Fall Farm Update: We’re Preparing for 2021 & Need Your Input!

By Farmer Richard de Wilde

Fall Garlic Planting
photo by Katie Koranda

Fall is a very important, and somewhat challenging, time of year for us.  Not only are we dancing around the weather in an attempt to finish our fall harvest, we are also making decisions and preparing for next season.  In fact, we’re already planting crops for next year!  We are happy to report the 2021 garlic crop is planted!  We had selected the biggest and best bulbs from this summer’s harvest, over 1,000#, and last week we “cracked” it into individual cloves and planted the biggest ones which will produce bulbs of garlic that we’ll harvest next year.  The smaller cloves were planted as well, but we planted them thick and will harvest them early in the season when they produce green garlic.  Garlic is a crop we grow only for you, our CSA members, with the exception of green garlic and garlic scapes which we do also sell to distributors and retail stores.  We invest a lot of time, money and resources into a crop of garlic.  In fact, we’ve already invested about $10,000 of garlic that we saved from this year’s crop.  Is it worth it?  Absolutely—we all get to eat garlic nearly every week next year!

Garlic is not the only crop we’re investing in for next year.  Before the end of December we’ll order strawberry plants so we can put in a new strawberry field next spring.  We won’t harvest from this new planting until 2022 and 2023.  We are also planning to plant another asparagus field and will increase our rhubarb planting.  Both of these crops require two years of growth before we even think about harvesting from them.  As you can see, farming requires planning and investment!  However, with resources and a plan in place, we are very capable to execute.

Weather has been much more favorable this year than in recent years, but we are experiencing a cold fall with precipitation in the forecast.  Given the garlic is planted and the snow and rain wasn’t forecasted until Tuesday, we made sunchoke harvest and planting a priority for the first part of our week.  We are so pleased that in one long day we were able to plant 2 acres of sunchokes for next year!  I know, this is not as popular of a crop as garlic, but it’s a very valuable and important crop for our farm and we hope you will all come to appreciate it along with us as you find new ways to enjoy these tasty tubers!

Raddicchio & Lettuce, protected from cold 
under a double cover with hoops

We have lettuce, escarole and radicchio under a double cover with hoops to keep the covers from resting on the plants.  Even if we see temperatures in the mid to low twenties these crops should be well-protected.  Our hemp crop is harvested and dried.  We’re now ready to embark on the trimming phase of this project so we can send it to the processor to turn it into CBD oil which will be available for purchase in December.  Of course, we can’t forget about the Brussels sprouts which are looking quite nice this year!  We are caught up on harvest of mature cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli and Romanesco.  There are significantly more remaining in the field, so we’re hoping they make it through this cold spell and we get a few more nice warm days!

CSA Box packing line, pandemic style with
masks! June 2020

As we finish this season and look ahead to a new year, we understand there are many uncertainties we face, one of which is a burning question on our minds, “What will the demand for our CSA be in 2021?”  Early in my career I saw the wisdom in having diverse markets established, thus in addition to growing for CSA we also grow for wholesale distributors and retail stores.  Back in 2009 we were at the peak of our CSA membership and were packing 1200 boxes per week.  Unfortunately, after that peak year we started to see a gradual decline in membership which had dropped to about 650 boxes in 2019.  As these numbers dropped we increased our wholesale sales to make up the difference.  This decline in support for CSA was not isolated to our farm alone.  In fact, it caused several longstanding area farms, who did a nice job with CSA, to throw in the towel and quit growing for CSA.  At the start of this year, we had a goal of increasing our membership in 2020.  In fact, we needed to increase our membership this year in order for CSA to remain a viable and sustainable part of our business.  We knew we could not continue to run trucks that were half empty and operate at 50% efficiency while carrying a lot of fixed overhead expenses.  We committed to hang in there for one more year and were not willing to quit even when many of our peers were doing so.  We still believe CSA holds an important place in our society and were confident it was not going extinct.  Our direct connection to customers through our CSA program has been undeniably the best thing for our farm since we started back in 1993. We didn’t anticipate it would take a pandemic to build our CSA membership back up, but we’re happy we’ve been able to grow food for all of you this year!  We did not know how the pandemic would impact our CSA, but it was very clear that you, our customers, wanted to source your food from our farm and were depending on us to produce vegetables and meat for your families!

