A few announcements then on to our top story!
We are now taking order for the 2024 season! Order today and lock in this year’s price for next season’s produce. To reserve your shares for 2024 you just need to put down a $100 deposit. Money can be sent via Zelle (preferred since there are no transaction fees), PayPal, check or plain old cash (directly handed to me). If you are joining for the first time you need to place your order in our online store so that we can capture all your important info. You can select “Deposit Plan” as the payment method, then follow-up with the $100 payment via one of the above methods. Existing customers can also order through the online store. If you want to pay with a credit card you’ll need to go through the store and pay the full amount.
Another reminder that we are planning on planting the garlic on Saturday, October 7th from 1:00 until done! If you like to sit or stand around and talk to the most interesting people in the whole world this is the event for you! Of course it helps if you are one of the most interesting people in the world but it is not a requirement. We’ll have an activity that keeps your hands busy so you can just focus on the conversation. If you are more of the shy type but love riding on the back of farm tractor implements we also have a job for you! Of course there is no reason you can’t do both. So put it on your schedule and we hope to see everyone here. (This event may be rescheduled due to weather).
We will give out the winter squash portion of WinterShare this week. If you purchased WinterShare please look for it at your pick-up location.
I tried popping some of the popcorn this weekend and as I suspected it was not ready to pop. It needs to dry for at least another couple of weeks. So hold off on popcorn popping for now. I’ll keep trying some every once in a while and let you know of my success or lack thereof.
For drop site members: if you want extra hot peppers — and I mean that in both senses of the word (What does that mean Farmer Chris? The “extra” means peppers that are hotter than jalapenos as well as more peppers than we typically send out) — let me know and we will make a note of it. Indicate your level of hotness (peppers not looks, though I would be interested in your self assessment) on a scale from 0 to 5 and desired quantity (rough ballpark figure like “As many as possible” or “A handful is fine”). We’ll send them starting next week (or possibly Thursday of this week).
We’ll continue taking back cherry tomato pint containers and the rubber bands we send out.
Farm News
One aspect of farming that frequently gets overlooked is the problem of space management. Here on the farm — like just about everywhere — there is limited space. It can be the space needed to start the transplants in the greenhouse. Or the space needed to grow the plants in the field. Or the space needed to store the harvested veggies and of course some of that space needs to be refrigerated. And within these storage spaces there is a need for containers to store the vegetables that need storing. We can’t just willy-nilly throw produce into the cooler and expect to retrieve it as necessary so we have to have bins that stack in the cooler in which we can contain the vegetables that need storing.
I am reminded of this at this time of year when storage space is at a premium. A lot of the fall crops are crops that we harvest all at once — or I should say would like to harvest all at once but without enough storage space (as well as labor and time) we end up spreading the harvesting over an extended period of time. One of the biggest space hogs are the winter squash and pie pumpkins. We’d prefer to harvest all of these at one time, store them in a dry location, then give them out over the course of many weeks. To accomplish this we use the only large covered space we have available this time of year — the greenhouse. And even it is not enough space to store all the squash and pumpkins.
Not only is there a storage management issue but also a produce relocation issue. The best process for doing most any task is to handle the item just once. Every time you touch it is another time consuming task. For us it is unfortunate that we don’t have a conveyor belt that runs from the field to the packing area with a portion of the conveyor going through a washing machine. This would save us a lot of time and labor. So instead we have to perform a multi-step process with frequent touches of the produce. For example, to get the squash from the field to your pick-up we have to cut the squash from the plant, put the squash into bins, put the bins into the tractor bucket, drive the tractor to the greenhouse, unload the bins from the tractor bucket into the greenhouse, then unload the bins of squash onto the greenhouse tables. Then, when we are ready to give them out we have to load them into bins, move the bins to the wash area (usually using the truck or tractor but we could carry them if we feel we need the exercise), take the squash out of the bins and put them in the wash tank, wash them, move them to the rinse tank, rinse them, put the washed squash into storage bins (separate bins from the harvest bins since we want them to stay clean), move the storage bins into the packing area or a separate storage area depending on if they are for delivery or on-farm pick-up. Then of course we have to either put the squash into the delivery totes or move the bins into the pick-up tent for on-farm pick-up. As you can see that is a lot of moving!
We’ve improved the process over the years, for example adding a door to the east side of the greenhouse so we can access it from either direction, but it is still a tedious, labor intensive process. Onions, garlic and shallots follow a similar path to your table though with different washing steps.
With all this in mind, the question I have is: Why do we have to do this for the heaviest crops? Kale? Harvest it into bins, wash it, then store it into the cooler. Simple! Tomatoes? Put them into boxes in the field then put the boxes wherever we need them — e.g. pick-up tent or packing area. Broccoli? Harvest bin, wash tank, storage bin. Simple. But not the winter squash or the onions. Even potatoes are a bit challenging since we harvest a bunch of them then store them and give them out over a few weeks. I suppose the one heavy item we have a shorter process for is watermelons so we have to be thankful for that!
But overall it seems the heavier the produce the more times we have to move it or touch it. But back to my original discussion — space management. With all the winter squash and pumpkins we grew this year we are running out of harvest bins, storage bins and greenhouse space. There is a constant juggling that we do to try to find bins to put items we are either harvesting or storing. We’ve purchased additional bins over the years only to find there are still not enough. And even if we had unlimited bins we still don’t have unlimited space to store the unlimited bins. So we do the bin shuffle and get our exercise loading, unloading and moving vegetable shaped sacs of water — which is fitting since, like water, they fill all the available space.
What will we have this week?
Pie pumpkins! Pie pumpkins tend to have finer textured, sweeter flesh than typical ornamental pumpkins. We’ll also have winter squash, onions, potatoes, some broccoli, some eggplants, peppers, some daikon radishes, a few tomatoes — very few, a few tomatillos, arugula, mesclun salad mix, winter squash, popcorn, and anything else I forgot.
This week is a ‘ShroomShare, WinterShare and FlowerShare week. FlowerShare will be a bunch of decorative gourds. WinterShare will be winter squash.
Recipe of the Week
Here is a great recipe for soup in a pumpkin! It uses carrots, which we hoped to dig this week but Mother Nature rained on that idea. Maybe you can save your pumpkin for next week or buy carrots elsewhere or use other delicious vegetables instead — your call.
One idea we did this week was use the arugula as a topping for grilled chicken sandwiches. It added the crunch that you’d typically get with lettuce but the peppery flavor of the arugula. I’d think the mesclun mix would perform equally well on a sandwich. Thanks Alex for the suggestion!
Joke of the Week
Q: How do you fix a gourd?
A: With a pumpkin patch.
I think I like the “fixing” jokes since it seems like we are always fixing things here on the farm. As always, feel free to send in questions, comments, jokes, 2024 share orders and anything else you think I might enjoy.