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!
Pick-Your-Own Crops: Updated Guidance
We are happy to announce that beginning, Monday, August 10th, ICF pick-your-own (PYO) is now open during regular pickup hours. When you come to Intervale Community Farm during your assigned Monday and Thursday time slot you may now pick your flowers, herbs, beans, etc., at the same time.
Please adhere to the following:
1. If you are sick, have a cough, fever, shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell, other symptoms common to COVID-19, or contact with someone Covid-19 positive, do not come to Intervale Community Farm.
2. Consider continuing to harvest your PYO outside of the Monday and Thursday 2:00-6:30 pm windows. If you’ve enjoyed having the fields to yourself, reveling in the cool of the morning, puttering around ICF as relaxed weekend activity, or delighting in the quiet evening sunsets, those pleasures can still be yours! ICF is always open for PYO and if you come during non-pickup hours you will help keep our numbers lower at ICF.
3. Continue to observe your selected pick-up time slot. Please gather your share from the tables during your assigned window.
4. Wear a mask when harvesting PYO crops during pickup times, due to the number of people at ICF during the 2:00-6:30 windows on Mondays and Thursdays and the Vermont Face Mask Order effective 8/1/2020.
5. Mind your parking lot behavior. With more cars in the lot, everyone will need to stay within the lines and park close together to provide enough space for our expected number of cars.
6. Wash your hands thoroughly before doing PYO. Handwashing sinks and sanitizer stations are in place near the pole barn.
7. Even though you will see more people you know during pickup hours, minimize the time you spend socializing with others. If you want a relaxed PYO and conversation date with a friend, please come outside of pickup hours.
8. No eating or drinking while gathering your produce.
9. No pets. Please leave your dogs and other furry friends at home.
10. Remember your own clippers or scissors for cutting flowers.
Bring Your Own Bags, Boxes, or Baskets! It’s the Law
We are just over a month into the Vermont Single Use Products Law that bans single-use plastic shopping bags. The law allows continued use of plastic bags for our pre-bagged salad greens and similar items.
Please bring your own shopping bags for collecting items at pickup, as ICF will no longer provide new plastic shopping bags. You can find a myriad number of reusable shopping and produce bags on the internet and at local stores.
If you want to show your ICF spirit, canvas tote bags are available for purchase for $12. They feature the Intervale Community Farm logo created by ICF Board member/community artist Bonnie Acker, and are a sturdy, organic, made-in-USA way to carry your produce!
We still have our blue barrels with re-used bags. Please feel free to add to the collection with any clean, full-size shopping bags you acquired this winter, and grab a few to use yourself when needed.
Some staff favorite shopping bags in the T-shirt style are available from Urban Market. The Urban Market bags are lightweight, packable, roomy, and easy to wash.
After testing several plastic and biodegradable produce bags last winter, our clear winner was the Evert Fresh Green Bag. While not cheap (roughly $1/bag), they are durable, rinse clean easily, and provided far and away the best storage conditions for produce.
Some of you have found grocery and produce bags you like, Let us know which ones you recommend. Post a note and picture on our Facebook page!
Meet Our Seasonal Staff: Allegra Wu
It’s my second summer season with ICF, and I’m so happy to be back! I’m a Food Systems student at UVM heading into my senior year this coming fall, so my farming seasons have been short and sweet (and a bit steamy.) As a lifelong Vermonter, I feel right at home in the warm and laid back community here at the Intervale. Along with many of my coworkers, I love food-related activities of every form – growing, cooking, baking, and most of all, eating. You may find me on my bike, making my way to a quiet little outdoor nook with my journal, a book, and some snacks in my backpack. I’d say I’m a simple, Vermont gal with some Taiwanese roots just doin’ my best!
Meet Our Seasonal Staff: Colin Swanson
I am thrilled to be back at ICF for my second season! Prior to working at ICF I raised livestock and veggies at Maple Wind Farm in Huntington and Richmond. My farming journey began when I lived on a small fruit and vegetable farm on Maui in 2015, and it’s been constant learning and growing since then.
In my free time I enjoy riding my bike around Vermont, listening to All the Traditions on VPR and Car Talk reruns, and I hope to one day visit Tibet. See you on the farm!
PYO Crops Are Ready!
We're happy to announce that some of the PYO crops are ready to harvest! Before you enjoy the new flavors and beautiful flowers, we'd like to remind you of the PYO Guidelines in place.