Purple Kohlrabi Field, June 2020

So as the pandemic escalated this spring, we quickly established protocols for a safe delivery and pick-up process after spending hours on Zoom calls and webinars talking with other farmers around the country.  And then the phone started ringing, the emails started flooding in, and when we were just weeks away from our first delivery we found ourselves surrounded by piles of order forms!  Our dream was coming true, but we were faced with processing the amount of orders we typically would’ve processed over a few months in the course of just a few weeks while trying to get our spring planting done, conduct annual crew training and get everything ready for our new pick up procedures.  It was a challenge to say the least, but one we are most grateful to have accomplished!

Summer CSA Box Contents, August 2020

We ended up more than doubling the amount of boxes we packed this year in comparison to 2019.  In fact, we’ve surpassed our highest number in history as we’ve packed over 1200 boxes most weeks of this season and will pack nearly 1500 boxes a week in November and December.  We know how to pack CSA boxes, we have over 25 years of experience doing so.  The challenge we were faced with was that we were planning and planting for about 800 boxes and quickly found ourselves committed to packing 1200!  We had a hard time turning away people who just wanted a safe option for sourcing healthy food, especially at a time in our history when healthy food is so vital!  Instead, we changed our plans at the last minute and were able to accommodate the increased CSA demand.  Dare I say, all things considered, we did quite a good job of packing some very nice boxes this year!  That is a reflection of not only farming experience, but also the effort and skill put forth by our professional, dedicated crew members who have gone above and beyond this year and for whom we are most grateful.  You, our members, have also done a good job with pick-ups!  We added quite a few new members to our CSA this year, and many of you are trying CSA for the first time ever.  We were a little nervous how things would go given the need to change our pick up process and helping so many new members figure out the system.  But honestly, we’ve had very few issues at pick up sites and everyone has been very cooperative!  So, despite the challenges, we’ve had a pretty good year and CSA continues to be our tried and true preferred market for which to grow!

Travel the world through cooking & food!
Salerno Style Italian Grilled Eggplant

As we continue to move forward, we need your input to help us plan for next year.  I have read several different reports indicating a dramatic rise in the number of consumers who are now cooking at home in comparison to pre-pandemic days.  Will these behaviors continue?  Will people continue to value organic, healthy food even as they become numb to the COVID-19 pandemic and as it fades into our memories?  Most likely it will be awhile before this pandemic fades away, and no one knows when the next pandemic may fall upon us.  We can only guess what next year will bring, but we want to ask you “Will you continue to source vegetables through our CSA?  Which shares do you plan on purchasing?  Do you have friends, neighbors, etc who may be interested in joining?”  We can do a better job and be more prepared as we start the season if we know who we’re growing for!

We expect that COVID will still be with us and we are prepared to continue the same safety protocols on our farm and at our CSA delivery sites as we’ve implemented this year.   These protocols have been a large expense for us in both additional labor as well as supplies.  However, these protocols are also what has minimized the risk for contracting the virus for all of us, both on the farm and at CSA sites, so we see no option aside from continuing them indefinitely.  Who pays for the cost of safe food?  We have promise that our Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan will be forgiven.  We also have applied for the USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program 2, but have not received any payments to date.  Our feeling is if the government comes through, then your tax dollars have covered our COVID expenses.

The bounty of summer fills the cooler!
 August 2020

What we need most is the support of our community to back us in 2021.  With your support we look forward to another good year!  In this week’s “What’s In the Box” email we’ve included a short survey that will only take you a few minutes to complete.  We would appreciate if one member from each household would complete the survey.  The purpose of the survey is to see how many of our current members are planning to continue with our CSA in 2021 and which shares you are planning to purchase.  We are not planning to make any major changes to our program or delivery season.  We are still evaluating prices and need to confirm our delivery sites, but aside from minor tweeks, you can expect a similar season as you experienced this year.  We are not looking for payment or a formal sign-up form now, just a forecasted commitment.  This information will be valuable as we continue to craft crop plans, make seed purchases and determine acreage we need to commit to CSA crops versus other land that we can use for our primary wholesale crops.  November, December and January are the months in which we lay the ground work for the 2021 season, so your input now is so very important to us!

