Pea woes (And, what makes our CSA a CSA?)

The kids and I sampled the first of the raspberries for our snack last week!

Dear friends — We had some “pea woes” this last week. It was a perfect storm of a disappointing planting, miscommunication, strategy error, and eager appetites. Here’s the deal — first of all, this year’s pea planting has failed to meet our expectations. Why? I can think of a few overlapping possible reasons, but the most likely big reason is that we decided this year to try some new varieties of peas. Our favorite standard is not available as organically grown, and we aimed to have almost all of our seed organically produced this year. With the peas and a few other crops, we have learned (once again!) how important good seed stock is, and next year we will probably adjust some of those choices. (If you’re interested, the USDA allows organic growers to use non-organic untreated seeds when there is a compelling reason to do so, such as quality of the variety.)

This year’s peas just failed to take off in the way we expect, so our four rows is producing fewer peas than we’d hoped for. But nonetheless we picked enough peas last week for everyone to get some. However, we failed to anticipate that everyone’s pea appetite meant that really most everyone wanted to take home more than one item worth. We did not have that many! And we did not stop to think about communicating the pea volume or limit! Which meant that the second half of the CSA arrivals left disappointed by the lack of peas. I think that knowing I have disappointed someone is probably one of the worst feelings I know. Our hearts hurt, and we spent several days thinking about how to rectify the situation in the future. Growing more of favorite foods — yes, always! Placing limits when appropriate — yes, this too!

Because, in spite of meeting in a storefront, we are still a CSA farm. And, to me, implicit in that notion is the idea that we are all sharing the season’s harvest. We don’t want our members to worry that they will miss all the “good” stuff if they don’t show up in the first hour or two of pick-up! It’s a tricky thing for us to balance the “choices” we’ve built into our CSA model with making sure everyone still gets what they want. We know how many CSA members we have in the program; and, we know how many total items that represents; but, we definitely don’t know how those items will be selected. We know that certain foods are favorites, such as the first of anything (because new veggies are exciting!), but people still bring their own preferences and habits to the process too. We always harvest quite a lot extra (though we are wary of harvesting too much extra!), and yet we still can’t predict how things will work out.

From our observations, people really love that they get to choose their veggies. It seems that people have wildly varying appetites and preferences, and thus this option still seems like a good one (we tried going back to “farmer’s choice” last year and found that it left many folks frustrated!). So we scratch our heads on the puzzle of how to plan our planting and harvests — and how to balance pleasing the folks who want lots of one thing with the need for others to have access to the full range of options in the final hours of pick-up. We generally assume that most people will want to bring home a wide variety of items, but sometimes that is not even accurate, skewing our projections even more. (I believe, in fact, that some of these quandaries are exactly what led us to try the farmer’s choice model again last year!)

Another calculation that we weigh here on the farm is simply the time involved in a particular crop — certain crops (for example this week’s peas, raspberries and cherries) simply take a very long time for our crew to harvest. So, sometimes how much of something we bring is simply limited by that factor. In fact, many CSA farms simply do not produce these small fruits (forgoing peas, berries, cherry tomatoes, and beans completely), because they feel that it is much harder to pick those items in the volumes appropriate for their number of members (or CSAs with multiple drop sites will trade off which site gets those items in different weeks). We still love producing these good foods, but we too feel strained when it comes to the picking at times.

Now that we are in our tenth season, I find that I long ago grew weary of the “teaching” side of our farm. By which I mean, that I grew weary of “explaining” why we don’t have a certain crop yet, or not quite enough one season (or heaven forbid — but it happens — none of something in a particular year). This is no fault of our members — I just started feeling like a broken record and as though we were making excuses rather than explaining. We start every single year with plans to satisfy every single customer, and of course every year brings its own variables of weather, timing errors, miscommunications, new pests, and more. Farming has so many variables (some in our control; many not) — it’s rather ridiculous to even tease out the how and why of certain things. I was talking about this with a friend (who recently got out of the farming gig herself), about how just very crazy complex market gardening really is. The reality is that every year we do pretty dang well at meeting all of our goals, but every year there are also a few disappointments. You can trust that any time you have been disappointed by not quite enough of one thing in a season, we too were probably a bit disappointed too. But, in that same season, we inevitably also experienced an amazing bumper crop of even more delicious veggies. Each season has its unique gifts too.

