Castlegar, BC. Serving the Kootenays and beyond.
9 min read
Key takeaways
- The most useful page a farm can own is a dated board saying what is ready today.
- A wasted drive is never forgiven. Seasonal hours and a closure notice you can post in ten seconds are worth more than any photograph.
- Sell the CSA share and the beef box in February, while the field is still frozen.
- Photograph the driveway from the road, because plenty of lost customers never found the turn.
- Live inventory is a promise you cannot keep. A dated line in your own words is the honest version.
On this page
What does a farm or orchard website need?
Three answers carry most of the traffic: what is ready right now, when the gate is open, and how to find the driveway. Everything else on a farm site is built around those. Add a share sign-up, a u-pick page, cut sheets if you sell meat, and a wholesale contact, and the season sells while you are in the field.
A farm loses customers to uncertainty rather than to price. Somebody wants strawberries this weekend and has no way to know whether the field is picked out. They stay home, and you have a full stand on Saturday and a compost pile on Monday.
- A what-is-ready board you change from your phone, dated, so today’s list is today’s list.
- Seasonal hours and market days, with a closure notice that shows on every page.
- Directions written for somebody who has never turned off that highway, plus a photo of the driveway from the road.
- U-pick rules: rows open, containers, price by pound or basket, dogs, strollers, shade, and washrooms.
- CSA shares and boxes with sizes, weeks, pickup points, and a deposit through the processor you already use.
- Cut sheets, hanging weight, and pickup windows if you sell meat, plus where the animal is processed.
- A wholesale page with varieties, typical volumes, delivery days, and one contact who answers.
The in-season board is the whole site
The single most useful page a farm can own is a board that says what is ready today. Not a crop calendar. Not a promise about August. A list you change from your phone between the field and the stand.
Peas on. Strawberries picked out until Thursday. Corn from the weekend. A customer reads a real answer and either drives out or waits, and both of those keep them coming back. Nothing says fresh like a page that changed this morning, because it proves somebody was in the field a few hours ago.
It stays honest because it is yours to edit. The same control runs the hours and the closure notice, so a smoky week, a hailstorm, or an early sell-out shows up on every page in the time it takes to type it.
Twenty minutes out and a locked gate ends the relationship. Accurate hours beat any photograph on the site.
The farm year, and what the site does each month
A farm site is not busy all year, and it should not pretend to be. The work moves around the calendar, and knowing which month does which job is most of the reason a small site can carry a whole season.
The shape holds in the Creston valley, where fruit runs on a tight window and everyone knows it, and it holds in Grand Forks and up the Slocan the same way. What changes is the timing, which is exactly why the board has to be yours to edit rather than mine.
Finding the gate, which is where most drives fail
A good share of a farm's lost customers never found the turn. The map pin sits on the back field, the driveway is unmarked, and there is no signal to check by the time it matters.
- The turn
- The landmark before the driveway, because a map pin on the back field sends people to the wrong yard. A photo of the entrance from the road solves this in one image.
- Parking
- Where to leave a truck, whether it is gravel, and what happens on a wet Saturday when the lot is soft.
- Payment
- Cash, tap, e-transfer, or the honour box. Say it, because somebody is deciding whether to stop at the bank first.
- Signal
- If there is no cell service at the stand, write it down. A customer who expected to look something up on the spot needs to know before they leave town.
- The dog and the kids
- Whether either is welcome in the rows. A family loading three kids into a truck wants that settled before the drive, not at the gate.
A single photograph of the driveway from the road, taken from a car window, fixes more of this than a page of directions. Take it in the light people actually arrive in, and take a second one in autumn when the trees have changed.
Selling the season before it exists
CSA shares, beef boxes, u-pick weekends, and bedding plants all get decided months before they exist. The farm whose share page is live in February fills the season while the farm posting in May is chasing it.
- 01Write the share page in January: sizes, what a typical week holds, the number of weeks, and the pickup points.
- 02Put the dates on it, including the first pickup and the last, so a family can plan a summer around it.
- 03Take a deposit through Square or Stripe, so card details never touch the website itself.
- 04Open a waiting list the moment the shares are gone, because that list is next year’s first week of sales.
- 05Do the same for beef and lamb boxes: hanging weight, cut sheet options, deposit, and the pickup window.
- 06Email the list when the season opens, with consent captured properly through the year.
Written for somebody planning a whole summer in February, the share page carries more weight than any post you make in June. Keep a waiting list once the shares are gone, because that list is the reason next February takes an afternoon instead of a month.
Meat, cut sheets, and the questions buyers are shy about
For ranches and butchers the questions are specific and nobody likes asking them. Hanging weight, cut sheet options, the deposit, the pickup window, and where the animal is processed.
Publishing those turns a nervous first-time buyer into somebody who books a half next year without asking twice. The province is clear that slaughter establishments in BC are either federally registered or provincially licensed, and that provincially licensed product can only be sold within the province. Buyers increasingly ask where, so say where, and say what you are permitted to sell direct.
Chefs and grocers plan on paper
A wholesale buyer needs varieties, typical volumes, a delivery day, and one person who answers. Publish that and you get a standing order instead of a one-off, which is the difference between a good week and a good year.
