Welcome to the FIRST delivery of the Bayfield Foods winter 2020-21 CSA season! We've had a good growing season this year, and are humbled by the incredible demand for foods that are locally grown and produced right here in our great Northwoods. We farmers have been filling our freezers, storage rooms, and root cellars with this summer's bounty to share with you all winter long. Local food doesn't have to end when the snow flies!
If getting a Bayfield Foods winter CSA is new to you, welcome aboard! We're honored to be your farmers this winter! If you have gotten a winter CSA in the past, I'd like to highlight a few notable changes this year. First of all, deliveries will be twice a month instead of once a month - smaller deliveries will allow you to have more space in your fridge or freezer instead of getting it all at once each month. Deliveries will happen on the first and third weeks of each month, so please plan accordingly. Also, if you will be unable to pick up a delivery on a certain day, simply log into your member profile and reschedule that delivery to future date. That way you never have to let a scheduling conflict get in the way of getting great local food on your table. And as always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns - we're happy to help!
Here at Great Oak Farm, we've been busy washing all the root crops we harvested last week before the ground began to freeze. After a long cold Thursday, we finally finished up washing carrots, and have them tucked safely in the root cellar for winter. Hopefully we can wrap up the beet washing next week when the temps are a little more forgiving - our hands will appreciate some warmer weather.
One key part of root crop washing here is our big round barrel washer. It's a pretty simple machine, really: crops are loaded in the washer, and while the big barrel slowly turns, tumbling the crops around, water sprays down on the roots, gently washing off dirt and debris. At the end of the line, we rigged up a small pressure washer to shine everything up right before it comes out for storage.
By the end of last week however, it started giving us trouble - chain slipping, gears not turning. We limped it along on Mon and Tues this week, but on Wednesday I tore into it to figure out what was going on. Problem solving like this is a big part of running a farm. Sometimes, growing the veggies is the easy part - figuring out the logistics of how to harvest, wash, store, etc. all of the crops are additional parts of the farm that we have to solve and maintain as well. There are so many moving parts (literally) on a farm that can go wrong, and when something doesn't work right, it's usually up to US to figure out how to make it work again. It's not like there's a "barrel washer repair shop" we can call who will send a technician out to make our problems go away. After some investigation, I figured out what was happening: one gear (that was apparently installed backwards when the machine was shipped to us) had slipped off the shaft and was missing a square "key" to hold it on the shaft, plus the chain had stretched out over time and needed a few links removed to make it tighter. After several hours of sleuthing out the problem and running around for parts, by Thursday morning we were back up and washing smoothly again.
In addition to washing-washing-washing, we spent some time this week removing the cherry tomato plants in one of our hoophouses. It's a big job that took 3 of us most of a day, but it is always so satisfying to see the jungle of plants removed and the canvas of soil presented again, waiting for us to paint the next scene. Once we get the fallen (frozen!) cherry tomatoes raked out and picked out, we'll be seeding one final round of winter spinach in those beds. This late spinach will not do much growing this winter, but the tiny plants will germinate by December and be ready for major growth later next spring. Our earlier plantings of hoophouse spinach will be ready for harvest soon.
Speaking of next spring, we farmers are well under way in our planning efforts for the next growing season. Supplies like boxes and bags, propane for greenhouses, as well as soil amendments have already been purchased for the 2021 growing season. This week, we received our potting mix for next spring - all 10,000# of it! These 5 "super sacks" of Vermont Compost potting mix will be used here at Great Oak and by Brian at Northcroft Farm, another veggie grower in our Cooperative. Our kids even pitched in to help pallet jack the bags (uphill!) out to the back of the semi so I could get them with the loader. It was quite a workout pushing 2000# pallets of soil out from the waaaay back of a 53' semi trailer, but we figured it would count for "virtual learning gym class." While they complain about having to help on the farm sometimes, they really take pride in pitching in from time to time to help make this farm go.
It's really important for us to have some of these supplies on hand in the fall, because spring road weight restrictions (especially for those of us who live on gravel roads) prevent most delivery trucks from accessing our farms until the spring thaw is over, usually sometime in May. But by May, we've already seeded thousands of plants and even transplanted some crops like onions outdoors, so we stock up on supplies now. Always planning ahead, that's farming.
Finally, I'll leave you with a behind the scenes shot of what it looks like when we pack up your veggie boxes! From the front left, you can see Karra (our Bayfield Foods CSA manager and Bayfield Apple Company kitchen queen), Ryan and Dane from here at Great Oak Farm, John from Yoman Farm, and Brian from Northcroft Farm rolling your boxes down the line before they get packed into the cooler for delivery. Teamwork makes the dream work!
Once again, thank you for your steadfast support of local farms like ours, and here's to a tasty winter ahead!
In community,
Farmer Chris
Great Oak Farm
