OK, so this might be a little late after the season is already headed into week 3, but we realized we may need to walk some new folks through the process.
1. Remember to pick up. If you're chosen location is the farm, its not really a problem because we have walk in coolers and you can come get your missed share anytime you'd like (prior to Tuesday noon), however, for all other locations, forgetting to pick up is an issue. Our generous site hosts don't have walk in coolers and can't arrange to meet up later. So shares left at our porch drop off locations become the property of our site hosts. They'll be glad to share with their neighbors and some deliver to food pantries, but the point is, if you miss your pickup you won't get the veggies you paid for that week. PRO TIP: Set a recurring phone reminder with alarm...maybe even a couple.
2. Find your tote with your name on the label. TIP: There may be a colored dot on the label too that color depends upon your last name alphabetically to help us find your share, so just know that dot will be the same color every week for you, so just remember your dot color and then you don't have to read all the label names. It'll help you find it faster.
3. As you remove your bag of produce form the tote, please doublecheck that you have the right one. Since yours most likely isn't the top tote and you'll need to unstack them to get to yours, it's easy to get confused and grab the wrong one in the unstacking process. Please double check because if you accidentally take the wrong one, then you won't get the exact stuff you ordered and someone else won't find a tote for them and will go home empty handed. This happens quite frequently, so please take extra care to make sure it is your tote.
4. Remove the label from the tote. This helps us because if we don't notice leftover labels on totes, it's possible to get two different names from different weeks on the same tote and that really leads to confusion. We try to remove labels before we relabel and fill them each week, but removing your own label will really help us out PLUS when you remove the label you'll get a third opportunity to make sure it's actually your veggies (since you already doublechecked that). Some members like keeping sticking the label to their fridge so they have a list of everything they got.
5. Stack the empty tote neatly nested with other empties. This really helps prevent confusion with empty totes in the stacks of full totes and helps keep things tidy for our site hosts.
6. If you brought back your clean and dry large plastic bag from the previous week, you can leave it in an empty tote at the site, but make sure you keep the lid closed so it doesn't blow away, and please try to use the same tote for this so we have a single tote full of bags. You don't need to do this but if you want to reduce waste, we can reuse those big bags as long as they are clean and dry.
6. Protect your veggies for the journey. if you aren't going straight home, sticking your bag of veggies in a cooler with icepack will help a lot. Especially if your car is going to be in the sun. Leafy greens especially are susceptible to high temperatures and a clear plastic bag of veggies in a car with clear windows on a sunny day can become a double greenhouse and wilt your lettuce before you can say Jack Robinson. Also, we are heading into winter and we can have the opposite problem as temperatures drop below freezing. A bag of lettuce left in a freezing car will also become mush in no time.
7. Store the veggies properly and enjoy. Most things need the fridge but something like sweet potatoes does not. Not sure how to store it? Check out our storage guide for storage info and some recipes.
Thanks so much for being a stalwart winter member and bearing with some of the logistical challenges that winter veggie deliveries brings. We're really grateful that you've chosen to help keep our local farm productive all winter long. We really do depend on our winter members to quite literally keep the heat on and the greenhouses green.
This Week's Harvest
The last of the peppers are going out this week. We're tearing out the final batch of Italian pepper plants in the greenhouse to make room for more winter greens, so grab them while they're fresh. Ginger is still going strong and we're wanting to keep harvesting copious amounts of that to also make room for more crops (but with ginger we've got several more weeks at least so don't panic). Radishes are the best I've seen all year, big, juicy and mild. We've also begun harvesting the specialty radishes like daikon and watermelon radish. We had a really nice beet harvest also with some monsters among them, so look out for some really nice beets. Spinach is going bonkers so dig in there! Since we've had a few frosts, its extra sweet now. Oh so good! Curly kale is needing to get harvested to make room for a new greenhouse build, so please stock up on that kale. We have more in tunnels, so this isn't the end but it will be the end of those particular plants outdoors. Lettuce heads are gorgeous. That's all I'll say about those. You'll see from the list that there are still an awful lot of choices. I don't know how you will decide what to NOT put in your box.
Bread and Cheese
Bread update: several people added the bread share which keeps us out of the danger zone of not meeting our minimum orders this winter, so thanks for that.
Bread: Farm to Market Large Sourdough Sliced loaf
Cheese: Hemme Brothers Applewood Smoked curds
Thanks again for eating fresh and local this winter
Dave and Sheri
