Winter Farm Share, second half of January edition: We wash the field dirt off of Salad Mix during the warmest possible time during these winter weeks, but it's not usually "warm" this time of year!
Vegetable variety is a bit less for the next little while. There's still plenty of Salad and Carrots to harvest, and Kale and Spinach are modestly growing this winter. We simultaneously appreciate and are grateful for the dormancy of winter while also remembering, appreciating, and looking forward to the diversity and abundance of the warm season.
In addition to vegetable harvest and the logistics of Farm Shares and our farmers' market booth, plus the work of dough and baking in our bakery, we are tackling a list of projects that we identify over the course of months during the warm season. Improve the drainage system in our wash tubs; replace the floor of our walk in cooler; reorganize and tidy our pack room; add insulation to our delivery van; revamp our FarmStand a bit; slap some paint and stain on various surfaces; the list goes on and on.
In the farm office we're putting final touches on seed and fertilizer orders for the season, updating our crop plan, and ticking away at the ominous job of preparing for our tax filing.
In the farm kitchen, we're infusing jars and jars of herbs. This is led by our oldest child who is knocking on the door of 14 yrs and takes her herbal studies very seriously. Many of these herbs she harvested and dried during the warm season and others she's purchased from Certified Organic Farms. If you're interested in benefiting from the herbal remedies that our daughter makes or those of the professional herbalist from Gathered Threads Farm in Nelson County, check out the add-on options for our main Farm Share season. Log in to Harvie, click on "Place Order," and select any option you'd like to add.
Whoo hoo! Now you've got a little insight into the January Farm. :)
Around the edges of our farm work we are cooperating with others about educating legislators on appropriate policy changes to improve soil health, climate change, and the percentage of American farming that is organic, as well as continuing to find ways that we can work to help achieve social justice and tackle systemic racism. For a very short piece on systemic racism in agriculture, listen to this from MarketPlace on NPR last week. For a glimpse into a local Black farmer's journey to improving infrastructure on his farm here in Richmond, see here and here.
We appreciate the solidarity that we experience with our Farm Share members in our collective work as a community to bend the arc toward justice.
Blessings on your meals ~
Janet, Dan, family, and crew
