Welcome to Week 5 of the Fall Farm Share!
It's the second last week of the Farm Share season! You have til Tuesday at midnight to customize your share.
On The Farm: Season Review
Last week on a rainy day, Alex and I got together with Sarah and Jonathon to review our season.
The debate over whether we should grow broccoli next year or not raged. Well, it's been raging for 3 years now so I think we might have to concede to Alex next year and not grow it. Or maybe we will try a sprouting broccoli which has a better harvest window and takes up less space.
We all agreed that we need to grow more carrots, and less kohlrabi.
We agreed we could grow more beans because they are well-loved, but we also agreed that we couldn't spare the time to HARVEST more beans. Alex wants to grow them in the hoophouse as pole beans, which will make harvest a lot faster.
We thought that our tomatoes were the best yet of our 5 seasons!
We decided we liked having spring onions available each week, but that we grew too many bed feet of them. Some beds never got harvested from! And some beds had to be harvested from for so long that they became harder to clean as they had more yellow leaves. (Spring onions are the most labour-intensive crop to clean thoroughly).
We liked our kale game this year, but we also grew too much of it. The older it got, the tougher it became and the slower it grew back. Next year, we will grow less kale but we will fertigate it (we use fish emulsion and compost tea) more often once it is growing. The kale that we fertigated was noticeably bigger, greener, and softer.
We think we are going to drop shelling peas, but grow more sugar snap peas. Peas have caused us trouble - this year they were great, but then their trellis collapsed and harvest became really difficult. We're going to fix the trellis for next year. It'll be simpler to grow just one variety. And snap peas have a longer harvest window (they don't start tasting bitter when they get large or older like shelling peas), and because you can eat the whole thing our customers get more out of a pint.
We decided that next year we want to have more farm events - a spring open house, a planting party, a garlic harvest party and Farm Share member potluck. And we want to have more volunteers! Our workshare volunteers/members (volunteering for a half or whole day in exchange for a share + extras as available) were an invaluable part of our team this season and we think it is a fantastic mutually beneficial arrangement.
We'll be looking to hire a new full time staff member next season, and a delivery driver to do our routes so we can have more time on-farm. We're also thinking about expanding delivery to Grand Bend!
Those are just a few of our reflections from this season! Looking forward to adding your reflections to the mix when we send out our survey this week!
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Veggie Highlights
Veggie tip of the week: sliced veggie tray!
Radish, purple globe turnip, green fruit radish (a new one available this week) and kohlrabi are all excellent sliced up raw and served with a dip. Kohlrabi is juicy and sweet, almost similar to a carrot stick.
Happy eating!
Please don't hesitate to email at mulberrymoonfarm@gmail.com or text me at 519-719-7253 with any feedback or questions at any time. :)
Your farmer,
Kim
