New this Week: Pac choi and Beets!!
IPM Fruit Share contains strawberries again this week! Shares are still available!
Updates from the Farm
This week at the farm, we planted more head lettuce (of course!), as well as cut flowers, tea herbs, and edible flowers, and caught up on some much needed weeding, field clean-up from early spring crops, and installation of tomato cages/trellising. What a great week for working weather-wise! Cool in the morning, and 70's during the day! We wish this could last all summer, but then there wouldn't be any ripe tomatoes so...tradeoffs.
Beets and pac choi are ready to start harvesting this week. Fennel, cabbages, and summer squash will definitely start to come in next week. Unfortunately, our sugar snap peas are fizzling out early due to the heat, but the snow peas we're trying this year are just starting to flower and look promising. Snow peas are more heat-tolerant than snap peas. Yay for peas!
Summer crops of tomatoes and peppers are growing fast and look great!
Exciting news for the farm this week as we achieved the minimum target of our Honeycomb Credit campaign! Thank you to all of you who have invested so far!
Earlier this spring, we decided to pursue investments through Honeycomb Credit when other options of financing our expansion didn't pan out. It's difficult for any business to get financing through banks in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Historically, it's been difficult for farms to get financing from banks because the risk in farming is high with so many factors outside the farmer's control, like pests, disease and weather. Over the last 20 years, we've learned to mitigate the risk by being very diversified with our product lines. Underwriters don't necessarily see the difference, but investors do!
Your investments in our Honeycomb campaign will have a huge impact on Cherry Valley Organics. When we opened our Burgettstown Farm Market and Cafe in 2019, we had start-up debt like any other business venture. Then Covid hit, interest rates soared, and our start-up debt is now sitting at a high interest rate. Investments through Honeycomb will allow us to refinance this debt, and pay interest to our investors rather than the banks, and at a much lower rate!
Every day, we strive to continuously improve our operations. Our Honeycomb campaign (should we exceed our minimum goal) will allow us to purchase some much needed equipment for the farm, including a second, brand new utility vehicle and construct a new, larger drying building for our herbs. We are looking to double our business in the next year by taking our delicious herbal teas to the next level of sales and distribution.
While we may have reached our minimum, we have about 55K left in investments to get to our maximum, and we have just a little more time left in our campaign. Would you consider investing? The minimum investment for each investor is only $100 and as Stephanie (our accountant) says, "every little bit helps!"
We hope you will consider investing before this Thursday at midnight! Only 5 days left!
We would love to share our success with you!
Farm Partner Update
We are so excited to be offering Woolf fruit as an add-on share this season. If you haven't ordered yours yet, it's not too late! We are not sold out...yet! This share will include strawberries, blueberries, peaches, apples and perhaps pears, grapes, and cider (depending on crop yields). To learn more about the Woolf family and their operation, view their website here:
Farm Partner Promotion!
In honor of our wonderful farm partners, we are offering a special for the next four weeks!
Choose any number of Extras items totally $30, and receive $5 off your order automatically. This includes Primrose Farm Eggs, Paul Family Farms Maple Syrup, Tait Farm Foods Shrubs & Jams, cheeses, coffees, and so much more, including all of CVO's herbal teas, salves, and lip balms! No coupon code needed, and you can take advantage of the special as many times as you like. This special will run through July 8th, and we hope you will give some of these wonderful products a try!
If you have any questions, please reach out to vanessa@cherryvalleyorganics.com or to support@harvie.farm at any time. Have a great week everyone, and thank you again for being a farm share member this season!
Jodi, Emily, Vanessa, Lindsay, Lex, Alliy, Clarissa, Mark, and Selena
The CVO Farm Share Team