Restaurants plan menus weeks ahead, and the farm they can plan around is the farm they keep buying from. Kitchens across the region are actively looking for local supply, and my guide to restaurant and cafe websites shows the other side of that conversation. Give the buyer a page they can forward to a chef, and a contact who is not a general enquiry form.
The claims you can make, and the ones you cannot
Organic is a certified word in British Columbia. Since 2018 any food or beverage marketed as organic here requires certification through an accredited federal or provincial program, and it gets checked.
So state exactly what you hold, name the certifying body, and use plain descriptions of your practices everywhere else. An honest description of how you farm sells better than a word you cannot back, and it is the only version that survives a customer looking you up.
The same care applies at the gate. What you may sell there depends on your zoning and, for many Kootenay farms, on Agricultural Land Reserve rules. I publish what you tell me you are permitted to do and link to the authority rather than paraphrasing regulation. A website is not legal advice, and it should never read like one.
Where farms stand in the Kootenays
This category is one of the least online in the region, which means being findable is still an advantage here rather than table stakes.
On The Kootenay List, the register of Kootenay businesses I built and maintain, 42 of the 86 farms & farm stands listed have no website at all, as of September 3, 2026. The breakdown by town sits in the Kootenay business web census.
Creston carries the most farm-heavy listing count in the region and sits under half online, so a fruit stand there is competing largely against silence on Highway 3. Grand Forks runs close to the same. A farm in either place that publishes what is ready and where the gate is has the road to itself for most of the season. The web design in Creston and web design in Grand Forks pages carry each town's numbers, and the farm and agriculture website design page carries the build path.
What it costs, and where to start
A farm needs the seasonal board, the hours, the directions, and a sign-up path, all editable by you. That is a Trailhead build at $2,000, delivered in 2 to 3 weeks, and it is my starter tier.
Farms shipping boxes across the province or running a full online store move up toward the Storefront at $5,000, or $469 a month for 12 months, which is $5,628 all in. The Own It Monthly plan spreads the Trailhead: $2,000 once, or 12 payments of $189, which is $2,268 all in and yours outright at payment 12. Kootenay businesses get the 10% neighbours discount off any build. What you pay depends on what the farm actually needs, not on a package name.
The season is short and the produce does not wait. If a site already exists, the free website check-up will tell you what a customer cannot find on it. If there is no site yet, start here, and bring a photo of your driveway from the road.
Sources and further reading
- Province of BC: organic certification
Since 2018 any food or beverage marketed as organic in BC requires certification through an accredited federal or provincial program. The province names the administrator and the standard. Read September 2026.
- Province of BC: meat inspection and licensing
Slaughter establishments in BC are either federally registered or provincially licensed, and provincially licensed product can only be sold within the province. The page also covers Farmgate licences for low-volume producers. Read September 2026.
- Agricultural Land Commission
The authority on what is permitted on land inside the Agricultural Land Reserve, which covers a great deal of Kootenay farmland. Link to it rather than paraphrasing your own permissions.
- Government of Canada: Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
The consent rules that cover the email telling your list the corn is on. Express consent, the farm named as sender, and a working unsubscribe.
Frequently asked questions
Our Facebook page does this already. Why add a website?
The page reaches the slice of your followers who happen to be scrolling. A search reaches everybody looking for a u-pick or a lamb this weekend, including the family that moved here in March. Keep posting, and let every post point at a page that holds the facts.
Can I really update it myself during the season?
That is the whole design. The in-season board, the hours, and the closure notice are yours, editable from a phone in about a minute. A farm site somebody else has to update is wrong by the second week of July, and a wrong site costs more than no site.
Can it show live inventory of what is in the cooler?
I will not build that, and here is why. The count drifts the first busy Saturday, and one wrong number teaches a customer to stop trusting the page. A dated line in your own words is honest, faster to keep current, and reads better to somebody planning a drive.
Can we take CSA deposits and box orders online?
Yes. Deposits and prepaid shares run through a processor like Square or Stripe, so card details never touch the website itself. You get the order with the share size, the pickup point, and the contact attached, ready to add to your list.
We only sell three months of the year. Is a site worth it?
The short season is the argument for it. Those three months are decided in the two months before them, and a site holding the dates, the share sign-up, and the hours works while you are planting. The rest of the year it quietly answers whether you are still there.
Will it load out here on bad signal?
It has to, so I build for it. Static pages, compressed images, no heavy scripts, and a phone number that dials with one tap. Somebody sitting at a highway junction with two bars should have your hours and directions in a second or two.
How much does a farm website cost?
Most farms land on the Trailhead at $2,000, delivered in 2 to 3 weeks, with a 12-month payment plan available. Farms shipping boxes across the province or running a full online store move up toward the Storefront at $5,000. Kootenay businesses get the 10% neighbours discount off any build.
Related pages
- Farm and agriculture websites
- Retail and ecommerce websites
- Web design in Creston
- Web design in Grand Forks
Kootenay Made Digital
I build websites, local presence, and calm AI setups for Kootenay small businesses. Plain language, published prices, and clear work that makes you easier to find and easier to choose.