In closing, thank you for joining us for the 2020 CSA season.  It’s been an interesting year, to say the least, but we’re thankful for your support, encouraging notes of gratitude and for the opportunity to fulfill our contribution to this world.  We hope you’ve found nourishment for your body and your soul with each delivery you’ve received.  Thank you in advance for sharing a few minutes of your time to complete the survey.  In exchange we’ll do our best to deliver bountiful boxes again in 2021!

Gratitude

The topic for this week’s newsletter started brewing in my mind last week when yet another CSA member took the time to send us a note of thanks.  Here are just a few excerpts from notes we’ve received:

The beautiful Diana Radishes 

“I am so excited to have the herbs, in addition to the GORGEOUS vegetables of today!!... Your produce gives me so much JOY and ESPECIALLY in such a dark time. I THANK YOU for the work you do.”

“I am so excited with our first share. Thank you so much for all the fresh vegetables.  I already had some greens with my eggs this morning.  Just letting you know you made my day.”

“We are sure thankful to be connected with HVF again this year, especially at a time when local, sustainable food practices are more important than ever.  May your crew have good health and fruitful harvests all season long,”

“I wanted to thank you for all you have done to make our CSA experience safe.  I picked up my first box on Saturday and was so happy to see the outside tent set up with clear directions on how to keep us all protected!  I left with my beautiful bag of vegetables and a huge smile on my face J”

Storm Clouds in the Valley, June 2, 2020

Gratitude, it’s a powerful medicine for the souls of those who both give and receive it.  It’s a trying time for our region, our country and the world.  This year is unfolding in unexpected ways and some days it’s hard to make sense of everything happening around us.  It would be wonderful if we could hunker down in our quiet little valley and remain immune to the hurt, anger, injustice, fear and inconvenience the events of this year have placed upon us all.  But, that’s not an option when you choose to be part of a community.  As I write this newsletter, the wind is whipping violently outside the office and as Richard just communicated to Rafael over the radio “We’re going to get slammed.”  Dust is swirling, trees are whipping around, and Alejandro, Manuel, Nestor and Jose Antonio are trying to wrangle the field covers that are being ripped off the crops they are meant to protect.  We know how to deal with the weather, or rather, we know we can’t control the weather, only our ability to respond to whatever hand Mother Nature chooses to deal us.  Sometimes we get a really good hand, and when we do, you reap the benefits too!  Ramps in May because of a late, cool spring?!  Yes, we’ll take it!  A stretch of nice, sunny, warm days that spurs the asparagus to push through and allows us to complete critical cultivating, transplant crops and plant more seeds?  That’s a good hand to be dealt and we’ll take it! 

Cultivating Celeriac with "The Kult"

We’ve had our fair share of experience managing the extremes of weather.  While we can’t control it, we are very adept at working with and around the weather.  We have a grasp on the realities of this type of storm.  But this year, the weather is not the only “storm” raging around us.  Restrictions and procedural changes related to COVID-19 that leave us wondering if our crew from Mexico will be able to join us.  Inconvenient changes to how we operate that slow us down, cost money, take away our markets and break down many of the plans we had for the year.  These pieces of the pandemic storm are things we could live without, but that’s not a choice right now.

Our crew packing CSA boxes in September, 2009

So we move forward and look for the good things in life.  For us, this year, it’s CSA—our community.  Think about what it stands for, “Community Supported Agriculture.”  We’ve always believed CSA can have a powerful impact on people’s lives, and this year may just be the reminder of that truth.  Simply put, we’ve always needed each other, but I think we may all realize this a little more intimately this year.  We’ve been trying to build our CSA membership back to where we were before the recession hit in 2009, after which our CSA membership dropped to an all-time low.  What’s it going to take to build our membership to a sustainable level so we can continue to do this?  We never thought the answer would be a pandemic that caused our corporate, industrial food system to fracture under the weight of its own weaknesses.  Or the fact that the pandemic forced us to spend more time at home, planning ahead for less frequent trips to the grocery store, and cooking our own meals!  The result of an inconvenient pandemic for our farm has meant a two-fold increase in CSA memberships that has actually pushed us past our record high number of boxes packed in a week from the height of our CSA glory days back around 2009!

