One of the first things people say when they walk around the gardens is wow, and “that’s a lot of work”. Veggies don’t just grow themselves, and we had been harvesting and selling veggies twice a week… but we realized we were short changing ourselves on actual growing time. We realized we needed to shift a higher proportion of our time to tending the gardens. This summer we decided to consolidate our harvests and markets, so we just harvest once a week (Mon/Tues), and get all our veggies out on Wednesdays. That leaves Thursdays and Fridays, and sometimes Saturdays too to be able to tend the gardens. From bed prep and greenhouse seeding to planting, hoeing, watering, weeding I’m happy to report that we’ve made full use of those Fridays and most of the Saturdays too! If you count the odd two day weekend as “good use” (i.e. keeping farming sustainable for us personally) not one Saturday has gone astray so far this year ;) Many thanks to those of you who have switched to collecting mid week instead, and I hope you understand our decision!
We cut “just on time” a little tight for last week’s deliveries. In our desire to keep getting you the freshest veggies possible, we tweaked our routes to drop off on porches late afternoon. My thinking was most members can grab veggies after work, so if we drop later in the afternoon they’ll have less time to sit on a porch in the heat. Turns out that traffic is back to pre-pandemic levels, and later in the afternoon traffic generally heavier getting around town. Why couldn’t I see that coming? So please check your pick-up info in your email on Wednesday as I’m updating the pick up hours to best reflect what’s realistic ;)
Did you notice something sold out? Harvie didn’t show items that were in short supply before, and I’m not sure I like it… Every year as we start up production there’s a few of these and some of those. As the veggies ramp up their production we’ll have more options for swapping. Plants have a natural production cycle that builds slowly, peaks and then wanes. We plan for peak production feeding everyone, because that’s the bulk of the time we’re harvesting anyways. So think of the sold out list as a maybe next time, things to look forward to. Keep in mind that a few of the items in your bag are likely also sold out. Your bags are filled in a random order each week, by putting the items that you’ve ranked the highest in your bag first based on what’s available. So please ignore that sold out list which is an unfair tease, swap for anything that is available that you'd like, and enjoy the treasures in your bag. There’s lots more growing!