We understand the guidelines require more of your time and extra travel, but we are committed to maintaining the health and safety of all members and staff. We issue these guidelines to preserve a low crowd density and social distancing.
We want to thank all of you for doing a great job at our Monday and Thursday pickups with handwashing, wearing masks, maintaining distance, and following our other required practices. Cooperating together, we will persevere.
1. If you are sick, have a cough, fever, shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell, other symptoms common to COVID-19, or contact with someone Covid-19 positive, do not come to pick-your-own.
2. Pick-your-own (PYO) is closed during pickup. All PYO is closed 12:00-8:00 pm on Mondays and 12:00-8:00 pm on Thursdays until further notice. You may come at any other time. We hope to resume a more regular PYO schedule later in the summer.
3. Wash your hands thoroughly before doing PYO. Handwashing sinks and sanitizer stations are in place near the pole barn.
4. You are not required to wear a mask while harvesting PYO, if you can easily maintain more than a 6’ buffer between you and all others picking. Please have a mask available to use when fields are crowded or areas around the buildings and parking lot have larger numbers of people. You must still wear a mask for your regular Monday or Thursday pick-up.
5. PYO crop availability, quantities you may pick, and crop locations are posted on the chalkboard where you enter the pick-up shelter. Please remember that if you share a share or split a share, you must divide your pick-your-own as well.
6. No pets. Please leave your dogs and other furry friends at home.
7. No eating or drinking while gathering your produce.
8. Bring your own clippers or scissors for cutting flowers.
9. Mind the electric fence. Make sure it is off when you begin picking, and please switch it on afterwards if nobody else is picking. The control box is mounted on the building post to the right of the PYO chalkboard. This does not apply to the flowers, which are planted outside of the fence.
As the number of crops available per week at pick-ups increases, we want to remind you to please send one person per share and encourage you to move quickly through the barn so we don't have multiple people waiting at one time. We miss talking to all of you, too, but we want to make the farm safe for everyone.
Our complete guidelines for the pick-up procedures in place to maintain health and safety may be found here. Please be sure all share partners have reviewed this information.
Thank you for remaining flexible as we all navigate the summer share, and as always, thank you for your continued support.
Meet Our Seasonal Staff: Will Pearl
You may have seen Will Pearl at your first pick-up of the season. He was directing parking and was wearing yellow boots!
Will tells us:
I’m so excited to join the staff at Intervale Community Farm this summer! I’m no stranger to the lovely Intervale community—you may have seen me biking around down at the farm or driving all around Burlington in the Pitchfork Farm delivery truck for the last few years. I love this incredibly abundant and interconnected land and community and am looking forward to deepening my connection. I grew up in Brandon, Vermont where gardening with my family was a seasonal ritual. I got my start in organic farming at Woods Market Garden at a young age in the farm stand and out in the strawberry and corn fields. One of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had was leading crews of high school students at the Farm at Vermont Youth Conservation Corps to grow the Health Care Share CSA for food insecure Vermonters. I’ve been told I make a mean butternut squash soup, but nothing beats biting into the first slice of a sun-warmed kohlrabi out in the field on a gorgeous day. If you catch me with free time I’ll be drumming and singing, feeding chickens, collecting flowers and with any luck, cooking up some homegrown shiitakes.
Look for Will as you wander around the farm!
The Berries are Ready!
Pick-your-own strawberries are ready! The fields opened on Friday, June 19, with the restrictions noted below. We want everyone to have a safe experience while enjoying the all-too-short season and way-too-few berries we’ve been patiently waiting to ripen. The sunny June weather has ripened a delicious crop this year!
As part of your CSA farm share at ICF, you may pick some of these dainties. The Vermont Agency of Agriculture developed protocols for pick-your-own during the Covid-19 pandemic; this is how PYO will work at Intervale Community Farm.
1. You may come to ICF to pick your strawberries any time other than Mondays 12:00-8:00pm, or Thursdays, 12:00-8:00pm.
2. You may pick berries once per week. We expect to have strawberries for about 2 weeks, though the first week is usually better picking. If you come at unusual times you will usually have an easier time finding berries and be less likely to run into others.
3. Please use good parking behavior, staying within the marked lines, as you would during your Monday or Thursday pick-up.
4. Before you head for the field, please wash your hands at one of the sinks. We also have a hand sanitizer station at the strawberry field.
5. You will find the quantities you may pick on the chalkboard where you enter the pick-up shelter. Quantities may fall or rise every few days, but we expect small shares will initially be allowed to pick 1-2 quarts. Please remember that if you share a share or split a share, you must divide your pick-your-own as well.
