Farm Happenings at Harvest Tide Organics
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First Deep Winter Delivery - Tuesday December 3rd

Posted on November 29th, 2019 by Bethany Allen

First Deep Winter Delivery this Tuesday, December 3rd!

 

Hello Hello! Welcome members!  This coming Tuesday marks the first delivery in our Deep Winter CSA!  Thank you so much for joining us for the winter.  We have had a great growing year and have an abundance of lots of the storage veggies that we're very excited to share with you all winter long!  We've been doing a winter share since we started our farm five years ago, but this is the first year we're doing our Winter deliveries with our new software that let's our members customize their shares.  We've been really enjoying the software this summer and fall, and we're especially excited about it for the winter as eating local veggies in the winter can be a bit more challenging for the average family's diet.  We're really hoping that allowing people to decide which of vegetables we offer in the winter work for them makes our Deep Winter Shares more accessible and enjoyable for more people.

Here on the farm, it feels like we're this close to slowing down to our winter pace.  We've got a few more big projects to tackle.  We've got to cover our over-wintering onions and garlic, remove the plastic from our tunnels that can't take snow, do some general field clean up, and finish the process of moving our wash-pack area into our greenhouse among other things.  This will all likely happen this coming week, then we'll launch into all the planning and prep that happens for next summer.  

We're really looking forward to the holidays on the farm.  We had a restful Thanksgiving, and since it's Iona's first Christmas, we're going big with a huge family party here on the farm with all the fam from both sides.  This isn't really farm news, but it's worth noting that as seasonal small business owners, this is the first winter where we're heading into the darker season with some energy left.  This feels like a real turning point for us, both for our business (all the planning and organizing is a lot less daunting and stressful when you're not super burned out) and for our family.  They say it takes 5 years to get a business going, and they are not wrong.  What's really crazy and wonderful is that we have so many members that have been with us since the beginning 5 years ago!  What a crazy ride, so many thanks to our long term members!

 

A friendly reminder...

Each of our delivery sites has a pick-up window.  This window should be noted in your customization email.  Please remember and make sure to pick-up your share within that window.  We cannot be responsible for shares that are left outside that window.  If you go to pick-up your share and it is not at the location, please let us know right away. We have a 3 point check system to make sure boxes get to their scheduled location, and while we're not perfect, most times when boxes are not there it is an issue of them being moved or relocated or someone grabbing the wrong box.  We're always happy to help, but we can't assist if we don't know within your pick-up window.

 

This week's pantry item is.....

This week's pantry item is a winter favorite that we've had before.  It contains possibly my two favorite items from summer - it's Turtle Rock Farm's Strawberry Basil Spreadable Fruit.  This jam is made from all the best ingredients (mostly organic and grown in Maine) right in Brunswick, by our beloved Jenn of Turtle Rock and her staff.  It is great on toast, biscuits, even ice cream.  It tastes like summer in a jar! Unlike most jams, this spreadable fruit doesn't have any preservatives, so be sure not to forget about it in the back of your fridge.

If this item isn't up your alley, our new customization software allows you to swap it out and add some vegetables instead.  Let us know if you have any trouble with this - we're happy to help.

 

Some simple housekeeping as we start the season:

Please take a close look at our delivery schedule for the winter - note, we skip an extra week around the holidays due to office closures and to take a little break ourselves, then we jump right back into the bi-weekly schedule.

Complete Winter Delivery Schedule

December 3, 2019
December 17, 2019 (Last Delivery before the Christmas Holiday)
January 7, 2020 (We take the week of Christmas and New Years day off from deliveries)
January 21, 2020
February 4, 2020
February 18, 2020
March 3, 2020
March 17, 2020

Do you have a vacation planned this winter?  

You can reschedule your share delivery so you don't miss out! 
We encourage you to reschedule your shares for deliveries you know you'll be away for now, so you don't miss the window.  You can reschedule shares until the end of the customization window before the delivery you want to reschedule.  Once the window is closed, it is too late.