End of Season Report
This summer season we truly hit our stride in the fields thanks to several staff returning, a supportive customer-base, sold out vegetable and flower CSA memberships, and favorable growing conditions. With a hard-working crew, an enthusiastic group of work-for-shares, and many devoted volunteers, we reached many milestones, including:
- receiving organic certification in May
- increasing our production by about 25%
- distributing nearly $700 value of veggies in your $600 20 week share and $150 in your $100 flower share
- taking great joy in watching you pick abundant PYO crops
- continuing our transition from a volunteer-led to a sustainably staff-led organization
- meeting our ambitious budgetary goals for farm production
- and planting our first permanent roots in the ground—a healthy stock of perennial herbs and flowers.
Growing Season: Weather, Plant Diseases and Pests
By mid-May 2017, we had officially rebounded from last year’s drought. The 2017 growing season brought a healthy amount of rainfall, a hot May, cold June, and cool summer nights. Overall, we were relieved to have generally favorable growing conditions.
The warm early spring days yielded an abundance of broccolini for the first three weeks of your share. The plentiful rain in spring gave our allium (onions, scallions, leeks, and garlic) field a healthy start, resulting in fresh or stored onions almost every week of the CSA season. A few cold nights in early June almost knocked out our Italian eggplant, making it susceptible to flea beetle damage. The cool nights in July and August slowed the ripening of heat-loving crops like watermelons and sweet potatoes, but provided plentiful greens through the end of the CSA share. The fact that we grow over 40 varieties of crops ensures that conditions will always favor something—a great insurance policy.
