We are working on deciding what will be shared this week in our Farm Boxes. The process on how we determine the contents of these farm boxes and our CSA shares is very similar. It is not uncommon for us to field a dozen e-mails a week requesting what will be in next week’s box and our answer is the same - we honestly don’t fully know!
The week starts fresh on Monday mornings, in season Farmer Jim and Shannon survey the crops and make a work plan for harvesting what is ready. Some crops may only have enough produce to send to market while others are bountiful this week and if not the harvest will be lost. Sometimes the crops like strawberries and raspberries have quickly ripened and are perfectly sweet but not firm enough for shipping -These get picked right away and sold on our farm or as jam flats, offered to our CSA members.
At this time of year the farmer’s are selling the last of the stored cold crops. (Cold crops are late harvest items that can withstand being stored throughout the winter, like potatoes, carrots, squashes, onions.) The greenhouse growers are harvesting some early crops brought on by the longer days and warmer nights. This week due to the very cold weekend the greenhouse crops have not ripened very much in our neighbours greenhouses.
Farmer Jim and Leslie make and take phone calls with our neighbouring farms to see what everyone is harvesting and has to sell to the other farms. After this has been determined we do our best to provide our customers a decent selection of items that equal the value of the box or the CSA share.
The next few days are spent harvesting in the fields, picking up produce at the neighbours and preparing the produce for sale. Depending on when we get this all done we pack the deliveries on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning. The last of the deliveries go out on Saturday and we take a small rest on Sunday.
