On a farm like ours there are a thousand decisions that need to be made in a day. Some decisions foreseen and prepared for. Some spontaneous and unpredicted. Some huge, pivitol and important. Some tiny and insignificant. Interacting with a crew of live and dynamic people all day, navigating their needs, sensitivities, strengths and preferences is one layer of management that requires a good decision-maker. A farmer must also observe the crops and their needs and time sensitivities. Good farmers can prioritize. They must be present, in the field, and have the skill to make good choices. Deciding what everyone will do, how they will do it, when they will do it, and then deciding who is the best person or crew for the job requires expertise.
While I don’t consider us experts, we are certainly experienced. We have 19 years experience running a CSA farm and many of the decisions we make on a day-to-day basis have been made here before. I’ve had people say things to me over the years like, “So when are you going to hire someone to manage your farm for you?” Or “can’t you hire someone to manage the crew to take over the operation so you can have more time for family or scaling back?”. I have spent a lot of hours thinking about this question. While I’m sure this approach works in certain kinds of business, I’m not sure it would work very well on a farm like ours. CSA Farming is too specialized. It would require a unique young person with a burning desire to become a CSA farmer. Someone good at multitasking and who doesn’t mind working insane hours. It’s a labor of love. No one gets into farming for the paycheck.
The reason I can’t see hiring someone to do my or Adam’s job is that there are simply too many crops to mange. You can’t just hire a farmer the way you can hire a clerk or a dishwasher. A thousand hours go into just thinking about the day to day decisions on top of the action required to execute them. Every day is different on the farm. Every season is different.
This week we had to make a hard decision. Should we buy more drip-line? Should we have one person work most of one day laying out the drip line on the fall brassicas? Should Adam put in all the extra work running the pump to get water to the crops that need it if it might rain sometime in the next week? Should we assume it’s not going to rain again soon? Will it rain enough if it does rain? It’s been a long time since we’ve had rain and it is now very hot and very dry on the farm. What will happen if we don’t water the fall brassicas? Will they size up in time? Will they size up at all? It’s late in the season to be irrigating. We’ve never irrigated this late in the year before. This is one tiny example of a difficult decision. Unpredicted, time-sensitive, and hard to make.
We generally play it on the safe side whenever we can. Not often in farming do you have control over the outcome of your crops. But when something is within your control (like getting water to your plants and you’re feeling sure they’ll do well if they get water), even if it’s an expensive decision, you had better just play it on the safe side. You had better get water to those plants. Because if you don’t and then it doesn’t rain, you might have unhappy CSA customers if they don’t get broccoli in their fall CSA boxes;). We can’t shield the crops from high winds or protect them from errosion or hail or even ground squirrels. But we can get them water when they need it.
Farming is so much like gambling sometimes. It’s a little exciting, a little nerve-racking, and pretty addictive. You gotta know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em if you know what I mean. Skill and experience will get you a long ways in farming, but luck (the weather) is the variable completely out of your control that ultimately determines the outcome of your season. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we loose.
The beauty of CSA farming is that while there have been crop ‘failures’ this year like the spring spinach and peas, there are always 40 other crops to share that we might have better luck with. Finally the tomatoes are coming on strong. Good thing farmer Adam made that good, but hard, decision to prune those tomatoes back this Spring.
What’s in the Box?
Spaghetti Squash– These are the big, yellow, hard squash in your box. Not to be confused with a melon! Spaghetti squash are popular in the gluten-free world. Slice in half lengthwise and remove the seeds. Bake face down in a baking dish for 1 hour. After about an hour, remove from oven and use a fork to scrape the noodle-like squash into a bowl.
Celeriac Root– These deserve an explanation! These very unusual looking roots are especially cultivated so that the roots of the plants grow large and not the stalks or stems like in the celery plant. The roots are hard and dense like a potato. Just use a pearing knife to peel away the rough/ugly outer later of the root and reveal a smooth, white inside flesh that cooks up much like a potato. Cube it into small cubes and it makes a lovely addition to any soup with a potato-like texture with a celery flavor. Once cooked it also purees nicely into a soup. It can also be grated raw into a salad. The greens can be used like celery in a soup as well. Celeriac store fantastically well. Remove the greens from the root and store the root in a plastic bag in the fridge for up to 5 months. Boil and mash celeriac with potatoes and discover celeriac mashed potatoes and your life will be reformed!
Potatoes- 2 lbs red potatoes. Freshly dug red potatoes. Many of the reds were small this year. There were a lot of them, but they were smaller. We found that they still had a very smooth texture. Freshly dug potatoes ‘scuff’ easily especially when we washed them and handled them a little extra. Normally potatoes are allowed to sit and ‘cure’ where their skin toughens up a bit. But curing doesn’t affect flavor. Nothing like freshly dug potatoes!!!!
Onion- One or two onions per member.
Tomato- 7 lbs per member. A reminder that we pick any tomato with a ‘blush’. This means we pick any tomato showing any signs of color at all because they ripen so fast once they begin to turn colors. We recommend putting them out on your counter to ripen until they have reached the desired ripeness. Do not refrigerate your tomatoes unless the are getting over-ripe and you need to buy yourself some time. We also recommend removing them from the plastic bag as soon as you receive them. Condensation can build up in the plastic bag and cause the tomatoes to go bad. Herilooms of all colors, romas, slicers, oh my! It’s finally tomato season!
Peppers- 5-7 sweet peppers each! Wow! What a great week for sweet peppers! They are loving the heat and sunshine for ripening. Some thin-walled red peppers and some thick-walled red peppers. The thin-walled peppers ripen earlier and faster and the thicker-walled ones take a little longer to ripen and come into season. We also are sharing some thicker walled yellow and orange peppers.
Kale- Green curly kale this week to keep you stocked in cooking greens.
Carrots- 2lb bags of kale this week! Wow! These are still spring carrots that were dug that we have a large stock of in the cooler. These beds of carrots weren’t the most cosmetically beautiful carrots we’ve ever grown, they still have that great locally-grown carrot flavor that makes them so much better than Cali carrots.
Hot Pepper- Hungarian Hot Wax pepper tucked inside your tomato bag. These ripen lime-green to orange to red and are very mild on the spectrum of hot peppers.
Mini-Sweet Peppers- These came in their own little brown paper bag and are sweet! Not to be confused with hot peppers! Mini sweets are a fan favorite with kids. I have stop my kids from raiding the mini-sweet patch so there are plenty to share with all of you! They’re a little addicting and a great snack with hummus or just by themselves!
Next Week’s Best Guess: 5-7 lbs tomatoes, sweet peppers, onion, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi, celeriac Root, Spaghetti Squash, Yellow potatoes
Recipes
Pepperonatta (A sauce, a spread or a topper for pasta, toast or grain of your choice! Maybe even for Spaghetti squash?)