Stack of referrals awaiting postage to be sent out.
We've received so many referrals, we went through a whole roll
of stamps and still didn't have enough to send out the first batch!

So even though this has all been very hard and this was not the plan we had in mind, we remain grateful for you, our community of eaters who have chosen to partner with us to grow food to nourish your families and enrich your lives.  This is our privilege and we want you to know we are grateful for your support.  We sense your support in so many ways.  Of course when you take the time to send us an email or write a little note to enclose with your payment, we experience your expressions of support in your own words.  Yes, we do read those notes, hang them on the wall, share them with each other and our crew members.  Your words of gratitude and support are our fuel and reminder to keep pushing on through the hard times.  With every referral you make, every conversation about CSA that you have with people in your circles, or every time you purchase our products at your local food co-op, we feel it.  Sometimes it’s subtle, anonymous, or delayed, but we feel it, and we are grateful.

Habitat for native plants and animals near our fields

We have devoted our life’s work to feeding the most people possible with healthy, nutrient rich foods through every season of the year and every season of their lives.  But farming is not just about growing food.  We also have a responsibility to restore and care for our land, protect our native plants and animals, and do our best to be a positive force in our community.  We have a responsibility to nourish body and soul.  Can vegetables change lives?  We absolutely believe they can and we hope right now you may be experiencing the little ways they do so by infiltrating our daily, sometimes mundane and sometimes tumultuous lives with vitality, beauty, nourishment and connection.  So in all the ways you support us, we hope you too feel supported right now.

Learning about celtuce from a member's mother
visiting from China!

Our hearts break when we see what’s happening in Minneapolis as well as many other cities in our region and across the country as the storms of injustice are raging.  Injustice is hard to watch, hard to experience, and hard to understand why it keeps happening.  It just doesn’t make sense.  Human lives are precious, all human lives.  When you sign up with our farm, we don’t care what color your skin is or where you come from.  We’re grateful to have you as part of our community.  Well, let me correct that last statement a bit.  We do care where you come from, because everyone has a story and a journey to share and we celebrate the diversity within our membership!  We have opportunities to learn from people from all over the world right here within our own community!  I learned more about the vegetable celtuce from a member's mother who was visiting from China when he brought her to a farm party than I ever learned from researching on the internet!  I recently learned we have a published author in our membership who was kind enough to share his memoir which I look forward to reading so I can know the journey he’s walked in this life.  We feed community leaders, teachers, healthcare workers, scientists, artists, students, and the list goes on.  We are blessed by you and the diversity each of you adds to our community.

Our hardworking crew harvesting winter radishes
 in late October

No conversation about gratitude related to farming would be complete without mentioning our crew members.  We do our best to offer respect to the hardworking crew members that work alongside us, no matter how challenging the task or situation.  They trudge through mud, shield their necks from the hot sun, bend over to harvest vegetables growing from the ground, and that’s only those who work in the field!  Others do tedious work of sorting salad greens in the packing shed to make those pretty little bags of baby arugula and salad mix we pack in your boxes.  They trim thousands of pounds of onions, and wash probably thousands of pounds of dirt off your vegetables so they are glistening and beautiful when you receive them.  Lets not forget about the office work, which is another piece to making this all possible.  Answering phone calls, responding to emails, processing orders, and keeping this whole beast organized and running smoothly…..that’s no small task!  We are so very blessed and grateful for all the people working on this farm, and when we’re all covered in mud, our skin is all the same color!

Sometimes storms lead to rainbows,
reminding us there is beauty after the storm

I’ve almost reached the end of this article, and the storm continues to rage outside.  The sky is full of dark clouds, the rain is pouring down, and I continue to hear intermittent rumbles in the distance.  Just like this storm, the storms of life will pass through.  When we’re in the midst of the storm, it may be hard to see what’s on the other side, but we still have a choice as to what we want to be when the storm is over.  Sometimes you need a little breather, a bit of a break to catch your breath, but once you have….it’s time to get back up, push forward and keep going.  When I’m tempted to quit, I see your faces, I hear your voices, I know you’re depending on us.  And I get up. We have a responsibility to show up for each other.  Not just when it’s easy, but especially when it’s hard.  So in closing, I thank all of you for the acts and words of gratitude you’ve shared with us simply based on your experiences of choosing to be part of our CSA.  But I also want to encourage you to continue sharing gratitude with those around you.  I stumbled across this quote from Melody Beattie where she says, “Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

As the storms of life continue to rage around us, I certainly don’t have the answers to make them fade away.  But I can offer you encouragement to use gratitude as one of the many tools available in our toolbox of change.  Come on, just a simple “Thank you” to someone around you is all it takes to start the transformations.  I hope the week ahead of you is filled with Harmony, both on your table and in your heart.