So, even though I feel redundant at times when I address farming’s vagaries, I suppose I will have to continue sharing about the reality of this work. Because of course part of why people choose this model of eating is because it does provide a more intimate connection the real work behind our daily sustenance. Certainly, it would be more convenient to walk into any grocery store (often open 24/7!) and choose from a wide range of foods representing all the seasons at once. But there are untold stories there — fossil fuels used in shipping, low wages overseas, erosion, and pollution. Instead, you have chosen stories that you can know — stories of here and now, of people in your own community striving to do the best they can by the land, animals and people. Rather than prioritizing convenience and certainty, you have chosen connection, vitality, and presence.

As the local food movement has grown well past its early eager days, I think it is easy for all of us to lose sight of how very powerful this experience is. I know that I do. Sometimes I wonder why any of us don’t just go to those 24/7 produce departments and eat raspberries year-round? But, of course — not only do those raspberries have a very different story than ours, they actually pale in every way. When we grow seasonal food for a local market, we can choose varieties that might not ship well across the country or produce in the wrong season — we can choose the best variety for flavor. This week you’ll find at the CSA pick-up, one of our all-time favorite fruits: the Tulameen raspberries. As some CSA members commented last year, “Whoa, these aren’t my grandmother’s raspberries.” Tulameens will knock your socks off. And you will be glad you have traded convenience for that awesome summer sunshine melting in your mouth.

But, of course, raspberries are also one of those slow picking foods. We’ll be picking them tomorrow, and it will be a race to see how many half-pints we can pick before we need to head into town (I’m even going to chip in, and today I picked the snap peas as well — all hand’s on deck when it is small fruit season!). So, be prepared that there will likely be a limit on how many raspberries you can take. I don’t know what the limit will be yet, since we haven’t picked them.

Returning to the idea of how to balance our CSA in the future, we will probably start providing more information again (more of that real story of our farm) to help navigate folks in composing an appropriate share each week (much in the way that we would if we were packing boxes). I will provide information in the newsletter as well as on signs so that folks can arrive with appropriate expectations. Hopefully, this little tweak in our existing system can help us find some balance in meeting everyone’s needs and return us to the spirit of being a really cool CSA farm (that has choices!).

Of course, to further complicate our management of it all, we also need to account for differing share sizes. Some of you have chosen to buy larger shares so that you can take more items — limiting every single household to one of something therefore seems to limit these people excessively. So, we may try to somehow communicate that sometimes something will be limited to one per smaller share or two for the larger shares (10 items and up). This seems so complicated, doesn’t it? But, I bet we can figure it out! If you are ever confused, there are always two or three of us friendly farm folks at pick-up to answer your questions!

And, we still may run out of something, unfortunately. Right now, we’re not been worried about running out of cooking greens, so there’s no need to limit them. I know many of you are like us and eat these as important diet staples! We want you to be able to do that! But — you know — maybe one week everyone gets hungry for kale. It’s so hard to predict! We are very interested in folks’ experiences this year. We are always try to steer our farm in directions that please folks, knowing of course that old adage that you simply cannot please everyone all the time. A packed share box is appealing, because of course it makes planning and harvesting every so much simpler — and everyone knows they’re getting all of it! But, so far, our members seem to prefer the option of choices, even with the risk of possibly missing out on something. But, again, communicate with us. As always, we’ll check in with folks more formally toward the end of the season as we make next year’s plans, but this recent pea debacle was a good early season opportunity for us to check in with ourselves and with you about how we take all this good food we grow and get it to you!

