It's been a crazy week so far!!! We went from a sunny 80 degrees on Thursday to a full 3" of snow and chilly 34 degrees yesterday. Quite a surprise and it has definitely slowed down our farming this week. We had numerous trees that broke right down the middle and many branches that broke off from the heavy, wet snow. Luckily, no structures were damaged this year!!! Last year we lost our huge storage structure and had to rebuild.
Farming never has it's dull or boring moments. You have to be ready for anything! And if you're not ready, well, you adjust. We've learned to really go with the flow. There are so many things beyond our control and it's a constant fluctuation to keep up with and try to plan entire seasons. Part of the beauty of joining a CSA - or Community Supported Agriculture program is that you also get to experience the many changes and fluctuations throughout the season with your farmers. You also help support us, not only by purchasing your veggies from us, but by sharing in all of the seasons' surprises. What that means is that it's quite possible that you may not have as much selection one week because we lost a crop of two due to weather, pests, or many other things that could happen. But the next week or month, we may have a huge surplus and you could get a bonus item or larger share!
Timing can be very challenging. We try to best guess how long it takes our crops to grow from seed to harvest, but hey- weather, sunlight hours, and other factors can affect our best guess. We're getting better at this by keeping lots of records and referencing them when we do our winter crop planning. But, sometimes crops are ready before we are, or vice versa.
This week we have our first harvest of greens ready as well as other crops in the field that we need to harvest so we can open up those beds for new spring plantings. This weekend Lyndsay from Sprout and Blossom Farm will be at the Vancouver Farmers Market with our extra veggies, eggs, and other goodies. We are also opening up our farm stand so you can order some of these items to pick up at the farm on Saturday from the farm fridge or from Lyndsay at the Farmers Market downtown. To see what we'll have available head to: https://www.harvie.farm/farm-stand/flat-tack-farm
Thank you all for following us through snow storms and sunny days.
Your farmers,
Kelly & Patrick
