While October was record-setting in its warmth and beauty, November arrived as it always does: cool and damp and dreary. It changes the mood instantly. Working outside is not nearly as fun. It is so good that we got all the sweet potatoes out of the ground before it got cold and we got almost all the cover crop planted. We really don't have to get started in the morning before about 9:00. There is a lot more time for sleep and breakfast.
Next week is the final week of the 2021 CSA and we can start to look back on what we learned and what we might want to do differently next year. When we started the CSA over 20 years ago, we only did a summer share. We ended it when the tomatoes ended. In those days we didn't grow as much in October and November--it's almost like brassicas hadn't been discovered yet! Certainly most farms like ours had not yet learned to grow all the way into autumn, and climate change was not yet making itself felt.
We started the Autumn CSA very tentatively, opening it up to just 30 people and charging less per week than during the summer. Each year we got a little bit bigger, as we learned to grow more fall crops. In recent years the fall group has become just about the same size as the summer group. Some people join in the fall and some people drop out after summer. The transition is complicated as we bring in new folks and try to orient them in midstream.
So... next year we are going to change the way we think about our CSA season. It will be one continuous whole, now that we know that we can reliably produce enough vegetables for the whole group all the way until Thanksgiving. There will be no weird switch from summer to fall. We have a lot of ideas in mind. Should we maybe also offer a short season, like the middle 12 weeks? Should we think of it as three 8 week chunks, so people don't have to pay so far in advance, but they can pay for 8 weeks at a time? We haven't really talked about all the possibilities yet--our season of brainstorming and planning is not quite here--but we do know it will be a little different when you sign up next year.
If you have any thoughts on how this might affect your interest in our CSA, I would like to hear them. If you have any ideas about how we might improve our CSA, that would also be helpful. Send me your thoughts and suggestions (hana@potomacvegetablefarms.com) as we are just moving into the season of meetings where we plan the next year.