Farmer/Chef Andrea along with Richard and Rafael

COVID-19 Pandemic & The Harmony Valley Farm 2020 CSA Season

Spring ramps poking through the forest floor

The weeks have been passing us by at a rapid pace and we see signs of spring unfolding all around us.  The start of our CSA season is approaching in 4 short weeks and we wanted to reach out to let everyone know we are still farming!  We’re working on many things simultaneously at the farm right now, both in response to an early spring but also in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The focus of this post is to inform you about some general farm updates & information as well as provide you with our thoughts and plans for our 2020 CSA season.  Please understand this is a work in progress and we will do our best to provide further updates as we move forward.

The final check before closing the CSA box on the pack line

First of all, we believe Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has been a valuable model for consumers to source food for many years, but we believe it can also be one of the safest ways to source high quality, nutritious food with the lowest risk as we continue to navigate this pandemic.  We need to recognize that we are all part of a community, that is the “C” in CSA.  We take our role as a member of this community very seriously and ask our customers and members to do the same.  We are determined to do everything we can to keep our crew members healthy so we can keep our farm running and may continue to deliver our high quality food to as many people as possible and in the safest possible way.  We know this crisis may persist for months, thus we are doing our best to prepare for both the expected and unexpected.

Before we go any further, there are a few things we want to bring to your attention.

• CSA Capacity & Sites: The majority of our CSA Site locations are still available.  Please refer to pages 2 & 3 of our sign-up form for a full listing of CSA locations.  We are only at about 50% capacity and will continue to accept sign-ups until the trucks are full!  We encourage you to include a “1st Choice” and “2nd Choice” when selecting your delivery site.
• Welcome Packets: We will be sending pre-season welcome packets in the mail very soon for those who have already submitted their sign-ups.  We’ll let you know when they are on the way and will continue to send them to members as you sign-up.  It is very important that you open this envelope and read the contents!  We will be including important details you need to read before you pick up your first CSA box.  Please review your invoice and the site-specific information as well.  Some individuals may have been scheduled at their 2^nd Choice location.
• Volunteer Opportunities: While we are not able to offer home delivery, we do want to have resources in place to assist a member who may not be well or is in a high-risk situation and is not able to pick up their box.  If you are willing to deliver a box to another member at your site if necessary, please let us know so we may contact you as needed.  Additionally, if we find a site needs additional monitoring or a site host needs assistance, we are accepting volunteers for this need as well.  We are not certain if these needs will arise, but we’d like to be prepared if and when they do.  Please email Kelly at csa@harmonyvalleyfarm.com if you are willing to be on our volunteers list for either or both of these duties. (Volunteers must be current CSA Members)

Pandemic Response Changes to CSA Protocols:

A view of our peaceful, beautiful valley and fields

As we think through every step of the CSA delivery/pick-up process, we are aware that social distancing is a priority and minimizing points of contact are essential in order to maintain a low risk situation.

We believe we can achieve this, however everyone involved needs to be part of the process for this to work.  As we get going, we will be monitoring our systems and are prepared to make changes and modifications as needed to ensure the safest pick-ups possible.

CSA Member Responsibilities:

• Community Responsibility: We ask our members to please read and pay attention to all email updates from the farm!  It is also your responsibility to read signs at the CSA sites so you are fully informed of procedures and expectations.
• Be Well: Do not go to the CSA site if you, or a member of your household, is ill or is under quarantine for COVID-19.  Please ask a friend or family member who is well and not under quarantine to do the pickup for you.  If you do not have someone to do this, please contact us.  We are compiling a list of individuals who have volunteered to help in these situations.
• Social Distancing: Maintain a minimum of 6-foot social distancing when approaching and at the site.  We ask that only ONE member is in the pickup site at a time.
• One Person Pick-Up: Only one member per household should go to pick up the box.  We prefer that this person is an adult and if possible, it is the same person each week.  Whomever goes to the site should be fully aware of and willing to follow the protocols for a safe pick-up.
• Patience: Please be respectful and courteous of other members when you pick up your box.  There may be times when you need to wait for your turn to enter the site and/or to maintain appropriate social distancing.

