Chickens are among the denizens of Erik Eacker and Trish Garland’s Ledge Ends produce operation at Briggs-Boesch Farm, on South Road in East Greenwich. The couple sell shares of their harvest before the start of the season, a concept known as Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

EAST GREENWICH — Four years ago, when Erik Eacker started Ledge Ends Produce and its Community Supported Agriculture program, he was eager to sign people up.

He started with a scant 100 participants. But these days, with 230 families enrolled, Eacker, who runs the organic produce operation with his wife, Trish Garland, on the town-owned Briggs-Boesch Farm, off South Road, are quite busy.

The CSA program allows families to buy shares in the farm harvest at a set preseason cost, and in return they receive a full season of harvested produce.

This year, “We had 60 people that we had to turn away,” Eacker said. “It’s been constantly growing. In Rhode Island, there is a lot of support for the CSA.”

Eacker, 32, and Garland signed a five-year lease four years ago on the sprawling 84-acre farm, which dates back to 1704 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The town’s land trust acquired the site, valued at $2.1 million, in 2001 from the Boesch family.

Earlier this week Eacker and his assistant manager, Deanna Levanti, worked steadily, stuffing plastic bags with produce from this week’s harvest — which includes fresh basil, onions, squash and raspberries. The produce will be available for members to pick up at the Friends Meeting House in Providence.

Some of the Ledge Ends Produce will also be available Monday at the town’s first farmer’s market, which will be held afternoons at Academy Field near Rector Street.

“We harvested everything this morning,” Eacker said on Tuesday. “Tomorrow, we’ll have 120 people coming.”

He said participants signed up in the wintertime with a preseason annual payment of $550. Harvesting begins around June and shareholders can expect weekly bags of fresh produce including beets, broccoli, salad mix, scallions and radishes. The late season brings, onions, melons, peppers, kale and carrots.

Everybody wins in CSA farming, Eacker said.

The consumer knows where the produce is coming from, how it is being grown and who is growing it, he said. And the farmer gets fair compensation.

“I get a decent price for my food. I get the money for the food when I need it, at the start of the year, as opposed to getting it at the end of the year. … I get paid in the wintertime, to buy seeds and equipment … as opposed to a borrowing the money from the bank.”

The couple also sell at many farmers markets under the Ledge Ends brand name. They also host summer educational programs, including organic farming classes and other programs that teach about the environment and wildlife.

Eacker has been a farmer for 12 years. He and Garland moved to Rhode Island from northern New York, where they ran a farm for about eight years using the CSA model.

“It didn’t work so well there. It was a really rural area and it didn’t have a strong population center to drawn upon. We were looking for a farm closer to a city. This is the perfect place to do it,” he said of East Greenwich and its proximity to Providence.

The couple live in the historic house on the farm. The property has a barn and other outbuildings, stone walls, public hiking trails and the Briggs family cemetery.

For years Rhode Island farms have been declining, as cost for land and fuel to run them continue going upward. Many people see community supported agriculture as one way local farmers can compete in the today’s tough economy.

“This hasn’t been a great season. Gas prices have been higher …” Eacker said. “It’s tricky. You definitely have to be creative and have innovative ideas. Trying to apply large-scale conventional agriculture to these small plots of lands in Rhode Island is not going to work.”

lsparks@projo.com