BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) - Karin Colgrove is hankering for greens, and she hopes her recent move didn't cause her to miss her first weekly vegetable delivery of the summer.

Colgrove's family is among the hundreds of Whatcom County households who buy shares of local farms. They pay their farmer up front for a summer's worth of fresh vegetables, fruits and other produce typically delivered weekly.

A cool, wet spring delayed Cedarville Farm's first delivery to its shareholders, said Mike Finger, but boxes of garlic greens, spinach, lettuce, green onions and bok choy will go out this week to the Colgroves and about 134 other veggie-starved customers.

"I was thinking today, 'Did I miss it already?"' Colgrove said. "In the beginning, it's a lot of salads and green food, but man, I'm just craving that green food."

Subscription or shareholder farming, known popularly as community-supported agriculture or CSA, allows customers a steady supply of fresh produce while giving farmers some capital early in the year to start their seasons, said Shonie Schlotzhauer, food and farming program manager for the Bellingham nonprofit group Sustainable Connections.

Mike Neuroth, owner of K & M Red River Farm, said he thinks of his shareholders as investors. Their capital helps him launch his new planting season, and their dividends come in the form of crops.

"I pay back a $30,000 loan in six months," Neuroth said. "They get that back, but as food."

Farmers say there's growing interest in shareholder programs, judging by the requests they're getting for shares. Last year, Sustainable Connections' Farm Map and Guide listed six farms offering subscriptions. This year, there are 13.

Farm shares come in many forms. Many deliver the shares in boxes of produce to shareholders' doorsteps, or to central delivery points like farmers markets. Some give their shareholders vouchers to spend at their shops or farmers market stalls.

Some farms also go in with others to diversify their offerings or bring in produce grown in Eastern Washington or beyond. Roslyn McNicholl, whose Rabbit Fields Farm in Everson recently delivered its first shares, threw in a loaf of locally produced organic bread to go with the mustard greens, napa cabbage and radishes.

The size and cost of shares vary, Schlotzhauer said, but a typical weekly share will feed three to four people for a week. Many farms offer half shares. One local farm even takes food stamps.

The Colgroves have shared their weekly boxes in the past, she said, but the family of three now keeps the whole box themselves.

"I like eating the vegetables," Colgrove said, "but I get used to eating them more when the box comes, because it is incredibly convenient."

But being a shareholder requires some flexibility.

"A lot of things you get, you don't know what they are," she said. "There's, like, parsnips and celeriac, fresh edamame soybean pods, a lot of stuff you don't know about."

Like many subscription farms, Cedarville Farm sends a newsletter, complete with recipes to help people eat what arrives in their weekly box.

Finger said he and his wife don't mind sharing recipes for the vegetables they grow - but it shows how shareholder farming can be more work than farming for one or two wholesale customers. Cedarville grows almost 50 different things on their farm to provide a variety for their shareholders. McNicholl has okra growing in her greenhouse for a shareholder who loves Southern cooking.

While subscription farming provides some much-needed financial stability, Finger said, some farmers find it too predictable. If the market price skyrockets on a particular crop, for example, it's still going in the shareholders' boxes, not on a truck to fetch top dollar in Seattle.

"It's like putting your money in a safe, secure savings account at 6 percent, instead of investing it in the stock market," Finger said.

But that dependability is what farmers need some years, said Schlotzhauer, who worked on a CSA farm near Olympia. One year, the farm had a bad potato crop, which could have been devastating if the potatoes were destined for the market.

"Our members wanted them," Schlotzhauer said. "They told us they would rather eat our ugly potatoes than ones from the store. You've got a community that's invested in your farm. If something doesn't go exactly the way it was planned, they've got your back. If things go better than planned, they get the benefit of that."

For many shareholders, that connection to the farm is part of the appeal, said Walter Haugen, whose F.A. Farms near Ferndale just started offering shares. He said his shares are designed to mimic grocery store prices, but most customers aren't shopping for bargains anyway.

"They're usually professional types," he said. "They've got disposable income. You're not selling a price-conscious thing. You're selling an involvement in the farm."

One farm, Uprising Organics, got donations for starting capital so they can offer shares to those who receive food assistance. Shareholders make regular payments throughout the season using their food stamps card.

"We just felt the best food, organic food should be available regardless (of income)," said Crystine Goldberg, one of the farm's owners.

Colgrove, who said her family visits Cedarville Farm for seasonal events, said it's harder to let a vegetable go to waste when she thinks about how hard Finger worked to get it to her kitchen.

"I will tell my husband, you need to eat these," she said, "because Mike grew them."