Heading into week number seven.
One difficulty with being a farm is we deal with perishable products. Over the years we humans have discovered ways to slow the progression of the produce’s demise by using refrigeration and for non-organic produce, chemical treatments. Of course we don’t use chemical treatments for our produce but we do use refrigeration. Pretty cool huh?
Another difficulty with being a farm is we deal with pests on a continual basis. There are many differing views on pest “management” from the “let nature take its course” mindset to the “kill all the pests at all costs” mindset. We lean toward the left side of the midpoint of this range. We deal with pests as they become a problem but will let nature take its course if the problem isn’t significant. Even organic pesticides have unintended consequences. So we prefer to use other approaches to pest management and if we do use organic pesticides we use them sparingly.
So why am I bringing up these in this newsletter? Well, because part of your responsibility as a CSA farm member is to alert us as soon as possible to any issues you may have with your produce whether it is pests hitching a ride, pest damage that is unacceptable or other produce malady. We have processes and procedures in place to try to keep our pests here with us but those pests are wily. And frequently while harvesting a hole or two can be overlooked. So if you are having a problem please let us know; there is a fair chance that someone else is also having this problem. And there is an equal chance that we at the farm have no idea this problem exists. Then again we might. How is that for complete ambiguity? Whether or not we know about it we would still like to be told so that we can determine the extent of the problem. There may be times when we send out produce that is less than ideal but maybe we had no alternative; it was all we had available.
I thought about all this while I was watching “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver the other night where he mentioned that Americans waste 40% of all food grown in this country. In the segment he showed a peach orchard where the ground surrounding the trees was littered with peaches. These peaches were dropped there by the people harvesting the peaches because the peaches were not number one quality peaches. They had some small cosmetic flaw. The contents of the peach was still peach. The taste of the peach was still delicious. Yet because we’ve come to expect peaches to be blemish-free the farmer has to dump the flawed peaches to rot on the orchard floor. Of course the cost of growing that peach was still incurred but the value of that peach to the farmer is now $0, a significant net loss that can’t be made up on volume.
At our farm we strive to provide you with perfect produce but sometimes nature gets the better of us. At those times we have to decide if the produce is “good enough” or is it better to give it to the chickens. (In between the two is our “free bin” for produce that is less than our minimum acceptable quality but may still be usable). The definition of what is our minimal acceptable quality differs by item, by season and even by week. A good example is cool season crops like snap peas.
Snap peas like cool weather. Here is Minnesota we have terribly cold and terribly hot weather with a few solid weeks of nice cool weather in between, so growing snap peas (and broccoli and cauliflower and any other cool season crop) is tricky. If we get a prolonged cool spring we get great peas and broccoli and cauliflower for an extended period of time. If we have a nice cool spring with a sudden hot spell these items can quickly change to become less ideal. When this happens do we just till them under or do we harvest snap peas that are still tasty just not “WOW” tasty? Do we till under the broccoli or do we harvest it smaller with misshapen crowns? It still tastes fine just not WOW fine and it looks a little funky.
Our philosophy is to plant enough successions of each crop (three for peas, four for broccoli including a fall succession) so that if we have ideal weather for those crops for many weeks we get many weeks of wonderful produce. If on the other hand the later successions mature under less than ideal circumstances we feel we should continue to harvest the less than ideal crops and give them to our members. There does come a time when we determine the plants just aren’t at all worth keeping at which point we will till them under. To put it another way we roll the dice and hedge our bets hoping to hit the jackpot but still knowing when to fold. I’m sure there are a few other gambling metaphors we could insert here but I think you get the idea.
Anyway, the bottom line is we want to give you the best produce we can with the circumstances we are given. Your job is to let us know if something doesn’t meet your expectations as soon as possible so that we can fix it quickly if possible. There is no requirement on your part to be polite but it is strongly encouraged. One benefit to reporting the issue is we may discover a problem that only you are having due to the way you transport or store your produce. For example, some people store their lettuce in a closed bag thinking it will keep it fresher. Don’t do it. The lettuce will rot if it is too wet in the bag. It is better to leave the bag open and to keep out standing water. Also, many refrigerators are set to the wrong temperature. If it is too warm the food spoils faster. If it is too cold the food may freeze. The ideal temperature is where it is as cold as possible without freezing. Unfortunately refrigerators do not have very uniform cooling – there are warm spots and cold spots – so finding the right temperature for your particular fridge is difficult. Fridge thermometers are not very accurate either so don’t rely on them for the true temp. Or course there are always compromises when you are trying to store many items in your fridge so you’ll just have to do the best you can – or purchase a nice walk-in unit with circulation fans like we have.
What will we have this week? Sweet corn! Yippee! Nothing says summer in Minnesota like sweet corn – except maybe tomatoes. Speaking of which, we will also have some cherry tomatoes and a few larger tomatoes. Not enough for everyone yet but they should ramp up soon. Also newish this week (Monday already had an opportunity) is green beans. There seems to be a lot of them out there so get out your bean recipes. (Speaking of storage, do not wash your green beans until you are ready to prepare them. Wet beans will rot faster. Don’t store tomatoes in the regular fridge. Put them in your red wine fridge [55 degrees] for long term storage or on the counter and eat them soon). We’ll also have more of the stuff we’ve had in the past like cucumbers, squash, beets, fennel, basil, kale, chard, cabbage, broccoli, some eggplant, some lettuce and of course onions. We may switch to bulbing onions this week.
No Ice Cream, Cheese, Eggs, Fruit, Meat or Coffee this week.
Seafood and Salmon come Thursday afternoon. Plan to pick up Friday or later.
As always, send in your questions, comments, jokes, brain teasers and complaints!