You could call it the farmer's folly or the farmers' blessing. Next year will always be better. I love the optimism inherent in my job. Each year we're dealt a hand of cards to play with. Frost dates, rains, warmth, sunshine, bugs, weeds, staffing, markets, sales... There are lots of things out of our control in farming, and each year we're kept busy playing the hand we're dealt. This time of year nearly every farmer will be busy dreaming ahead to next year. What can we do differently?
Here at Fiddlehead Farm we try to focus on resilience. How can we improve our systems to be more reliable when we are dealt wild cards? We're super excited this week to have a bulldozer, excavator and dump truck crew busy on site. They are enlarging our irrigation pond to increase our spring water retention capacity, and simultaneously using the fill to level out ground for putting up two more greenhouses for in ground production. It's a dream we've had a few years in the making, but it's finally becoming reality. Better capacity to weather the droughts, and the ability to grow more greenhouse treats from winter greens to summer tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. It's amazing what a little plastic "roof" can do for vegetables otherwise left to grow in the elements. To us, it's more diversity, for more months of the year and an even better veggie bag/box program year round.
We are very very excited about the years to come. This winter we'll be re-working our crop plan with the intention of feeding you again. This year our plan was based in part on farmers' markets leading to a number of shortages of key crops that are in higher demand with the bags. We'll be planting that greenhouse and planning better diversity year round from the fields. We'll be planting a bit more to tuck into storage for next winter to welcome more of you back. We'll also be busy packing our monthly winter boxes Nov-Mar, spring bags every other week April-June, and then we're back to our weekly bags for July- October! We're very close to our dream of a year round CSA, keeping people fed and our crew employed year round.
Many thanks for enjoying the tastiness this summer with us, without our eager CSA members we wouldn't be where we are today. If you ever want to see a farmer get excited... ask them about their plans for "next year" ;)
Heather and Stephanie
