New things are always exciting, and often intimidating too. We're so glad we've been able to feed you these past three months, thank you so much for joining us for the ride! It has given us the opportunity to learn more about greenhouse production, veggie storage, and helped give our staff some shifts earlier in the season than usual. We'll be able to offer a spring season again next year, and as soon as we can put up a new greenhouse we'll be able to offer it to more members too. It is clear to us that our customers are loving the veggies and it works well for us to bridge the seasons - we just have to figure out the part where we buy another greenhouse...
We've got a much better idea of how many people we can feed from a patch of this and that from our greenhouse, and without you we never would have tried with the markets closed. I'll have to plant a much bigger patch of baby kale for example, but a smaller patch of lettuces. The hakuri and radishes grew too quickly and shaded out our tomatoes, so we'll have to start the tomatoes a little earlier to get them ahead of the competition for light. Early pushed cilantro and bok choy in the fields just went to flower, which could have been that heat wave? Thankfully we're already into our second field planting of them to share with you this week.
The root veggies are storing very well still, and we've got a new 'fogger' to replace our household humidifiers for keeping the humidity up in the root storage room. We've never kept humidified storage this time of year before, and the air conditioner which we use to get the temperature down to fridge temperatures was fighting against the steam humidifiers. Basically, an air conditioner cools the air and in the process condenses out the water. The dry air then triggers the humidifiers to run heating up the air and it was a nasty battle that week we hit 30°C outside! That coupled with finding that greens actually store very well in the humidified room, and we've learnt lots more about storing veggies in springtime.
Glimpsing back at my notes, I was nervous about running out of storage veggies and just how much green fresh stuff we could grow. I think on the whole the more green stuff we can plan for next year the better! We've already planted bigger patches of garlic, sweet potatoes, winter cabbage, and potatoes which we've had this time of year before (but happened to run out of this past winter). So we'll be able to add those in next spring, and we'll plan a more regular supply of things like spinach, arugula, and beets. Is there anything you'd like to see change for next year? Please just reply to let me know or mention it as I deliver this week as we'd love to hear your feedback!
So amidst all this turmoil, together we as farmers, and you as eaters, have been able to try something new and it has indeed been a success story! We look forward to feeding you again next spring. All the best and many thanks for putting your trust in us to feed you, because that's what feeds us ;)
Heather
