Farming is hard. Vegetable farming is even harder. CSA farming adds yet another layer of complexity. The obvious layer is the need to provide quantities of produce in relevant amounts each week – week after week. We can’t give out 5 pounds of tomatoes one week and 15 heads of broccoli the next. The items have to be spread out over the course of their season. This is far different from other vegetable farming where it is more cost efficient to harvest and distribute all at the same time. If you have a crew out picking broccoli, keep them picking broccoli until it is done. Switching takes time and time is money.
However, this isn’t the only additional difficulty CSA farming adds. Another is the communication aspect of CSA farming – providing the connection between the farm and its members. This can be at a minimum a time consuming endeavor — not necessarily difficult, just time consuming. Where the greater difficulty comes is when there is news that members do not want to hear. Sure it is easy to say how magnificent the kohlrabi looks or how many pounds of potatoes we are getting from each row. But it is much more difficult to bring up the bad news. Not only because it is bad news but because you don’t want the members to be concerned about what is coming next. Fear may work in politics but it plays badly in CSA farming.
So, we’ve come up with a strategy that seems to work out quite well. Let me illustrate with an example:
We don’t tell the customer about the almost three inches of rain that fell in about 45 minutes followed by winds gusting over 50 mph causing the sweet corn to lie flat on the ground. We don’t mention the hail that tears through the lettuce leaves leaving them in shards. We don’t discuss the recently planted bean seeds that ended up floating on the new temporary pond – courtesy of the three inches of rain.
Sure, all these things happened this weekend, but we won’t mention them in our newsletters. Why would we want to frighten our members into thinking there won’t be any food? We don’t want them to be concerned about the money they put out for the wonderful produce they were expecting this summer. We want them to continue to believe that all is perfect here on the farm. The chickens are clucking. The cows are mooing. The cats are drinking milk out of the milking buckets. The baby goats are butting heads again. And the sun is shining!
So instead we mention how we received a bountiful amount of rain this weekend. And not only did we get rain on Friday night but we were blessed with even more rain on Saturday night. We talk about how the hail scared away some of the cucumber beetles and how the flea beetles were blown away by the 50 mph winds. We point out how the water rearranged out landscape to provide a smoother surface with less slope. We state that though sweet corn is delicious it is not really that nutritious. We may say something like, “I hope you’ve liked the lettuce so far. The lettuce season may be winding down soon.” And as we’ve learned over the years, plants are not like buildings. If a building loses a part of it you have to replace it. It a plant loses a few leaves it will grow more to replace them, with little help from us. So even if it looks bad out there this week, next week it will all look different.
In summary, we may mention a small set back in production, or we may not, depending on how other items have fared. And that is one positive aspect of CSA farming. No matter what weather you get something you are growing likes it and will do well.
A couple quick announcements/thoughts:
If you don’t like the taste of radishes, cook them. One member mentioned roasted radishes though I’ve never tried them.
I suspect, but I haven’t tried it yet, that ground-up garlic scapes mixed into cream cheese would be delicious on a bagel.
Bring back the egg cartons if you remember.
Also bring back the blueberry clamshells.
Next FruitShare will be delicious cherries! Let me know if you’d like to order a la carte.