6. As appropriate, quart or pint containers will be out on the pick-up tables in the pick-up shelter.
7. Based on the size of our berry patch, up to 50 people may pick in the field at a time, while maintaining at least 6’ between people.
8. Do not sample or eat berries as you pick. While this is agonizing and unfortunate, eating and touching one’s face are higher-risk activities than most other outdoor pursuits.
9. Wear a mask while you pick, as we anticipate times when a goodly number of people may be picking at the same time. This will also help with #8.
10. Enjoy the strawberries! We have a really nice crop this year and hope that you enjoy them
First Week of Pick-ups: Success!
The new check-in procedure
We have the first week of summer pick-ups under our belts, and we’ve heard from many of you that our new patterns and arrangements worked. Thank you for coming at your assigned times, for maintaining social distancing, and for trusting us with your food safety.
Wash stations
The flow was good and for the most part there were no lines. For the few times where there was a line, the wait was minimal. Just a reminder, we have two sinks and two sanitizer stations to use while you are waiting to check-in.
We’re still taking orders for bread and cheese. We encourage you to pre-order as we will have minimal, if any, extras to sell on site. Sign up here.
We’ll be continuing with assigned pick-up times for the foreseeable future. If you have not selected a time or need to change a time or day, please make sure to contact Kathie.
Cukes!
We hope you enjoyed the surprise of having cucumbers at the very first pick-up. Coming soon: broccoli, zucchini, and spinach!
Summer Share Pick-Ups Will Begin June 8 and June 11
Top row, L to R: Emma Gonzalez, Samantha DuPont, Aly Martelle, Sarah Howe. Second row, L to R: Maya Bower, Colin Swanson, Andy Jones (Farm Manager), Jill Rotondo. Third row, L to R: Silas Branson, Bella Palmieri, Chris Spencer Kathie Sullivan. Bottom: Will Pearl. Missing: Allegra Wu
We’re starting our share pick-ups next week! And we have new faces in our crew this season, look for the eyes above the masks!
We’re very excited to start our 31st season even though at first it will look a little different to everyone. We’ve been working very hard to design protocols so that we can keep as much of the on-farm experience as possible while maintaining safety for your, our staff, and the food. Your flexibility and commitment to the farm have been crucial elements of our summer preparation and we thank you.
In developing our safety measures, we have looked to and follow the guidance of the Vermont Department of Health, the US Centers for Disease Control, and the UVM Extension and Vermont Agency of Agriculture’s Produce Safety programs for guidance in developing our best approaches to mitigating risk at ICF. Read our current understanding of COVID-19 transmission via food in this document.
We’re sure you have been following similar safety measures and will have no problem maintaining social distancing, adhering to crowd density limits, wearing a mask, and washing hands. We have outlined our full safety measures here and encourage you to review them before next week.
We have asked you to select a preferred time period to pick up your shares to help us with crowd density. If you have not done so yet, please indicate your preference here. We will be assigning times to anyone who has not responded.
We will have bread and cheese shares available this year and encourage you to sign up ahead of time. We’ll have a few items for sale on site, but to make the processes easier, ordering ahead would be a huge help to everyone. We have a waiting list for egg shares now. Email Kathie if you want to be added to that list.
Complete Your Meal with Bread, Eggs, and Cheese
We are excited to offer supplemental products for your weekly vegetable shares, items that some people have used to complete their usual Monday or Thursday night dinner.
Does’ Leap goat cheese
We partner with local producers to bring you goat cheese, eggs, and rustic bread for one-stop shopping. We’re delighted to be offering Does’ Leap organic goat cheese, a staple at the farm since 2003.
Trent’s Bread
This winter we had the pleasure of bringing Trent’s Bread to members and the reception has been great. We’ll be offering Trent’s Bread on both Monday and Thursday, largely by pre-order although we may have some loaves for sale on site. You can read more about Trent here.
Doolittle Farm eggs
The newest producer to join us is Doolittle Farm and their colorful, certified organic eggs. Hens are pasture raised and given “a side dish of organic wheat” from a neighboring farm.
Don’t miss out on local favorites and pre-order your weekly supplements here. We often have a few items for sale at each pick-up, but to avoid disappointment we recommend pre-ordering.
