Mid-Season Farm Report: Share Values and Crops
We are 10 weeks completed with the summer shares! We’d like to update you on how things are going.
Introduction and Covid-19 Update
I want to thank everyone for your patience and support navigating our Covid-19 adaptations at ICF. We particularly appreciate you all continuing to visit ICF during your designated time slot. More than any other effort, this has minimized how much contact we have among everyone, which is the primary objective of all of our changes.
While our efforts to keep everyone safely spread out have been working well, we recognize that the ability to tailor your CSA share to your liking has been much more limited this year with many more items pre-bagged and pre-bunched. We are re-introducing more options and choices for you at pick-up, loosening PYO time restrictions, and are happy to be moving in the direction of more flexibility.
Summer Share Values
Some of you have doubtless noticed that our shares have been light in August, or more particularly, smaller. We’ve seen a confluence of problems in several crops over the last few weeks. While many of these troubles happen each year, they don’t usually all happen at the same time. Our cooking greens disappeared from tables in mid-July, and usually continue through early August. We have our typical hot weather summer slump in salad mix volume, and our planned midsummer corn hiatus stretched to the intended 18-21 days instead of spanning a more typical 7-10 days. Unusually, we also had several miserable plantings of summer carrots. Individually, none of these deficits would stand out much, but happening at the same time they show up visually and on the dinner table.
The two pieces of good news are that this is a temporary condition, as we have a lot of great vegetables on the way (details below), and that our overall economic value of the summer CSA shares to date are our typical mid-season average. We have just finished week 10 out of 21, halfway through the 2020 summer share. Comparing our numbers through week 9 in 2018 and 2019, we are behind our aggregate week 9 share value for 2018, and ahead of our week 9 share value in 2019. On balance, about average.
The Crops: Details
Tomato house with trolley system used in harvesting
In case you missed it, 2020 has been hot, and often dry as well. Burlington broke the record for the hottest July, and we are on track to exceed the record for number of days over 90F degrees in a year. The weather each season strongly influences crop results, and this summer is no different.
Cuke house
Heat-loving crops are generally doing nicely. Tomatoes are off to a solid first month, and we expect our strong, healthy plants (9’+ tall and growing) will keep producing well through mid-September, then taper off to their typical slim finish in mid-October. Our greenhouse cucumbers continue to yield impressively: our daily harvests right now range from 300-400 cucumbers, and we are approaching 11,000 lbs. from our greenhouse to date. We began lugging watermelon and cantaloupe out of the fields a couple of weeks earlier than usual, and we have been happy with the quality of the 2020 cantaloupe, which are sweeter than in cooler summers. Our first burst of sweet corn was brief but delicious, and we are nearly through our intentional corn-free interregnum meant to confuse avian pests. The red-winged blackbirds found a good portion of our early corn, as they do in most dry years when the nearby wetlands are much less productive. With our 3-week break between early summer and late summer sweet corn, we expect to harvest a much higher percentage of our later crop. The abundant eggplant have been a productive crop this summer. Our sweet peppers are starting to ripen, and look like a good producer into the fall. Sweet potatoes, primarily a winter share crop, have loved our Louisiana/Carolina weather, and are growing with abandon.
Crops that prefer a cooler and/or wetter summer are less enamored with 2020 (as have been the ICF staff.) While we had a great start to the season in June (anyone remember we had a cool spring?), after a few weeks of high heat our baby salad greens began to suffer from a variety of afflictions. We look to be nearing the end of our slimmer yields, which is consistent with what we see in most seasons.
August brassicas
The award for most disappointing goes to our summer carrot crop, which has been the worst in many years. We outright lost two of our summer plantings, which is unusual, one to excessive soil temperatures north of 100F, and the other to an overzealous thunderstorm (2”+ in 45 minutes) that hammered the freshly-planted rows into an impenetrable crust. Unfortunately, these sowings were the successors to earlier plantings with only marginally acceptable plant densities. We are entering a long carrot gap until mid-September, but our fall and winter plantings are above average, so we will all have plenty of carrots come autumn. Kale, collards, chard, and cabbages took an early exit in mid-July, partially due to the heat, partially from extra vigorous insect pressure. The lack of a cooking green in our weekly shares really shows up in your shopping bag, as the big leafy bunches fill-up a lot of physical space. We expect to begin picking our second planting of those crops in early September, and if all goes according to plan, they will be joined by broccoli, spinach, and head lettuce. The later fall cabbages, greens, rutabaga, and turnips all look very healthy, so October (and our Winter Share) is a promising month.
Winter squash and pumpkins are doing their usual thing and the sea of vines makes it difficult to assess the crop until we start to see the leaves die back in late August and early September. Word among the staff is that a ripe Delicata squash has been spotted, though we always promise no winter squash until after Labor Day. Summer is short in Vermont, so let’s not rush autumn! Potatoes are growing fine, and while they don’t love the heat, we have been able to keep them watered, expect a reasonable crop. Our first new potatoes are hitting the pick-up tables now. Onions are a similar story; could be worse, could be better, but should be plenty. Over the next two weeks we will harvest all the onions to keep us eating onions from now through the end of the Winter Share in May of 2021. Beets have been great this year, and our upcoming plantings are excellent. Based on member survey results, we’ve trimmed our zucchini and yellow squash plantings over the past few years. Consequently, we haven’t been piling as many fruit on the tables, but our third and final crop looks healthy and productive, and we expect it will carry us into early September as usual.
PYO flowers
Pick-Your-Own crops have been a bit of a mixed bag. While the flowers and basil have been amazing and currently appear unstoppable, our beans, cilantro, dill, and parsley have been somewhat disappointing. Fortunately, the later plantings of herbs and beans look better, and cherry tomatoes, hot peppers, and tomatillos are coming on strong.
As always, we value hearing from you about how the season is going, and what you have liked or could live without. Many years of member input have led to our current smorgasbord of crops, and ICF is here to evolve and grow with your tastes. Thank you for your continued support and patronage!