Farm Update
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| Here is Fred on our new cultivating tractor! We are so excited to use this to tackle the weeds this season! |
Unlike jobs and businesses where there is a steady volume of work year-round, the farm has a natural pause during the cold, dark part of the year. That allows us to examine all of our systems and habits and determine if we want to keep doing things they way we've previously done them. Often we make little tweaks, such as rearranging our washing and packing area to remove workflow bottlenecks, planning to hire a few extra part-time people (usually students who don't want a full-time job) to just work mornings and help with the four-day-a-week harvests, or trying a different type of bags or posts or greenhouse plastic. And sometimes we go all in and make some pretty big changes, like getting our new cultivating tractor! Keeping the weeds at bay is a constant battle, and the new tractor we got this year will greatly reduce the amount of hand weeding we have to do, which will free us up to stay on top of everything else. It will also decrease our reliance on the black plastic mulch we've used in previous seasons to keep the weeds down, which is a huge win for the sustainability of our farm and environment.
Each winter we contemplate and initiate changes large and small, including in what we decide to grow in the upcoming season. Fred has picked out a few new varieties of veggies for the CSA this year, including some fun winter squashes that we've never grown before, an early variety of red cherry tomato, a new variety of lettuce that is both crispy and flavorful, and poblano peppers. He's also seriously considering getting into growing mushrooms this year, which is kind of an ambitious undertaking. But in February, all things feel possible, and our February selves often take on time-consuming projects that our June selves live to regret. It happens every year, and we are enough acquainted with ourselves to know that we do this, and yet we still do it. To paraphrase the immortal Calvin from the Calvin and Hobbes comics, February is like having a fresh sheet of paper to draw on. But we'll be starting to put our mark on this season soon. As the weather gets milder, we'll transition from planning mode to project mode. In two or three weeks, we'll start the first of our seeds, and Fred will begin making repairs to our heated greenhouse and our unheated hoophouses. You may remember that we lost the plastic from one of our hoophouses in a big wind storm last year, and the frame has been sitting uncovered and skeleton-like all winter. As soon as the weather gets bearable, we'll be able to remedy that situation and get it ready for production again.
We're excited to have hired two full-time farmhands for the upcoming season, Callie and Taran. They'll be coming to town at the beginning of March, and they'll be helping Fred out part time for most of the month before transitioning to full-time at the end of March. By then, there will be enough work between making repairs, starting seeds, managing the lettuce and spinach we have overwintering in the hoophouses, and harvesting the very first greens of the year for a few stores. Speaking of which, you'll start seeing our lettuce and spinach at Greentree Cooperative Grocery in Mt. Pleasant and Argus Farm Stop in Ann Arbor in about a month if you're looking for some delicious, healthy, local, organic veggies! I'll let you all know as soon as we make our first deliveries so you can go snap them up!
If you're wanting to join the CSA for the 2022 season, we're signing people up now! Those of you who have been part of the CSA in previous years already know how delicious the veggies are, how high the quality is, and how long they last in your fridge because they've only been out of the field for a matter of hours when you get them. But I would be remiss if I didn't also make a plug for the sustainability of eating local and organic produce. Because I'm so entrenched in the world of small organic farms, I forget that it doesn't actually go without saying. So here I am, remembering to say it! Eating local and organic reduces your carbon footprint, both because it isn't being shipped from thousands of miles away, and because as a small-scale organic farm, we're not using the same huge, gas-guzzling equipment that the large industrial farms are. Eating organic also helps preserve the environment from the synthetic chemicals that make their way into the soil and waterways around conventional farm operations. And eating local supports your local economy. Every food dollar you spend with a local food producer (whether that's us, a grower at the farmer's market, or your local food co-op) continues to circulate around the community. When you spend your food dollars at a large grocery chain, that money leaves the community and goes into the pockets of people far away. When you shop local, it circulates around to the local coffee shop guy, the server at the restaurant around the corner, the piano teacher, other local food producers, and the fundraiser at the kids' schools. The world has started to feel more disconnected over the last few years, so let's make a bid for community and connectedness. This is a great way to start, while also locking in some great organic food at a much cheaper price than at the big organic chains.
So with that said, here's how you can sign up if you want! The cost for a full share for the season (which includes 14 veggie items per week) is $610, and a half share (which includes 7 items) is $330 at all of our regular drop-offs. The season will be 19 weeks long, and we'll start in mid-June and go until the end of October. If you're interested in what we're growing this year for the CSA, here's a list! We have all of the same drop-off locations as last year, including Alma, Mt. Pleasant, Midland, Lansing, St. Johns, and Okemos. If you're interested in having your share dropped off to your home or workplace and you live within a few miles of where we're already driving, just let me know and I'll send you a quote for delivery. If you do opt for delivery, the more shares we drop off at your address, the more the delivery fee goes down, so it might be a great idea to get a few neighbors in on the fun too! To sign up, just fill out this CSA sign-up form, and I'll get you on our membership list and email you an invoice. Then you can either follow the payment link in the invoice or send us a check in the mail. And if it works better for you, feel free to split up your payments in whatever way makes sense. The final payment will be due by July 1, but however you want to split it up in the meantime works just fine for us.
So here we go into 2022! The last few years have been pretty weird, but let's make this year a great one! I can't wait to see you all in June!
Recipes
Michigan winters are cold and dark, and sadly, there isn't much growing in February. Some of the first veggies to become available when the weather does become milder are the spinach and kale that we've been overwintering. It's been biding its time under layers of insulating greenhouse plastic, not really growing, but holding steady. Once the days get long enough to trigger the plants' growth response, it will start growing again, and once that happens, it won't be long before we're able to harvest and eat it. In honor of the spinach that is just around the corner, here is a hearty Lentil Spinach Soup with Lemon recipe that will warm you up until the earth wakes back up for spring!
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