Fall Crop Report

Thank you for continuing to support Intervale Community Farm.  Through both hard years and bountiful harvests, ICF exists to serve our members and we persist because of your steadfast commitment.  
 
Please keep picking up your vegetables - our biggest hope is that everyone can use and appreciate the fresh food we still have available. We are grateful to the dozens of volunteers who helped us save and store many of the crops we are all still enjoying. These late August and early September weeks should mark our low harvest, as many of our replanted crops begin to mature in the next couple of weeks.  
 
With a few more weeks of perspective, we’ve assessed the impact. The list of lost crops is discouraging:  sweet peppers, hot peppers, cherry tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon, winter squash, pumpkins, storage onions, storage potatoes, tomatillos, snap beans, parsley, Brussels sprouts, celeriac, parsnips, many herbs, and several varieties of flowers.
 
The good news is that many crops are flourishing: cucumbers (likely to be our top season ever at 15,921 lbs and counting), bunched herbs, PYO flowers, and salad greens, along with several beautiful acres of re-planted carrots, broccoli, kale, spinach, romaine lettuce, snap beans, zinnias, sunflowers, green/red/napa cabbage, and others.  Despite our losses, our overall share value is running equal to comparable retail cost elsewhere.
 
The ICF staff and Board are thinking hard about longer-term changes to improve our odds in the face of climate change.  We plan to build two more greenhouses next spring to shelter more crops on our small postage stamp of unflooded ground.  This will allow us to move our sweet peppers and a few other heat loving crops to a less flood prone location and provide more space to grow greens for our winter share.  We are also thinking in earnest about securing a parcel of land in a low flood risk area, so if you have any leads on land for lease or sale that is flat-ish and 5 acres or more, please let us know!
 
You can support our future success by continuing your CSA membership at Intervale Community Farm and sharing your enthusiasm with us and others.  Look for an email about 2024-2025 winter share sign-up soon.  Consider joining us for a conversation about future strategies for ICF at our late October annual meeting (stay tuned for details)  where we’ll share a meal, some photos, and conversation.  If you want to lend additional financial support to farms in the Intervale including ICF, consider contributing to the Intervale Farmer Recovery Fund.
 
Thank you for being our loyal members for 35 years: we wouldn’t be here without you!