Picking kale at the Farm Day.
REMAINING SCHEDULE
This is a reminder that there are four deliveries left for the season -- the weeks of October 21st, October 28th, November 4th, and November 11th. (Of course, for every-other-week shares you will be picking up on two of those weeks. Skipper shares also may not have a pick-up for every one of those dates; for your own schedule, you can go into your Harvie account and look at your past deliveries, and future deliveries.) Remember also that if you have any problem with picking up your share, your pick-up site host is the one to contact; their info is also to be found in your account with Harvie. We will be including some maple syrup from local sources in the boxes of the week of October 28th, (or November 4th for every-other-week shares that skip that week); we have traditionally included syrup in your shares early in the season, but this season it will be towards the end of the season!
THANKSGIVING AND STORAGE SHARES
The Thanksgiving and Storage Shares, (taking place during the weeks of November 18th and December 9th, respectively), are separate shares that many of you have signed up and paid for. If you haven't, but still want to, we can still accommodate you, and you can sign up from our website (springdalefarm.com). Both of these shares will be customizable, meaning that your contents of the shares will be based on your preferences that you gave us for the regular season, and that there will be a short swap period that you can adjust the actual contents of your share to your needs at the time. You can sign up for either or both of those shares up to about a week before their actual delivery.
MOISTURE CASUALTIES
Some of our fields do not drain as well as others, and unfortunately some of our carrots that have been in over-saturated soil have started to get soft in the field, so for the rest of the season we will not have quite as many carrots as we would like to have available to you. Many of our brussels sprouts will also not be harvestable, to our great disappointment, and even the ones that we harvest, as many of you noted in the previous deliveries of them, will likely need some extra peeling. :(
EXTRA ITEMS STILL TO COME
Happy Roots Farm (of Dave and Rhonda Bohnhoff) will be harvesting a bunch of Liberty apples, probably next week, and we will have them available to you during your normal swapping/purchasing period for that week. We will also be going over to Michigan to get frozen (organic) blueberries; for delivery in the final regular season's boxes. We have done some pickling of beets, and made some salsa, that we will be offering as well soon!
NEXT YEAR'S HARVIE
Overall we are pleased with Harvie's unique ability to generate lists of items to be included into your shares based both on what is available each week from our fields and greenhouses, and from your preferences. We also like their option for you to swap, and potentially purchase other items that may be available from our farm (or from other farms), so that you can have in your tote items that you specifically want for that week. And for us, that they are able to generate these lists without a lot of extra bookkeeping (both in creating the lists, and printing them, as well as keeping track of the billing for them), on our part, is a big plus. We expect that most of you are in agreement with the benefits of these features, so we are likely to continue to use this algorithm for 2020 as well. As some of you noted during the season, there are still glitches that could be improved, and we would like to invite you now (over the next couple weeks) to think of suggestions that we can communicate to the Harvie folks to improve the overall system. One item, for example, that I can see could be done with their program is to total all of the items that you might want to swap for the week, and make that overall value available for swapping, rather than having to swap each individual item separately. Send us an e-mail with your thoughts and suggestions; we will also be sending out a more formal questionnaire and feedback form soon!
SIGNING UP FOR THE 2020 SEASON
One feature of Harvie that we will be implementing is their auto-renewal feature for signing up for the upcoming season.
Beginning December 1st, unless you opt out, you will automatically be signed up for the 2020 season for the same share(s) that you signed up for for the 2019 season. Of course, with a simple click of your mouse you will be able to cancel that registration, or change it to a different size share, or frequency. If you cancel it, you will still be able to sign-up at a later date, later in the winter, or closer to the beginning of the season, depending on the available shares left (We will not be increasing the number of shares available in 2020, and in fact may take on a slightly smaller number of shares.) But for those of you who know that you will be re-subscribing, it seems that it will be a convenient way to tell us that you are on-board again for 2020.
We will remind you of this December 1st auto-renewal a few more times between now and then! More details to follow as well!
SEASON WINDING DOWN
As the fields gradually get cleared of their crops, and the cold weather of the fall envelops the farm, we also want to thank you all for joining us with us for this 2019 season! As with all seasons, there are some successes, and failures, to our efforts to provide you with (organically-grown) produce. Lots of things to improve upon, but overall proud of our crew's efforts to grow and deliver what our soil and farm can offer!