Winter Shares: Ending Soon and Take Our Survey
winter carrots
Our winter/spring shares will be finishing soon! It’s hard to remember winter with all of the world health events going on, but we started our winter share season in November. We are wrapping up on May 7 (Group 1) and May 14 (Group 2) and then we’ll have a short break until our summer crops are ready for you.
If you’ve missed any of your 14 pick-ups, please come either of these days and catch up.
If you pre-ordered any plants during our annual event, your flats will be ready on the day you selected (either May 7 or May 14, to coordinate with your share pick-up.)
At the end of every share season we like to survey our members to find out how the season went for them. The survey is available here. We do use this data to plan for future seasons in terms of planting, storage, pick-up processes, and more. We value your comments, and if you want to discuss a matter with Farm Manager Andy now is a good time to leave a request.
We’d like to thank all of you for working with us to make the last several pick-ups go well despite all the changes we had to make. Also thank you to those of you who have made masks for the crew and who have sent in donations to help defray the added costs of bagging shares.
We’re all in this together!
Pre-order for Our Annual Plant Sale
It’s spring, despite recent snow, and you know what that means: ICF’s Annual Plant Sale.
We’ve had to make a few changes to our process to keep everyone safe and healthy, but you will be able to order plants through our web site and pick them up at our last two winter share dates.
Pre-order is easy. You’ll get an invoice. You can bring payment to pick-up or mail. We do have a $15 minimum for each order. We’ll sell everything we have: if what you have ordered is no longer available you’ll be notified.
You can find the order form here.
Prefer to pick flowers rather than grow them? Pick-your-own flowers are included in summer shares!
Want to give a gift of flowers to someone for a birthday, an anniversary, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day? We have PYO Shares of flowers only available starting in July. For 10 weeks you can pick a bouquet of flowers in our fields. Sign up is here.
We’re looking forward to seeing everyone, even from a distance and with our masks!
We're Keeping Your Food Safe
Along with general unease, worrying comes easily to all of us right now. We know we are not alone in this unsettling time, and we know the Intervale Community Farm remains a vital part of the community and your lives. We have appreciated hearing from you over the last weeks, and we are working hard to make sure your local food source is safe and available to you.
The COVID-19 trendlines are not hopeful, and we all face an extended period of major disruption to our lives. We have modified our operations to adhere to recommended practices from public health and food safety officials to reduce risk of COVID-19 transmission. You can see our current understanding of food safety here and our current operational modifications here.
Despite this disruption, Spring is on the way, and all of us at Intervale Community Farm want you to share some of the hopeful future that we see sprouting in the greenhouse, leafing out in the hedgerows, and greening up around the Intervale. We are adding staff every week, happy to see many returning faces (at a distance of at least 6 feet) in our seasonal team. Looking ahead to April and May, we at ICF eagerly anticipate fields of brown soil and green plants, and we are so looking forward to sharing the Farm and good food with all of you in the months ahead.
In the short term:
· We are focused on keeping the ICF staff healthy, safe, and employed. While many farm tasks are solitary or at distances more than 6’ apart, we are looking at all of our work through a new lens of social distancing. By reducing risk of transmission within the ICF team, we also protect our ability to keep growing food.
· We routinely and frequently sanitize high-touch surfaces, and we are washing our hands often.
· Intervale Community Farm is committed to the well-being of our employees and will continue to compensate and support each of the staff in the event any of them need to self-isolate to heal or protect others.
· ICF winter shares are now distributed as drive-up, pre-bagged shares, which we expect to continue for the remainder of the program. While we all doubtless miss our weekly visiting and gathering of produce, this approach vastly reduces contact among members and between members and ICF staff.
· We are considering the format of our summer shares, as it is possible that our normal distribution scheme may not be appropriate in June. While our main consideration will be staff and member safety, we also will do our best to preserve as much of normal ICF summer pickup as possible. Stay tuned!
· ICF continues to donate all the vegetables we can spare to Feeding Chittenden, the Vermont Food Bank, and other local agencies, all of whom are seeing a rapid increase in demand for food.
At the root, Intervale Community Farm is continuing to do as we always have: growing healthy, fresh, organic produce; serving our members; and donating to the emergency food system. The strength of ICF has always been our strong community of staff and membership, and our current challenge requires a community solution. Each of us has a part to play, all of which are critical to the success of our collective outcome.
Winter Share Pick-ups: More Adjustments Starting 3/26
We had a great response from members to our pick-up adaptations which started last week, March 19. We appreciate your patience, and we appreciate your messages of support. The safe delivery of local food to you is one of our top concerns. Our other top concern is the safety of all personnel and our members.
