What have we been up to for the past two weeks since coming back from our holiday break? The short answer is: a lot!
But a more detailed answer is that as usual, we’ve been harvesting, washing, and packing produce; caring for animals and collecting eggs; repairing machinery; prepping fields for planting; loading trucks; going to farmers markets; and delivering produce at CSA sites and wholesale customers. And we’ve had a few other special activities to report. Here’s a quick run-down of just some of the highlights:
December was for crop planning and ordering seeds, which have come in. We’ve started seeding flowers and vegetables in the greenhouses. It’s fun to watch the seeds germinate and sprout and to see what the plants look like in their juvenile stage. Much like people, they don’t look the same as they do when they’re older. We will be writing more about our greenhouses in a future week.
The weeding team got busy on some of the flower and garlic fields and then spread compost on the flowers. Check out their great work!
The flower crew did a deep clean of the wreath room and is getting all prepped for the tulips we expect will be here soon. A reminder that if you’re interested in getting tulips during the first two weeks of February, the minimum order is for 2 bunches ($18, plus tax) which you can get on the same day, or over the two consecutive weeks. Please send us an email if you would like to order tulips.
The kitchen crew started cooking with citrus! Citrus tea cakes and marmalade are both available on the CSA member store, as are several other new non-citrus items, including stewing chickens and apple syrup.
Around the shop, both the flower cooler and the dry goods packing room have been rebuilt and fixed up.
Winter is usually conference season for the farming world and last week was the 41st EcoFarm Conference. It went digital this year and while it didn’t look or feel like it normally does, as always, many knowledgeable, and inspirational panelists and keynote speakers shared their thoughts and experience. Paul, Dru, and Judith all participated in panels, discussing the Real Organic Project, no-till organic vegetable production, CSA responses to COVID-19, and a remembrance of friend of the farm Amigo Bob Cantisano. Many of the rest of us attended various workshops, both in English and Spanish, to learn from the wide variety of presenters at the event. Online conferences come with their pluses and minuses: moving online makes it more accessible to attend, but it also makes it more difficult to connect with other attendees and to fully engage in the conference while you’ve got the constant tug of work that you know you need to do.
And unfortunately, we’ve had to spend time irrigating our fields. Both because of the dry conditions and to ward off damage from Tuesday morning’s frost. It looks like this week will finally bring some much-needed rain. That’ll mean a bit less work in the fields, but as you can guess, there’s still plenty to do!
Elaine Swiedler
CSA Manager
