Today I visited our new wash-pack shed, the new home of our winter washing area and additional winter produce storage. This building went up over the summer to the east of the old raspberry patch/current strawberry patch, on the east side of Intervale Road. The building is a joint venture between the Intervale Center (for the use of the Intervale Conservation Nursey mostly) and ICF. It is also what came about as a result of our successful Co-op Member Loan Program.

Why did we need this additional work space? Two big reasons: we store thousands of pounds of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, cabbage, onions, etc. for our winter shares. The winter pick-up area has been getting a bit crowded with bins of produce and people at pick-ups! But also we needed a safe, warm, functional space to wash and process winter greens grown in our hoop houses. In the past we’ve hung up plastic sheeting to cut the wind and cold in the summer wash area and most recently we were heating a wash area with portable propane heaters. Making sure we had running water was always a coin toss.

With our new space, we have the ability to heat the work area, ensure running water, have additional dry storage for sweet potatoes and butternut squash, and have an additional cooler.

Today the baby kale was being washed and packed for the pick-up this week. Spinach and baby head lettuce were in totes waiting for washing. Aly was happily working in a 55 degree room while it was snowing/raining out. Everything was just right at the farm on this November day.