February Farm Update: It’s Planting Time!

A bin of potting soil in the foreground and 
empty greenhouse tables ready to be filled!

February always seems like the month that sneaks in and out so quickly.  It’s here and gone before we know it and that’s probably because we’re too busy to notice!  Our small winter crew has had their hands full as they’ve continued to balance washing vegetables and packing wholesale orders while also moving forward on our winter cleaning and repair projects.  While we still have several more weeks of winter remaining, the pace of the farm is starting to pick up and we thought we’d share a little glimpse into what we’ve been up to this month!

Regardless of the number of years of farming that are behind us, the day we plant the first onion seeds in the greenhouse in February is always an exciting day!  Well, today’s the day!  As I finish up this article, Gerardo and Moises are filling flats and preheating them on the tables in the greenhouse.  Simon is in the packing shed working with the precision of a scientist to hot-water treat some of our onion seeds.  This afternoon Simon will transition to the greenhouse and together, this powerhouse team of three will start planting green onions!  Why is this so exciting?  Because these onions will be ready to go to the field in about eight short weeks.  Those weeks will go fast, but trust me, spring is just around the corner!

Winter crew doing the "top to bottom" cleaning 
in our Nursery greenhouse.

Before we can plant the first seeds, there are a lot of parts and pieces to the puzzle that have to be laid out.  Last week the crew spent several days cleaning the greenhouse from top to bottom, including washing all of the tables and every supply we use to set everything up.  Once everything is in place, we all clear out and then fog the building with a peracetic acid mist with the intention that any lingering plant disease that may have been present with last year’s crops is killed.  Disease prevention is just part of maximizing the potential of every seed and every crop.  This is also the reason we invest time to hot-water treat some of our seeds, in particular those that are most likely to carry plant disease on the coating of the seed.  Ana and Antonia have also been hard at work washing and sterilizing all of our harvest containers, seed storage totes and they’re working on the greenhouse flats now.  As you can see, we do a lot of cleaning in the winter!

Simon setting up the "Seed Sterilizer" 
apparatus to hot-water treat seeds.

Last fall we had been warned that some seeds may be in short supply and/or there may be problems getting seeds delivered in a timely manner.  All of the issues with the supply chain from packaging to labor to import issues apply to seeds as well, however given the time sensitive nature of what we do with them we wanted to do everything we could to secure our supplies early.  We hustled and completed most of our seed orders by the end of November.  Thankfully, we’ve received the majority of what we need for this season.  We’re still waiting on some things to come through, but the quality of what we’ve received appears to be good and right now there are no major deficits with varieties or supply that we can’t overcome or correct.  We still have more seeds to receive, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed that the remainder come through by their assigned back order dates!

Labor is a huge part of what we do and when spring rolls around we’re going to need many more hands on deck to get everything accomplished!  We’re actively recruiting for a few key positions that are currently vacant including two on-farm positions for Office Support as well as Packing Shed Support.  These positions have a variety of responsibilities, all of which help us keep all the little details organized and help us run at maximum efficiency!  If you know of anyone in our area who may be interested, please send them our way!  We also have openings on our delivery teams in both the Twin Cities as well as Madison.  So, if you know of anyone who resides in these areas who may be interested in a part-time, seasonal job, please encourage them to apply!  Of course, we’ll need a lot more hands in the fields as well so we’ve been lining things up for the return of our H2A crew members.  Richard and Rafael have already started making “to-do” lists for things that need to be done once we can return to outside work and they’re working on some training topics for this spring.  There’s always something to learn and ways to improve!

This year could be a drought year, so Richard has been hard at work setting up all of our irrigation needs.  This includes securing permits with the DNR as well as making sure we have all of the necessary supplies, pumps, etc.  Rafael has been working in the shop doing some maintenance and repair projects, building a running gear for a new harvest wagon, and a whole host of other random projects!  Richard and Rafael have been getting their daily dose of fresh air working together to keep our goats, ducks and chickens fed and cared for as well as checking in on the cows every day.  In addition to all of that, they are laying out the plans for where all the crops will go this year as well as making sure we have all the supplies we’ll need in the field.  Any day now we’re hoping to receive shipments of row covers and rolls of mulch and drip tape that we use on some of our fields.  They are also working on laying out plans for some new fields we’ll be farming this year and they’ve spent some time strategizing about how these pieces of land will be best managed.  And at the end of the day, I think they both do a little bit of field work in their dreams throughout the night!  

Late summer CSA box

Kelly has been working diligently to receive and process all of the CSA orders coming in.  Our sign-ups have been going pretty well and we’re around 45% of the way to full capacity.  That means we have PLENTY of room to accept more CSA members and sign-ups!  We do appreciate receiving your sign-ups early before the start of the season as it helps us better plan and have more time to process your order.  The closer we get to the first delivery, the busier we get!  We’d also like to ask for your help as we recruit new members for this season.  We have a pretty high retention rate from year to year, however every year some people don’t return for a variety of reasons like relocating or retiring and spending more time traveling and gardening!  Your “word-of-mouth” advertising is the strongest way we have to reach people.  So, if you’ve enjoyed your CSA experience we’d appreciate it if you’d share that with your friends, neighbors, co-workers, or simply leave a review for us!  

Facebook
Local Harvest
Google

We have also found that neighborhood social media platforms are a great way to share information about CSAs and we have tools to help you do that very easily.  Send us a quick email and we’ll provide you with any resources that will make this easy for you!

We continue to keep our finger on the pulse of the pandemic.  While we have not made any final decisions as to what we will be implementing for pandemic precautions at our sites this year, we will be assessing that and making some decisions very soon.  We really appreciate the input we received from many of you in response to the survey we did at the end of December/early January.  The focus of the survey was getting your input on the pandemic and the precautionary measures you’d like to see in 2022.  Of course we realize the pandemic is a moving target, so we’ll try to look at the overall big picture of where we are before we start the season and will continue to do our best to make decisions that are in the best interests of our members as well as our crew.

2021 HVF Crew Picture.....with face masks.  What will 2022 hold?

As we move through the rest of February and welcome in the month of March, rest assured we’re doing everything we can to get ready for an awesome 2022 CSA season.  We’re already starting to crave spring greens, as I’m sure some of you are as well.  Enjoy the remainder of winter, cook up the last of the sweet potatoes and winter squash, and we look forward to sending those first spring CSA boxes your way in May!