A letter to our new members.

Welcome, and thank you. We are Rosa and Jakub Sandoval, and the small farm you have subscribed to is called Elmwood. Our daughter Lucia, seven and tall for her age, is the third member of the operation; she gets paid a small wage and the right to plant whatever she wants in the corner field, which this year is going to be sunflowers and three rows of carrots in the wrong variety.

Your share will come twenty-two weeks in a row, from the third week of May to the third week of October. The first few weeks are heavy on greens — kale, lettuce, asian greens — because that is what is ready early. By July there will be tomatoes, and by August there will be too many tomatoes. We apologize in advance.

On Saturday afternoon we will text you what is in your share for the coming Tuesday. You have until Monday at six in the evening to swap any two items for two others, skip the week, donate to the food bank, or gift the share to a friend. You do this by replying to the text. You do not need to log into anything. We promise.

When something goes wrong — and it will, because farms are like that — we will tell you what happened. The flood took the onions. The deer found the lettuce. The hail bruised the cabbages. We try not to pretend that food appears.

Welcome. We will see you Tuesday.