We're getting into the swing of filling up our fridge and delivering your veggies, hard to believe it is week four already! Here's some delivery day tips for you all based on some frequently asked questions:
1. Your bags are always labelled with a sticker listing your name. Please double check for your full name before you take it home! We're happy to offer customized bags, but that doesn't work if the next person shows up and can't find theirs because you took it ;)
2. Keep looking. The bin lids have the first three letters of your last name to help you find yours. If it's not in the first bin you find keep looking! Someone else may have the same beginning of a last name as you, or a very similar one. Occasionally, a bin lid will get put back on the wrong one but I've found most of you are very good at putting it back in it's place and checking through the other bins if you can't find yours just in case. Could your share be under your partner's name?
3. Plan ahead if you can't make it. I always say when you're picking up your share, make sure your next planned delivery is good to go. The Harvie system for rescheduling is simple but works best a week or more ahead. Login and click the 'Manage Deliveries' button or 'Deliveries' along the top bar. You'll see a list of all your future deliveries with their dates and locations. Just click change date, or change location depending what you want to do. Read the full help file here.
4. If you get a 'your veggies are on the way' e-mail, they're headed to your pickup. Once those e-mails go out the payments go through, and it's up to you to collect. If at that point you realize you can't make it (life happens, we know) please send a friend to collect for you! Pass along the full pick-up info (forwarding that e-mail is easiest) and remind them to find the bag with your name. No need to message ahead, we trust you sent them.
5. Do you have a cell number printed on your bag? We try to send text reminders if you forget, so if it's not a cell you may not get them. If you get a text reminder please reply to help our hosts plan, we can often arrange a later pick-up if needed and for some locations we can keep it in the fridge a couple of days and get it to you on our next delivery day (Wed/Sat). That being said, please plan to collect in the regular pick-up window! If it's not working out for your schedule please let me know and we'll see what we can do. Our hosts are all volunteers and we don't want to burden them with tracking you down after the pick-up time is over.
6. If you need help, text or email me your name and location and I'll get back to you as quick as I can. On delivery day I'm either driving or at the farmers' market so it is rare that I can actually pick up a call. I always keep an eye on my texts and e-mails (613) 970-5034 and heather@fiddlehead-farm.ca Any non-urgent messages I try to get back to within a couple of days as I'm usually busy in the fields and managing our crew when I'm not on delivery route.
The team at Harvie can help with the online portal at support@harvie.farm but their turn around is slower these days sometimes up to a week. They're busy on-boarding new support staff to get their response rates quicker again.
We're here to keep you well fed and we want those veggies there for you when you order them :) We check bag counts coming off the pack line for each location, as well as when we load up the van to help make sure none go astray. Ultimately on delivery day if it's not there there isn't much I can do to help, but I always try to solve mysteries and get you your veggies as soon as we can thereafter.
Heather
