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We've been hustling to bring in crops that are ready for storage to be distributed through the rest of the fall share and the winter share. The fall was mostly kind to us, and many of our 'hail-mary' plantings have come through in abundance. Because we like to offer a lot of choice in our CSA, having a narrow band of abundance doesn't always make me feel great, when the abundance does not create the opportunity for the balanced choice I know my customers love. Winter squash, for example, is not in abundance.
There is nothing I can do to go back and make it rain more on the winter squash so we could have more. And even trying to buy in from other organic local farms is next to impossible because they had the same challenges I did this year. The week before Thanksgiving is usually hard, but awesome. Literal tons of produce going into wash pack and out to customers.
I have been dreading it this year.
Not because I don't have tons of produce, I actually do, but I have tons of crops that don't fit a traditional Thanksgiving menu. Anyone eat a thanksgiving meal in recent years that featured napa cabbage, spinach, purple broccoli, cauliflower and kale?
I'm very self-critical, which helps me do better. Finding fault in my own decisions and actions helps me make corrections. Since I basically get to hit the reset button and try again every year, it's great to learn and adapt. I've been taking notes on the crop plan, working on getting a well installed, increasing the capacity of our pond so we can have more water, building more greenhouses so we can have more controlled growing spaces.
And through all this hard work and improvements there are farms who, from at a distance, I have looked at as examples. One farm in particular, Red Fire Farm, out in western Mass, has been one I would reference to see if our farm was on track. In 2016 when there was another major drought, Red Fire actually skipped one week of their summer CSA to focus on irrigation and saving crops. I admired this decision, because that is the point of the CSA, to allow the farmer to have support even in extreme circumstances, and felt grateful that even though I found myself in a similar position this summer, I had enough produce to keep distribution going - and that when I had enough water in the future, things would be great.
This fall, when Red Fire Farm posted to a local list-serve that they had an abundance of fall crops because of great irrigation through the drought this summer, I thought, 'that is where I will be next drought' if I can get through these infrastructure projects. It felt encouraging, even though I felt like I was coming up short in the present moment, I was making sure things would continue to improve.
And then Sunday morning Kevin showed me this post: Help Local Organic Farm Survive
(Summary: the drought, plus inflation and high gas prices this year, after the heavy rains and crop loss in 2021 have Red Fire Farm struggling financially in a big way, they are trying to raise $200,000 to cover losses from the last two years).
When I read the title and the amount, just the title and the amount, I just started crying. I like to joke that I don't cry about vegetables anymore (I was a wreck my first two growing seasons as a farm manager in 2011 and 2012) but I guess I do.
Their ask for help allowed me to accept how very hard these past two year have been. It's not just because these were our first two years in this new location with so many challenges (and opportunities!), but because the actual farming has been really, really hard and inflation is real. It's not my fault. I keep a stiff upper lip and do what needs to be done (over and over again) but I felt like I was reaching a breaking point, and just didn't have what it takes. Simultaneously, it made me wonder, will it ever actually get easier, or am I just kidding myself?
I started drafting this message before work yesterday. Together with the crew we harvested several tons of produce to keep it from being lost to cold this morning. We have astounding purple broccoli, cauliflower, spinach and celery. And being in the sun, hustling and moving my body made me feel a little better.
We have food, good food, it's just not perfectly traditional food for the Thanksgiving holiday. And we are going to be ok.
I just need to reframe my thinking and call this the "eat fresh before the holidays share!". I could go back, delete all the hard stuff above and make this a solely positive email, but a part of being in a CSA is getting a closer look at the reality of food production.
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