D&V Organics CSA Week 1
We are excited to be starting our 2020 CSA this week! What seemed like a somewhat normal start to the season (we actually start seedlings in February and plow fields in Feb/March) has been anything but that, with abnormally cold days and nights, howling wind, etc. It has been a relief to finally feel the sun and start sweating while working in the field this past week.
For a little over three months now, we've been super busy preparing fields, starting seedlings in the greenhouse, planting so many things out in the fields and doing maintenance to keep the crops growing strong. When we think about what we want to grow, a main consideration for us is to have a continuous supply of various staple produce items for our customers. Some vegetables we plant a couple times and others several times and yet others every week. First, we have to think about the seasonality of the produce item. We would have limited success if we tried to make tomatoes our very first crop that we plant in the field, because tomatoes like warm weather. So we start with items that can tolerate cold weather, then move on to items that don't mind cool weather, then crops that prefer the warm weather and so on. And then it becomes the reverse as the end of the year draws near. This past week has seen us continue with our weekly lettuce plantings, put out our first planting of basil in the field, finish planting potatoes (some came a month late from our supplier), plant our first round of cantaloupes and other specialty melons, seed (in the greenhouse) the last tomatoes for the season, and spend a lot of time hand weeding small seedlings like carrots, broccoli rabe, beets and onions in the field.
This year's CSA is set up a little differently than previous years, with the addition of an online management platform called Harvie. All of you have logged in and signed up for our CSA through the Harvie website, and hopefully everyone has saved their login information so that you can access your account from week to week if needed. The cool thing about Harvie is that each week, the Harvie algorithm sorts what we have available, the value of your weekly share, and your produce preferences to build a share catered to your liking. You'll get an email each week letting you know what's in your share, and the timeframe for making changes prior to picking up your share at the site in which you selected at signup. All CSA members have the ability to select additional items or swap items out based on what we have available each week. So if the algorithm doesn't quite build a share to your liking, feel free to go into your profile and add or remove items from your share. The cutoff for making changes to your share will be Tuesdays at 6am, changes to your share for the week cannot be made after that time. If you are having difficulty logging in or making adjustments to your share in your user/member profile, please don't hesitate to contact us or email support@harvie.farm We are excited about this new development in member/share management, but it will be a learning process for us all, so bear with us.
Our harvest list this week includes:
- Radish, purple round salad type in bunches
- Pea Shoots, in a clamshell container
- Basil, greenhouse grown packed into a clamshell container
- Kohlrabi, mixed colors (all taste the same) bunched
- Lettuce, little gem which is a mini romaine or butterhead red and green types
- Onion, fresh spring onions with tops bunched (keep in fridge)
- Bok choi, baby green and red types
- Kale, green curly type bunched
- Dandelion greens, bunched
Enjoy,
Derek and Vicky