We want to assure you that we are all safe at work and in our homes. While we maintain strict sanitary procedures for food production, those precautions have been made stronger. Staff members are working much further apart from each other than is normal, even to the point of moving office workspaces and eating lunch far apart. Imagine the shouting at lunch to have a regular conversation!
Starting March 26 we will be bagging all shares and placing them in your car trunk: curbside CSA. Full details of car traffic patterns, pick-up procedures, limiting number of people per share, are all outlined in an email to each member and can also be found here.
As before, if you are a member of a vulnerable population or have other concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us directly by emailing Andy or Kathie.
We're Open and We're Adapting
As you are no doubt aware, the COVID-19 outbreak is changing many aspects of daily life. Intervale Community Farm is no different, and we are making some changes to our operations to reduce threats to members and staff posed by the coronavirus. We remain open for business (for now) and expect to continue providing you food during this challenging time.
Our primary strategy to limit the spread of COVID-19 currently is reducing contact between and among ICF members and staff, and the approaches outlined here serve that objective. To that end, we have developed new procedures and guidelines for our winter pick-ups starting immediately. The full guidelines are listed here. In short, we are minimizing social interactions, pre-bagging all greens, and offering bagged shares for quick pick-up during regular hours.
As always, our collective safety is of paramount concern at ICF, and we believe that our plans reflect a safe and workable approach. Intervale Community Farm is looking to the Vermont Department of Health, the US Centers for Disease Control, and the UVM Extension and Vermont Agency of Agriculture’s Produce Safety programs for guidance in developing our best approaches to mitigating risk at ICF. The staff and board are working together closely to minimize any interruptions or difficulties to our farm and for our members.
Open House and More on Winter Farming
Recently I wrote about a small winter project of Jill’s and pelleted seed.
You know already what ICF farmers do in the winter because we have a year-round CSA: we grow fresh greens, manage our storage crops, and plan for the next summer. Equipment maintenance continues with the purchase of new tractor tires, truck repairs, wood pellet stove repairs, and more. The propagation greenhouse will be opened the week of March 9 and onion seeds will be planted. Before you know it, we’ll be talking about cucumber harvests, zucchini recipes, and pick-your-own crops!
In the meantime, come to the Open House of our high tunnels and our wash-pack facility and see how we grow greens in the winter and wash them for your pick-up. You’ll get to tour the tunnels, see the storage, and talk with farmers during the regular hours of our winter pick-up on both March 12 and 19. Everyone is welcome to take the tour, ongoing from 3:00-6:00.
Then, if you get excited about the idea of fresh, local, organic foods available year round, become a summer share member and sign up now! Our summer share runs for 21 weeks.
If you’d like to see what other farmers on other local farms do in the winter, see the fine article in Seven Days. Our goat cheese supplier, Does’ Leap, is included!
Seeds - the Surest Sign of Spring!
Raw onion seeds, NOT pelleted, by hand.
Every year ICF orders hundreds of crop varieties totaling millions and millions of seeds. With the exception of potatoes (where we plant a chunk of an actual potato), our entire harvest of 2020 vegetables and flowers fit into a 6’ x 3’ x 2’ cabinet in their expectant seedy forms.
Most are familiar with the range of seed shapes and sizes from the grocery store (lima beans and poppy seeds are convenient extremes), and our seeds are even more diverse in size, shape, and texture than what we directly consume for food.
While we plant most of our seeds in their natural form (known as ‘raw’ seed), a few of them are manipulated to make them easier to handle and plant with such processes as polishing, size sorting, and -my favorite because of the syntax - decorticating (removing hulls). Often seeds are treated with synthetic fungicides and/or insecticides; as a certified-organic farm, we avoid these, but we do purchase a fair number of seeds that are coated to change their shape and size. This process, which involves building up a clay coating on the seed exterior to specific dimensions, can make an oblong or flat seed into a sphere of uniform size, which opens the door to much more accurate and speedy planting.
Notice the uniform shape of pelleted seeds. These are easier to drop into place using a cell seeder.
This winter, Jill has been crafting a simple cell drop seeder to make it more efficient to seed the thousands of cells for onions; at around 130,000 onion seeds, it’s nice to speed it up!
