Hi folks,
We are excited to bring you some new produce this week...we've got corn (YEEEESSS!!! It's so sweet and delicious and early this year!), tomatoes, and we have many of the same mid summer items as last week as well! Corn is available in increments of two, so if you'd like more than what was built into your share, you may add or swap two cobs at a time.
How do we keep some products coming throughout the season? We have succession crops - sometimes as many as five (radishes and lettuce), three (broccoli and fennel), and two (cabbage and peas). Sometimes there is a gap in our successions, which is why you might not see broccoli at the moment, but we do have more coming.
Farm News
We are in peak harvest time, and are working long hours to harvest and prepare all of the things we've committed to providing. We are grateful for our wonderful staff, and for you, for enjoying and using the fruit of our fields.
We've managed to get our garlic crop into the greenhouse to cure (we cover the greenhouse with a tarp, so it doesn't function like a greenhouse at the moment). It was ready very early for us this year, and looks like a healthy, abundant crop.
Today we celebrated the fabulous Jose Juan, who had a birthday. We shared cupcakes and sang both Spanish and English versions of Happy Birthday. He is a cornerstone on our team, and we sure feel lucky to have him at Sundog.
Thank you to those of you that came to our farm tour this Sunday. We really enjoyed meeting you and appreciate your interest and the effort you made to come out!
What to do if You Miss a Share
It happens from time to time that a share gets missed. If this happens to you, and you are wondering what to do, here are some guidelines. First, know that we don't retrieve shares from all of our locations, but we do from a few. We bring missed shares back to the farm from Strathcona Market and Awn Kitchen.
The rest of our locations we don't revisit after we deliver in the morning on Saturday. There are a few locations that will keep missed shares so that you can pick them up on a different day or later in the day, however. We prefer not to let this happen though for several reasons. The primary one is that our hosts provide us with space for free, and we don't want to take advantage of their hospitality. Most of our hosts don't have refrigeration, so missed shares also don't store well.
So, if you miss a share at a place that doesn't store them and we don't retrieve them, check the store/location hours to see if you can pick it up late. You can contact us or the location to see if you can make arrangements if picking it up late doesn't work either. If your share comes back to the farm, you can pick it up here. Please let us know that you will be doing this so that we don't donate your share. If we don't hear from you by Tuesday, your share will be donated to our staff or to the food bank. If you want it put back on the truck to be delivered with your next week's share, we are willing to do this as well, but we must have clear directives on this prior to the Tuesday after the missed share.
Overall, we see that you folks work as hard as you can to get your produce in a timely manner, and we appreciate that very much!
General Tips
Here are some links to help documents created by Harvie for you to learn how to navigate your farm share account more easily. You will find information about swapping, rescheduling, pickup location changes etc.
https://harvie.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/115000048773-Harvie-University-Members Link to Harvie help documents if you are not signed in to your account.
https://www.harvie.farm/contact Link to Harvie University for members (found in your accounts)
What To Do if You Are Away
This is a question we get asked often. You have three options:
1) Have someone else pick up for you. In our experience, friends assigned this job sometimes forget, so help them remember!
2) Cancel your share for the week. This can be managed on your Harvie account page. It must be done before the Wednesday morning cutoff time of 6 a.m. The disadvantage here is that you lose whatever you have invested into that share. So if you've paid 50%, then you forfeit that amount.
3) Reschedule your share. This is our recommended option because it means you get your full value. What we suggest is that you reschedule your share to a week near the end when you will get more storage-friendly items that will last longer in your fridge, though you're welcome to reschedule to any date that works best for you. When you reschedule, you will get the scheduled share as well as the rescheduled share or shares, so be prepared for a lot of food.
Pick up Location Days, Hours and Flexibilities
King's University (East Edmonton)
Friday pickups, 12-4, some flex if you have to come a bit later. We will not retrieve any shares left here.
Breadlove Artisan Bakery (St. Albert), Saturday pickups, 10-2, no flex & closed on Sunday.
Awn Kitchen (Southwest Edmonton), Saturday pickups, 10-2, no flex, we will bring missed shares to farm.
Uproot Food Collective (Central Edmonton), Saturday pickups, 10-2, some flex, but please respect the pickup hours.
Strathcona Farmer's Market, Saturday pickups, 8-3, no flex, but we bring missed shares to farm.
The Butcher Block (Sherwood Park), Saturday pickup, 10-2, some flex
The Fort Distillery (Fort Saskatchewan), Saturday pickup, 10-5, no flex
Sundog Organic Farm (near Gibbons), Saturday, 9-2, flexible
As always, you may contact us with questions or concerns at jamesandjenny@sundogorganicfarm.ca or 780-447-3025 or 780-974-6249.
For more tips, please visit our two previous Happenings.
