This Week on the Farm 11/29
November always seems like a slow month for farming. The hectic season of deliveries is over and the work turns to putting the farm to sleep. Since no snow has fallen yet, we normally would have had plenty of time to get things done outside. However, like a lot of farmers, we have taken off farm jobs to bring in some needed cash. We are working nights, which has totally messed up our sleeping schedule, and leaves us with little time to get all of the farm work done during the limited daylight hours we have left before we have to go to work. The positive thing is that we are almost halfway done with the seasonal positions and then after Christmas we will have all of our time to devote to the farm.
Earlier in the month we had our annual FRESH Food Connection member meeting. It was very productive and we are very excited about the various farmer events that will be happening this winter. FRESH is a collaborative of farmers who sign onto a sustainability pledge. It gives us a network of people in the same field who are working in similar positions that we can go to for advice. This year we trying to have more farmer workshops and I am particularly excited about the composting workshop. When you farm at the scale that we do it is hard to do the traditional compost pile and maintain the brown and green matter ratio. We are hoping that this will give us a better idea of how to compost on the large scale.
I have been working on new marketing materials for FRESH to try to expand our member base. I am pretty excited about how well the new flyer has turned out and I hope that it will help spark interest at the various conferences we will be attending this winter. To see a copy follow the link FRESH MARKETINGFinal
Yesterday we finished getting our potato order put together. We are ordering six different varieties of potatoes for a total of 750 lbs. That is about 50% more than last year. Like I have said in earlier posts, we are planning for another drought. We don’t want to be caught unprepared. Hopefully we will have time to put the rest of our seed order together on Sunday.
Remember that for returning members next year, prices will be the same as in 2012 if you sign up before March 15, 2013. This applies to only the vegetable shares. We are currently pricing out what the flower shares will be for next season and will update the “Shares” page with prices as soon as we have the information.