March signals two annual occasions in Vermont: mud season and CSA sign-ups. As the snow melts and the ground thaws, farmers start their first seeds and their customers purchase community-supported agriculture shares, promissory notes for the weekly boxes and bags of abundance to come. The arrangement gives farmers the jump-start cash they need and a guaranteed market for their produce.

Trenchers Farmhouse follows the tried-and-true pay-ahead CSA model, but it doesn't supply bags of kale or root vegetables. The eggs and heirloom vegetables that Jennifer and Giacomo Vascotto produce on their hilltop farm in Lyndonville all end up in pasta. The shares they sell are memberships in their pasta club.