Delivery FAQs
General Delivery Questions
1. What is available for delivery from your farm?
We have several subscriptions (available on both an annual and monthly basis) available for delivery: Market Box (produce), Box of Beef, and Flower Jar.
Market Box customers can also order add-ons (bulk produce, preserves, Black Angus beef, flowers, merch, & more) to be dropped off alongside their produce box.
Alternatively, stand-alone orders of the bulk produce, preserves, etc are also available.
2. When will I get my delivery?
Deliveries are made weekly between Tuesday and Friday, starting between 6 and 7am and finishing by early to mid-afternoon.
Here is a *very general* schedule overview, based on the previous season’s schedule:
Tuesday: Oxford County, Brant County, London & area, Stratford & area
Wednesday: Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Brampton
Thursday: Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, East York, Scarborough
Friday: Etobicoke, North York, Midtown Toronto, Downtown Toronto
We have invested in updated delivery notification software and used it throughout the 2022 and 2023 seasons. It was very well received, and we are excited to continue to utilize it throughout 2024. You will receive a delivery notification via text and/or email the night before your delivery heads out as well as the morning of once our drivers hit the road. A live tracking link will also be provided, as well as a countdown of stops before you. Although this system is very accurate overall, we do occasionally still run into delays or changes based on traffic and road closures. We do our very best to keep you updated if this happens!
3. I live in an apartment; can you still deliver to me?
Yes! However, to keep our staff as safe as possible, we will not be entering any buildings beyond the lobby.
We can deliver to an apartment and either text, call, or buzz up upon arrival and wait for you to come down. Alternatively, we can leave the market box with your concierge, if applicable. Please determine that this is allowed with your building first, though. In 2021-2023 some concierge providers did not accept deliveries containing fresh food.
4. Quality Issues
Our policy when there is a quality issue is to happily send you some replacement items the following week or at a time most convenient for you. We do our very best to thoroughly screen all produce prior to packing, but occasionally mistakes do happen, and problem items do get missed. If you do run into a problem, we ask that you kindly notify us as soon as possible so we can make things right. We can’t fix issues we aren’t aware of!
Market Box Specific Questions
1. I registered for a small box, but it’s not enough! How can I switch to a larger size?
Please get in touch with us. If you paid in full upfront, we’ll sort out how much is owed depending on the time of year. If you are a monthly subscriber, you can cancel at the end of the month, and sign up again for a different size.
2. I’m going to be away for a week – what are my options?
For 2024 we will be offering 3 options for our customers who may be away:
Give us the name and contact information for a friend, neighbour, or family member who lives nearby and can pick up the box for you. We will text or call them when we’ve dropped off the box, and they can head to your home to pick it up.
We can skip you for a week and drop off double the amount of produce next week.
Feeling generous? We can donate the contents of your market box to a local food bank on your behalf. We work with several not-for-profit organizations across Southwestern Ontario who can always use extra food – especially fresh produce!
Unfortunately for the 2024 Market Box season we will not be able to deliver your box to an alternate address. Our delivery routes are planned monthly, and weekly changes increase the risk of an error on our end. We will happily work with you to apply one of the 3 above options but want to ensure the experience of our other customers is not affected.
If you require an alteration to your delivery for a week, please email marketbox.trmelons@gmail.com by Friday at midnight. This will ensure we can make changes to our harvest and packing numbers well in advance and reduce food waste!
3. I am a full season subscriber and need to cancel for a month. What are my options?
Our full-season subscription is intended for folks who anticipate joining us for the full season – all 7 months – which is why we can offer a discounted rate. If your schedule is unpredictable, or if you know you’ll be away for a month at a time, the monthly subscription may be a better fit for you.
However, we could work with you to select alternate weeks to receive double deliveries, to make up for the missed weeks, or we could donate the missed week boxes on your behalf.
Overall, though, we are unable to offer refunds for missed weeks/months for full-season subscribers.
4. I am a monthly subscriber and need to cancel for a month (for holidays, etc). What should I do?
No problem! We have a couple of options.
You can send us an email to marketbox.trmelons@gmail.com when your next renewal rolls over, and we can manually refund that individual transaction. That way your overall subscription will remain intact, and you will begin to receive deliveries again after your skipped month.
You can log in to your account and cancel your subscription prior to the automatic every 4-week renewal date. This will fully cancel your subscription and prevent all future renewals. However, doing this means you will then have to re-subscribe to continue to receive deliveries once you return.
