With the lettuce’s sudden sense of urgency we need to start the season the week of June 15th. If you asked me two weeks ago when we’d start — and some of you did — I would have put a lot of money on the week of June 22nd. But the plants have other plans. So the 15th it is!
I sent out pick-up instructions this past weekend. If you did not receive them, and they are not in your spam folder, please let me know and I will resend them.
We still have shares available — unfortunately. Keep recruiting new members if you can! Order through our online store.
We still have add-on shares available, though eggs are just about sold out. Feel free to add-on an add-on or two! Fruit, cheese, flowers (also in short supply), coffee, winter and mushrooms!
Farm News
I must say this season the plants are looking far better than I’ve seen in quite some time. The hoop house tomatoes already have fruits. The outdoor tomatoes are flowering as are the zucchini. The potato plants tripled in size in less than a week. The garlic is huge! The winter squash, sweet potatoes and melons are all thriving. As mentioned above, the lettuce is ahead of schedule. We have a great crew of workers most of whom have prior farming experience. Overall I couldn’t ask for a better start to the season.
Which is why I find it frustrating that we can’t sell all the shares we planned on. The last five years we sold out or almost sold out every year. This year we were far ahead of past years in sales until sometime late winter. I was quite optimistic that we’d sell out again. But then the tap suddenly turned off. We are down 20% from last season. I don’t know if this drop is unprecedented in the farm’s history but I don’t recall such a dramatic reduction in sales year-to-year. Plus the suddenness of the sales collapse is especially troublesome. It was almost like the internet forgot about our website.
When writing these newsletters I try to be positive while still explaining the difficulties farming involves. Every year there are new pests or diseases. The weather is never consistent. The seed companies drop varieties we’ve grown for many years. I try to explain the issues and what remedies we are attempting while still keeping a positive spin. Farming is stressful but also rewarding knowing our customers are eating better and enjoying the flavors that vegetables are meant to have.
And so it is disappointing when we have a successful start to the year from a farming perspective but a substantial downturn from a financial perspective. Being a pure CSA farm we don’t have other outlets for the produce we grow. We don’t do farmers’ markets. We don’t sell wholesale. We decided awhile ago that CSA is a two-way street and if customers are willing to bet on our success we are going to give them everything we grow. The customer is there if we fail. We need to reward them when we succeed. It is only fair. But I guess it exposes us financially if CSA or local farming is suddenly unpopular or out of the public consciousness.
Anyway, this is all to say that we need help selling the rest of the shares. I’ve mentioned in in every newsletter this season but a mere mention doesn’t seem to be very effective. I probably should have emphasized the situation more in past newsletters but I was always hopeful sales would pick-up as the weather warmed. So this newsletter is dedicated to increasing awareness of where the farm is financially. So please spread the word. Use social media. Talk to friends and neighbors. Buy additional shares/products including a newly added product called UpgradeShare for those who want to upgrade from a CoupleShare to a FamilyShare. (You can never eat too many vegetables!) Whatever you can do is greatly appreciated. And hopefully the upturn in sales will be as rapid as the downturn was earlier this year.
Joke of the Week
Here is an oldie but goodie. I’m sure I used it before:
How do you make a small fortune farming?
Start with a large fortune.
As always, do not hesitate to contact me with questions, comments, share orders or any other item you think would be interesting. And mark your calendars for next week’s start!