, the work someone else can do better, and the work that is the point.
How she decides
What she automated, what she handed off, and the one thing she'll never give up.
Read her playbook$40,000 in renewals in under two weeks
Melanie on the offer structure, the deadlines and the perks that moved 70%+ of her members to renew early.
Watch her workshop
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