Two final notes: In general, it all works smoothest if every CSA members takes a reasonably balanced share! “Reasonably balanced” is up to interpretation — for some it might be a five item share with five different items. Members with larger shares may choose to go heavy on staples like potatoes and cooking greens with a sprinkling of the other things. But I want to point out that this is a CSA, not a market booth. I think that in general, CSA programs are intended to give members a fun experience of each season’s full range of tastes and textures. Hopefully that is an experience that delights you as much as it does us! Secondly, some of these quandaries may be particularly linked to the time in the season. Many folks are weary of winter’s parade of greens and so very hungry for the summer’s fruits, which are just not yet quite all the way arrived yet. But, in a few months when we’ve got tomatoes and basil and summer squash coming out of our ears, it may be easier for everyone to have equal access to all their favorite yummies without any worries on any side.

Thanks for bearing with all this analysis this week! Every now and then it’s useful to stop and ponder all of these workings together, and hopefully it is also useful for you to know how things work on our end — how we plan and work to make the CSA a reality. And, thank you, always, for your part of making this CSA a reality too! We appreciate every single customer and farm member and thank you for all that you bring to us and to the wider community too. We are blessed to know you!

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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U-pick opportunities! Remember how I mentioned that berries and small fruit take time to pick? That’s where u-pick comes in! Several of you have approached us, asking about cherries and raspberries. We’d like to make this work (for strawberries too!), but we’re not set up to just fling open wide the doors of our farm. Let us know if you are interested in u-pick, and we will make a list of folks to email about logistics!!!!! Thank you!

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Cherries & raspberries — These are the first pickings of two wonderful summer fruits. As I mentioned in the newsletter, we are still picking these, so we don’t know exactly how they will be limited, but there will definitely be a limit! Depending on the raspberry picking, it may be that you will need to choose between these two fruits for tomorrow.
• Salad mix — Woo hoo! Salad!
• Carrots — Carrots are a staple crop for our farm! However, these are just the first babies, and take more time to handle. This week the supply is limited to one bunch per share.
• Shelling peas — Have I mentioned how delightful these peas are? They are so very easy to shell and delicious raw or with light cooking.
• Sugar snap peas — This week’s harvest of peas is smaller than last week’s unfortunately (see the newsletter for some explanations on this year’s pea crop). Since there was so much heartbreak in the second half of the CSA pick-up last week, we are going to try to reserve this week’s peas for folks who missed out last week and will be putting them out in the second half of the open window (if you come earlier and missed last week, just ask us for some!).
• Basil — This is the first of the basil, so it is limited to one item per share this week. It’s just a small sampling of the feast to come — enough to make a small batch of pesto or garnish a salad or pasta dish. We had pesto with breakfast this morning. After so many months of eating other kinds of “pesto” (nettle, parsley, etc.), the real deal was quite a treat with our eggs!
• Fava beans — We still have so many delicious fava beans! Share you favorite recipe with us!
• Fennel bulbs
• Kale
• Chard
• Potatoes
• Green garlic — Enjoy this particular manifestation of garlic while it lasts! We have observed wrappers starting to form, meaning that soon we will have to take a break and let this green garlic become garlic garlic! We usually harvest it in early July and let it cure for a few weeks before giving it out. The season has so many treats to come!

And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:

• Corn flour  — $5 lb
• Walnuts — $5 lb
• Eggs — Still waiting …
• Pork chops & ground pork — We took more hogs to the butcher and had them make our most popular fresh items: pork chops ($12/lb) and ground pork ($8/lb)!
• Beef bones!!!! — This is probably the #1 requested item at the storefront (that we haven’t had yet)! These are from our pastured beef animals — the real deal. $4/lb
• Lamb — We still have a few cuts left, including a giant shoulder roast that should be delicious. Because it is so large (I think it is 9 lbs), we are selling it for $6/lb. Also, we did take more lambs to the butcher this Monday, but the new cuts won’t be ready until next week.
• Fresh pork roasts & belly — $8 lb. These are cuts that haven’t been cured at all, so “fresh.” We have lots and lots of roasts that make for delicious crock pot meat.
• Pork fat & skin — $3 lb
• Ground beef — $7 for 1/lb packages