So what is a cell drop seeder? It’s a tool to help manage very tiny seeds such as onions and allows accurate and uniform planting of our 150-cell seedling trays.. Imagine a raw caraway seed but smaller, and consider the fine motor skill needed to manually put three seeds in each tiny cell; it takes a bit of time to do this correctly, while a cell seeder will do an entire tray in minutes!
Cell drop seeder. Note the little white balls in the holes on the top plate, with extras at top of photo. Jill will slide this plate to align with the larger holes in the bottom plate, allowing the onion seed to fall through onto the potting soil in the seedling tray.
The seeder consists of two pieces of thin plexiglass sheets, one atop the other, with 150 precision-sized and -spaced holes in each. To use it, Jill slides the upper plate holes slightly askew from the lower plate holes, then rolls the pelleted seeds of the matching size over the top. One or two seeds fall into each hole (depending on design), the excess collect off the edge of the top plate, and then Jill slides the upper plate so that its holes align with those in the bottom plate, and the seeds fall through into their intended cells in the seedling tray. Abracadabra — a speedy tray of onions!
We also use pelleted seeds in fields for a few crops, primarily carrots. Similar to the cell drop seeder, our tractor drawn vegetable seeders have belts with precision holes to match various seed sizes. Seeds are dropped and uniformly spaced in all rows, which ideally results in a row of crop exactly at our target spacing — not too crowded nor overly far apart.
The greenhouse will be opening soon, our summer staff will begin to arrive starting in April, and then it will be June before you know it!
Have you signed up for your summer share yet? In our early enrollment period 400 members signed up for a summer share which means we are about 60 % full! Don’t miss out. Sign up today.
Ready, Set....Summer Sign-up is Open!
Art by Bonnie Acker, Photo by Kathie Sullivan
2020 Summer Share sign-up is now open! As we order seeds, trim cabbage, and fix equipment, we look forward to our 31st year with both returning and new members. The Intervale is rich in history and you are a key part of that story!
We have a great 2020 season ahead with fresh organic produce on the way from early June through late October. Find the summer share particulars here.
As always, if you pay in full before our early discount deadline of 2/20/2020, you will receive a small discount. New this year you have an option to pay-in-full electronically via bank transfer.
Tell your friends, neighbors, family, colleagues….we love having new members join us. But do sign up early and reserve your space for the best CSA deal in town. You’ll be glad you did!
Graphic by Bonnie Acker
Friday the 13th and We are So Lucky!
Time seems to tick by faster and faster and we need to remember to take a breath and enjoy everything around us. Despite a few bumps we had a great year at Intervale Community Farm, A few highlights:
Volunteers rescuing carrots
We celebrated our 30th year growing vegetables with a September party attended by over 200 people. Music, wood-fired pizza, and delicious food made with ICF produce complemented the perfect weather and enthusiastic crowd celebrating our common success. We’re already planning our 40th!
Our “$30,000 for 30 Years” campaign kicked off at our anniversary party, underpinned by a $15,000 donation challenge offered by former ICF board member Mark Kuprych. Mark is offering to forgive his $15,000 member loan to ICF if we can collectively match it. We have $8000 committed and I urge you to consider what you can do to support ICF for the long-haul. Check out our campaign info.
Despite a late start after a chilly and wet spring, we had a very solid growing season. Our balance of crops was better than ever, with cucumbers, sweet peppers, carrots, and baby greens particular 2019 standouts. With over 630 summer shares, we saw 1200-1500 people weekly at ICF. We also continued our efforts to donate many tons of fresh vegetables to the emergency food system.
We felt that community love when our emergency call for volunteers on November 1st resulted in 30-40 people joining us throughout the day to harvest 12,000 lbs of carrots before they were inundated by flood waters. With all of the parsnips, spinach, kale, Brussels sprouts, turnips, and rutabaga we harvested, we finished the day with all of our coolers packed to bursting. The ICF staff and Board were so grateful to all of our super volunteers who showed up on short notice and labored until we finished.
We had a successful online election (approximately 200 participants) and selected three board members for terms beginning January, 2020. Mae Quilty (newly elected), Maja Smith (re-elected), and Andrea Solazzo (re-elected) will bring their expertise to the board and join the continuing members Diane Abruzzini, Bonnie Acker, Kara Buchanan, Christoper McCandless, Liz Mickenberg, and Mark Twery. We bade farewell and thank you to outgoing board member Madelyn Cataford.
We hope you’ll join us for our 31st year in 2020, but we’ll see some of you at the winter pick-ups or the December 19 pop-up market! As always, we love to hear from you if you have any thoughts or concerns!