Overall, please note that cancelling a subscription only prevents future renewals and charges to your credit card. If your renewal has already gone through, so has its payment! If your renewal goes through and you do not want to receive a box for that month, please email us at marketbox.trmelons@gmail.com before the monthly deadline.
5. What kind of produce does the Market Box contain?
The Market Boxes will contain a selection of in-season produce grown on our farm. Outlined below is a more detailed description of what you can expect to see each month. Keep in mind that none of this is written in stone. We may decide to grow a new crop, may experience a crop loss due to weather, or may have shorter or longer seasons than expected for certain crops. We never know for sure what will happen with Mother Nature! We’d also like to highlight that our peak season is actually late summer and early fall, so this is when you will see the most variety and volume of produce!
May: asparagus, rhubarb, green garlic, spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard, radishes, fresh potted herbs, overwintered vegetables (sweet potatoes, potatoes, cabbage, leeks, shallots)
June: asparagus, rhubarb, green garlic, spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard, strawberries, new potatoes, zucchini, beets, peas, carrots
July: strawberries (June varieties and everbearing), new potatoes, zucchini, peas, carrots, beets, raspberries, green onions, kale, blueberries, sweet corn, muskmelon, watermelon, beans, garlic, kale, herbs
August: strawberries (everbearing), potatoes, zucchini, green onions, kale, blueberries, sweet corn, muskmelon, watermelon, tomatoes, grape tomatoes, beans, garlic, okra, carrots, onions, bell peppers, herbs, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, cabbage, leeks
September: strawberries (everbearing), blueberries, sweet corn, muskmelon, watermelon, beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, zucchini, squash, garlic, onions, kale, herbs, pie pumpkins, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, cabbage, leeks, tomatoes, grape tomatoes
October: strawberries (everbearing), broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, leeks, herbs, squash, eggplant, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, cabbage, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, green onions, onions, garlic, kale, beets, tomatoes, grape tomatoes, Brussels sprouts
November: Brussels sprouts, beets, squash, thyme, tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, garlic, sweet potatoes, leeks, potatoes, onions, bell peppers, squash, parsnips, carrots, kale, herbs, cabbage, turnip
6. How many people does a Market Box feed?
This varies greatly depending on specific household eating patterns, but as a rough guideline we recommend a small box for 1-2 people, a regular box for 3-4 people, and a large box for 5-6 people. If you eat out or travel often or have very small children, you may want to size down. Alternatively, if you want to do lots of freezing & preserving, or have growing humans with big appetites, we suggest sizing up!
7. Do the different sizes of market boxes always contain the same items?
We do our best to balance variety and portion sizes across all sizes of Market Boxes. However, it does become difficult later in the season when we have lots of different kinds of produce in season. At that point, you can expect the larger-sized Market Boxes to contain a bigger range of items than the small box.
8. I moved! How can I update my address?
Congrats on the move! If you are a full-season subscriber, please send us an email to marketbox.trmelons@gmail.com to alert us of the change in address.
If you are a monthly subscriber, we would appreciate if you could cancel your subscription and re-subscribe with your new address. That way it will be correctly exported from our website to our delivery routing system for future months! If the change in address is taking place mid-month, send us an email and we can manually update for the remainder of the month. Please be aware that a change in address may mean a change in delivery date.
9. I got a new credit card – how can I update?
Here are the steps that need to be taken to make sure billing information is properly updated for a subscription:
Log into the account
Click on Subscriptions or Memberships
Click on an active subscription or membership
If viewing an active membership, click on Go Manage Subscription
Click on Payment Method
Click on Update Payment Method
Follow the prompts to update the card on file for this subscription
Click Save in this panel to save the payment method
Overall, if the payment method was just updated under the general payments tab, it is not applied to the specific subscription. Our website host acknowledges the confusion this creates, and that they are working on making the process more streamlined. In the meantime, though, you should hopefully be able to access the payment information specific to your subscription and update there.
10. More questions or requests?
Your best bet is to send us an email to marketbox.trmelons@gmail.com. This email is monitored regularly between 8am and 6pm Monday through Friday, and sporadically over the weekend (we are busy attending farmers’ markets Saturday and Sunday!). We will do our best to respond to questions and requests within 24 hours on weekdays.
Our social media channels are also monitored regularly. Finally, a good old fashioned phone call can be made to 519-469-3636.