CSA Farm

Farming and Marketing

Our winter crops are thriving and many early spring crops have been started. It feels a lot like spring already which is a bit worrisome. Spring seems to arrive a little bit earlier each year, but to have it start in January just seems a bit extreme. The crops, however, are loving the cool nights and warm days and so am I. I have been planting late winter and early spring crops almost every day for several weeks now, covering them when we have the occasional hard freeze. The onions and leeks are well on their way already and I planted two beds full of potatoes yesterday. The pac choi that I planted in the market garden a few weeks ago is almost ready to begin harvesting.

We are pulling in a steady harvest of broccoli, green onions, beets, carrots, chard, cabbage, kale, collards, lettuce and mixed greens, radishes, dill, thyme, cilantro and parsley from the one west area which is filling up the farm shares nicely.

Our newest growing area is in the greenhouse. Several beds were completed a couple of weeks ago and were filled with a combination of transplants and seeds. We have tomatoes, herbs, spinach, lettuce and cabbage growing in these beds.

Ron is finishing three additional raised beds in the greenhouse today which will be filled with peppers and other transplants that have just been seeded.

I started four cell trays full of seeds this weekend – lots of variety: Valley Girl and New Girl tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, Black Beauty eggplants, Greek Oregano, dill, parsley, cilantro, summer thyme, winter savory, Emu and Corvair spinach, perpetual chard, Rubicon Chinese Cabbage, Toscano Kale, Yukina Savoy Asian greens, violas, impatiens, petunias and coleus.

All in all, I think we are getting the ‘farming’ aspect of the business going well, now it is time to focus on the marketing aspect of our farm. Marketing has never been one of my strong suits in the past, so I tend to struggle with it now as well. Luckily, Ron has some sales and marketing skills, so he has volunteered to start visiting the restaurants in our area that feature fresh vegetables to see if we can supply a few with weekly deliveries. We will also be installing a sign with our farm logo at the entrance to the farm which will help customers locate the farm more easily once we start having weekly market days at the farm this spring. Finally, I have been working on a design for our business cards using our new logo. It’s simple, but I kinda like it.

Ciao for now ~ Carol

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