Planning for next year

Part of the winter squash harvest already under cover.

Fall arrived last week and with it thoughts here on the farm about 2019. We are always working a few seasons ahead out here. For example, we sow leek seeds into flats into March that we plant in May to be harvested the following March! Leeks and garlic are the crops that take the longest specific kind of forethought, but all of the farm operations require planning — where we will sow a cover crop this year to ensure good crops next year?

And, now it’s time to think more concretely about wrapping up this season and preparing for the next, including some parts that require your cooperation. We only have three more weeks left of this year’s CSA, ending on October 18. This is the earliest we’ve ever ended the CSA, but because we started the year in mid-January it will still have been a very full, long 40-week CSA season (whew! That’s a lot of weeks of local vegetables!).

As far as end-of-year housekeeping items, here are things for you to do:

  1. Make sure you are all paid for up 2018. I’ll send out reminders to folks who still have a bit of their CSA balance left, but you can check with me at pick-up as well.
  2. Put our fall Holiday Harvest dates on your calendar! We’ll be doing these special custom harvests as usual this year, on November 20 for Thanksgiving and December 20 for the winter holidays. We will email you a notice when it is time to place an order.
  3. Commit for next year!

Here’s the deal with next year’s CSA. We’re going to be honest and say that we don’t know what it will look like yet. The big unknown, of course, is the November election outcome. We are drafting plans for both possible endings to the campaign, but we won’t be able to take action until we know whether Casey is going to be county commissioner next year, which is a full time job. Thankfully, there’s plenty of time between November 6 and the start of a CSA season to figure out details, including possibilities such as hiring a farm manager (we’ve already reached out to some people who might be well suited to helping Katie with the task of keeping things going). We’ll share our plans as soon as we know them so that you can make sure it all still sounds wonderful, local and delicious to you!

But, in the meantime, if you have been happy with your CSA experience and would like to continue, we’re going to offer two easy ways for you to commit for next year now — and we’ll fill in the details regarding season length once we have them pinned down. As always, if something comes up for you in the meantime, nothing is set in stone, so you have nothing to lose by committing now to save a spot and help us plan accordingly. Plus, in our extensive experience, it is just simply so much easier for you to recommit now while you’re in the rhythm of receiving these emails and coming to CSA pick-up than for you to think about doing extra sign-up paperwork mid-winter.

Ready? Here are the two ways (second list of the newsletter!):

1. Write your name and (estimated) number of items you want each week on the clipboard we’ll have at CSA pick-up for the next three weeks!

2. Fill out a “simple online form” that I’ll hopefully have up and running by next week’s newsletter!*

Easy peasy!

And, for the remaining three weeks, the focus will be on all the delicious abundance fall has to offer. Check out this week’s list of options! Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. That * above? That’s there because I realized tonight (!!!!!!) that all the sign-up and contact type forms I’d been using on our website have apparently (!!!!!!!!!) stopped working sometime in the past few days … weeks … or months! (!!!!!!!!) I’m working on figuring out how to get those handy forms up and running again because they’re GREAT (when they work!), but in the meantime I’m sitting here realizing how many messages and CSA sign-ups we may not have received over the last few months because of a technical error running under my radar. Oh goodness, world, I am so sorry if you tried to contact us and we never heard! This website has given me loads of challenges this year as it gets older and clunkier. Perhaps one of this winter’s projects will be to revamp it from the foundation up so that I stop running into these kind of “hey-something-broke-and-you-didn’t-notice” problems!!!!

~ ~ ~

Meet this week’s vegetables:

  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Prune plums
  • Grapes
  • Salad mix
  • Califlower/broccoli
  • Hot peppers
  • Sweet/bell peppers
  • Chard
  • Kale
  • Spaghetti squash
  • Delicata winter squash
  • Carrots
  • Potatoes
  • Onions
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