December 2015 Update
2012 was the last time we remember still harvesting crops in December. They have enjoyed slow but continued growth since our shares ended at the end of October. To sum up the season in 2015, it was a slow start with extreme heat and no moisture until the end of May. Total loss of snap peas was a big disappointment and a first for us. That heat was also hard on cool weather spring crops that bolted pre-harvest: napa cabbage, broccoli raab, pak choy, arugula and even some of the chard. We had a productive summer growing season and then a longer than usual fall growing season. Thank you to shareholders that gave us their feedback on the survey. I think many could agree we had too many cucumbers and eggplants and some would say too many tomatoes, although plenty also said you can not have enough tomatoes. While these surveys help us to plan for next year, it is incredible how different everyone is in terms of what they like and eat. I hear not enough kale and too much kale.
Besides Mother Nature, one of our other biggest challenges is land access. We feel fortunate to have the fields we have, but that is constantly changing. Our lease at the Amato Farm has changed again, down from 6 to 2 acres as of our new lease at the end of November. We plan on reducing the number of shares we sell vs last year by a small amount. Last year we left some land fallow and had approximately 2 1/4 acres was planted, we will double crop some beds to make up for this loss. There has been an offer on the property, and the town of Upton will need to decide if they want to take first option on the land and buy it since the land is under 61A. Unfortunately, our garlic was already planted for 2016 when we found this out, so we are keeping our fingers crossed we will still be able to harvest garlic scapes and garlic heads when they are ready in June and July. We planted cloves from the “Music” garlic we harvested this year and bought some soft neck garlic to plant another bed, so that we would have 600 feet vs the 400 feet we have previously planted. Some of the land that we have lost is the blueberry field, due to winter moths we have not had much crop at all the last two years.
Posted in Uncategorized by Laura
