Grow, pick, pack, deliver... but in between most of those steps is our fridge! Small scale farming is all about making do, while we dream of fancy processing buildings and fridges they take a long time to save up for. Initially, we've tried to focus our investments on things that will pay for themselves in production, labour savings, or little fixes that make a big difference leaving things like storage lower on the priority list. Our first year farming we bought ourselves an air conditioner and a tiny fridge building. Since then we've insulated a shipping container, and an old barn for a lot more cooled space. While our storage spaces have evolved over time, for cooling purposes we're still relying on air conditioners. Stephanie pulls out our a/c units periodically to clean them and help make sure they're working as efficiently as possible. We use a special controller that heats up the "room sensor" to trick the a/c units to maintain fridge temperatures. With all this hot weather, they've been busy working hard to keep our veggies cooled.
For now, we're keeping the dreams realistic - we'll be replacing the end wall in our shipping container next year to put in a real door (ooohhh) and shift it over to allow room for the largest possible a/c unit. We're hoping the larger unit will help the fridge maintain better temperatures and keep our veggies fresher, as we found it struggled a lot this summer. If we're lucky it can also cool a little more space as it gets very crowded in there on Tuesdays!
