We have been hard at work harvesting our winter storage carrots. We harvest by hand with the mechanical advantage of a u-bar or bed lifter behind our Kubota tractor that undercuts the carrots so that we don't need to dig with a shovel. The tractor takes away the hardest part of the harvest, but we still pull each carrot out of the ground by hand, break off the greens, and put them in bins, load the bins onto the tractor, and then wash them about 40 lbs at a time in our root washer. We let them dry for an hour or two, bin or bag them at 50lbs and then put them in our fridge. We have 8 rows left which is somewhere between 5-7 thousand lbs of carrots depending on the yield of each row. So we sure have our work cut out for us in the coming week but I think we will get most of them out. I've been happy to have my friend Evan, pictured here, out the past few weeks to help us stay ahead of the impending weather change.
New products
Because of our carrot bounty I am adding 10lb bags of carrots to the store this week. If you have space in your fridge we would love to free up some space in ours for more carrots so please feel free to add these to your order.
We have two new seasonal flavours of Worthy Jam - Spiced Mixed Berry Spread and Gingersnap Apple Spread.
We are also adding some new vegetables from Mans Organic and Aimable Organic - celeriac, fennel, and eggplant.
Customization cut off time - your box is open for customization until this Sunday at 10:00 pm. Please take a look at what is in your box and make any adjustments necessary.
Referral Program - Did you know that we have a referral program? Each time you refer a new customer to us each of you will receive a $25 credit. Once you are logged into your account you will see a "Refer a friend" tab at the top of your page. Click on that and share the link. When someone signs up using that link you will both automatically have a $25 added to your account. Here is a quick how to if you need more help: https://harvie.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360044975613
Missing Items - Please let us know about any packing errors so that we can give you a credit for any missed items. Please reach out to info@steelpony.ca to let us know about missed items.
Quality - if any items you receive from us are not up to your standards please let me know so that we have a chance to make things right for you.
Setting preferences - if you haven't already set your preferences - and even if you haven't done so recently - doing so will help you to get the most out of this program. Here is information on setting your preferences - https://harvie.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021794754-How-do-preferences-work-
Home Delivery - if you have signed up for home delivery and don't expect to be home on Thursday afternoon you can leave a cooler out for us to put your order into. If the forecast is cold, putting a hot water bottle into your cooler will help to keep the chill off.
Missed pick ups - if you know in advance that you will not be able to make it to your pick up please reschedule or cancel your order through your Harvie account. Here is a how to on doing that. https://harvie.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001542514-How-to-skip-reschedule-or-change-a-delivery-location. You can make these changes until the customization cut off period on Sunday night at 7:00pm.
If after the cut off period you learn that you are not able to pick up, please let me know via email at mike@steelpony.ca or text at 403-506-3634. Please do not contact drop site hosts about missed pick ups.
Any orders that are not picked up 24 hours after the pick up window will be donated or used as we see fit in order to minimize waste.
Thanks so much for working with us to support the local economy, strengthen the local supply chain, and connect farmers and producers with eaters.
Enjoy!
Mike and the Steel Pony Farm crew
