Welcome to our winter veggie box program! We're getting excited to pack up our first boxes of the season, and so here's a detailed guide to customizing. Note that there's a continue reading button at the end of this text. This spot (and continuation) are my main ways to communicate with you throughout the season.
We've only had two gentle frosts at the farm, and many of the greens like bok choy and romaine heads are still thriving in our fields! Thanks to Harvie, you've got the opportunity to customize your share each month. Some of you will be familiar with it from the summer, but please peek through for a quick reminder! Some folks just are happy with whatever their box is, just like last year. I recommend to those who don't want to bother with swapping... at least set your preferences so the boxes auto-fill with your favourites.
Time to customize: Each month you'll get a time to customize e-mail (that's this one) which shows you what we're planning on packing for you. As the e-mail says, we fill the box based on your preferences. So the easiest way to make sure you're excited about your box contents is to set your preferences - there's a handy set of faces to summarize your feelings about each veggie we have in stock. Note that you can change these as we go through the season. Yes, the list includes our summer veggies too - because many of you are with us both seasons it's easier to just keep all the preferences in one place rather than separate summer and winter.
Once you get your time to customize e-mail, we've pre-filled the box for you - but there's a handy little swap items yellow button below your box contents to link back to Harvie. If you click it, you'll see a list of everything we were going to pack for you, and a drop down menu beside each item with a list of other available items you could swap it for. So say you're not feeling like a romaine head, you can click the drop down menu and select carrots instead. As you swap each item, there's a summary on the left. Sometimes an additional charge is listed at the bottom because if you swap a lower value item for a higher value item Harvie will just add the extra to your monthly payment. I recommend watching it as you swap away, because some items will be lower, some higher, and it often just balances out. Once you're happy with your swaps (and any additional charges), be sure to hit Save. You can pop back in anytime before the cut-off time shown at the top of the page (or on your e-mail) if you change your mind. I'm going to try to give you Fri-Sat-Sun to edit your boxes, cut off-time will be Mondays 8am for boxes that go out on Wed/Thurs. You'll always get this e-mail when editing opens to remind you to check your box.
The next step is extras, your chance to top up your box if you're interested in a little more this month. You'll see any veggies there that are available, as well as a few bonus items from our neighbours. Jubilee Farm keeps bees on our property (that makes it veggie honey!), collects maple syrup at their parents', and grows and freshly mills flour on their farm. They follow deep organic farming practices, and I've always got a bag of their flour on the go in my freezer. We've also got some goodies from our friends at Pyramid Ferments, we've grown them napa cabbage for their kimchi supplies this winter! These products from friends will never automatically be filled into your baskets - you signed up for veggies ;) Since they're staples in our house and can be hard to find we thought we'd offer them to you as extras.
The cancel and reschedule button is designed for summer weekly baskets. Our winter boxes are monthly despite the default text often saying weekly. While you can swap a basket between locations if you happen to be near two stops that are on alternate two weeks... that would leave you trying to eat a month's veggies in two weeks. I don't recommend re-arranging your dates or locations!
At the very bottom of that e-mail you'll find some veggie tips and recipes. Just scroll down past all the pictures of veggies you could swap or grab as extras... it's worth it ;)
That's the long intro to your customization e-mail I'm afraid, but trust me it's worth learning to use the new system! You'll notice that we have Lewa Farm Garlic in your shares - we had a crop failure and decided to try bringing some lovely organic heads in from a friend since it's such a winter staple. To be transparent, I labelled it as "Lewa Farm" since it's not grown here. Thanks to the swap function, you can always swap it out if you feel like it.
Finally, I'd like to make a shout-out to our summer crew - we're a medley of four full time and three part time staff, and over the winter the crew gets smaller. From right to left in the picture at the top is Adriana, Marina, Valerie and Steph. Steph and I own and run the farm full time, full year. However, Valerie, Adriana and Marina are wrapping up their summer work and will be taking a break for the winter. It is thanks to their wonderful energy that all the veggies have grown so well, and been tucked into storage. We'll miss them all, but we'll see them again next season :) Next time I'll introduce you to Kelly & Rebekah who help us pack up our winter shares.
