It's almost February, can you believe it? For us here at Great Oak Farm, this means we're less than 6 weeks from firing up the greenhouse. Wow. Springtime is a-comin'. While it's still been too cold and dark for spinach regrowth from our hoophouses, the microgreen room is cranking full steam ahead. Hands down it's our favorite place to work - warm fingers in the winter feels amazing!
Joining the Great Oak Farm crew this season along Farmers Ryan, Eric, and Chris (all of us from last year) is Farmer Alex. She has worked at several other farms in our region and across the nation, most recently coming back to the Chequamegon Bay area last fall after working on a grass-based dairy out in Colorado. She is a hard worker that knows her way around a farm, and we're really glad to welcome her to the team!
It's been a long time goal of mine to extend the season for work here on the farm. Not just for the sake of having more work to do, but for a more intentional purpose. So many times, it's hard for farmers to piece together meaningful winter work from November until the farming season starts back up in the spring. Some people want the winter off to travel, relax, or work a part time job somewhere else for a change of pace, so seasonal work is fine. But most of us don't have just "seasonal expenses," so having work that is not seasonal is an important consideration.
I am happy to report that since the end of the growing season last year in the fall, the farm has been able to have at least some part time work for Ryan and myself, picking spinach and packing veggies from storage for CSA deliveries. Microgreen production has added additional opportunities for work too, so we've been able to add in some work days for Alex over this winter season as well. Sometimes that work is as basic as scrubbing microgreen trays after harvest in the greenhouse (in the picture above, that's Farmer Alex on the left, and Farmer Ryan on the right) but we feel grateful to have at least something steady to do in these uncertain economic times. And in case you were wondering, we do cheat a little and turn on the heat in the greenhouse while we're working in there ;)
It might not seem very glamorous, but this kind of sustainable rural economic development - steady work, with a living wage - helps to keep both farms and communities healthy all season long. The reason we've been able to make this happen? YOU have made it happen through supporting this CSA!
But the ripple effects of this CSA extend out so much further than just us here at Great Oak Farm. Other farms in our Bayfield Foods Cooperative have also been able to increase production and provide more opportunities for work as well, in spite of the pandemic that we have been living through for the last 10 months. Local food is something each of us can feel good about supporting, and feel good about eating as well. Rural economic development never tasted so good!
Speaking of ripple effects, as luck would have it Farmer Ryan's family has a printing business here in WI. We've been working with them to design and print a microgreen label for us, and here's a draft that his brother designed for us. Pretty sharp! We're thrilled to be able to work with another small WI family business on these labels, and it's just one more positive impact this CSA is able to have throughout our local and regional community. We're waiting on final review by our organic certification agency (MOSA), and once that is complete it should be a lot easier to tell which clamshell of microgreens is which in your boxes! Thanks for your patience while this gets finalized.
Next week for microgreens, we'll have spicy radish micros, sweet and tender pea shoots (above, right), red cabbage (above left - the superchampion of microgreen nutrition!), and mild broccoli micros, as well as a few new additions like basil and kohlrabi. Kholrabi micros (another brassica family crop, along with cabbage and broccoli) have a beautiful slightly purple stem with a delicate structure similar to broccoli and nice a mild taste. We're evaluating them for addition to a Mild Micro Salad Mix (coming in a few weeks), and so far it looks like a nice fit. We're holding off on developing sunflower shoot production - a shortage of organic sunflower seed has put that endeavor on hold. But we've been improving on growing herbs like basil and cilantro. The herbs threw us some curve balls at first, but we've got them figured out and should have small amounts available on a regular basis soon. One nice thing about microgreen production is that it doesn't take a full growing season to see the results of your methods and re-evaluate for better outcomes like it does in field crops like onions or winter squash.
Finally, a few updates from Karra and Brian:
1. If you are looking for a way to eat locally on Valentine's Day, we've got you covered! The box will be listed on the Bayfield Foods website, through the "Shop Now" button on your Harvie dashboard. There will be a variety of dinner options complete with sides and dessert to choose from, with direct-to-your-door delivery on Wednesday Feb 10 or Thursday Feb 11. Keep an eye on your inbox for the details!
2. Also as a reminder, you should have received an email regarding auto-renewing your CSA order from last summer. You will have 1 week to make adjustments to that order before you are charged. Send us an email if you have questions or need more information, we're happy to help.
3. The PLUS item this week will be Heritage Acres pure maple syrup.
Well, that's it from us this week. Thank you once again for your continued support of local foods and all the farms and producers in this cooperative CSA!
In community,
Farmer Chris
Great Oak Farm