CSA Pick-Up Changes & Procedures:

• Newsletters: We will not be providing print copies of the newsletters at the sites until the need for pandemic-related precautions change.  Newsletters will be available online and links to both our newsletters as well as additional content on our blog will be included in the “What’s In the Box” email you receive the day before your delivery.
• “Swap” Box: We will not be offering a “Swap” box at the start of the season.  We may choose to add this later when it is appropriate to do so.
• “Choice” Items: Any choice items we offer will be portioned individually as much as possible.  Remember, it’s always your choice if you want to add these items to your share. 
• Checklist: We will continue to use our checklist system, and ask each member to bring your own pen when you come to pick up your box.  It is important that you consult the checklist prior to selecting your box.  Find your name (or your share partner’s name) on the list.  Carefully put a checkmark next to your name so we know you’ve taken your box.  If you do this carefully, you should not even need to touch the paper, table or clip board.  If you do not see your name on the checklist, we have not delivered a box for you.  You need to exit the site and give us a call so we can help troubleshoot the situation.  If we’ve made an error we’d like the opportunity to correct it as quickly as possible.
• The CSA Box: We are still in the process of determining the lowest-risk packaging solution that is also cost-effective and manageable.  We will be testing both options here at the farm to ensure they are not only low-risk at the pick-up site, but will also preserve the quality of the vegetables.  Regardless of the box we choose to use, we will be adding a plastic liner bag to the box this year.  
• Take the Top Box: All boxes will be packed with the same contents.  Please take the top box and do your best to only touch the box you are taking. 
• Do Not Sort or Repack Your Vegetables At the Site: We ask that you sort and repack your vegetables at your home, not at your site.  We hope to facilitate a quick and speedy pick-up and limit the surfaces both your hands and your vegetables touch.  If you follow our guidelines, your vegetables will remain in the plastic bag until you remove them in your home.  
• Sharing Households: We ask that sharing households do not split shares or leave partial shares at the pick-up site during the pandemic.  Please make arrangements for one person to pick up the share and split the contents away from the site.
• The Plastic Liner Bag: We encourage you to reuse this bag in your home if you feel comfortable doing so.  One way to repurpose it is to use it as a liner for a small trash can.  This bag holds a low risk as a potential source of contamination and has only been touched by a farm employee on the packing line who will be wearing gloves and you, the end user. 
• Site Management: We are working with site hosts to eliminate as many potential surfaces members need to touch when entering and exiting sites.  We do need to also be sensitive to security issues at both our residential and business locations, so it will be up to the discretion of each site host as to what is feasible to do at their site.  For sites with a large garage door that may be left open during site hours, you may just walk right in without touching any surface.  Many sites have outer gates/fences that need to be opened and closed as well as a service door entry.  If and when possible, we are asking that these entry points be propped open during site hours to eliminate the need to touch these surfaces.  If a door is open at your site when you arrive, please leave it open when you leave.  We are still working through these details and will do our best to communicate changes and procedures to you as we refine the processes.
• Wash & Sanitize Your Hands Before & After Pick-up: Please do your part to ensure you are washing your hands before you go to pick up your box.  If you are able to use hand sanitizer once you arrive at the site but before you enter, that is also appreciated.  While we are trying to source hand sanitizer, it is in very short supply and we are not certain we will be able to provide it at all sites.  If we are able to source hand sanitizer, we will allocate it to any site that may have doors that members need to open before entering.
• Bring Your Own Gloves….Or a Clean Pair of Socks!  If you’d like to create a barrier between your hands and any surfaces at the pick-up site, we will not object.  You may use a CLEAN pair of cotton gloves or even winter gloves if that is all you have.  If you don’t have gloves, a clean pair of socks could also suffice!  Make sure your gloves/socks are clean and you have not used them elsewhere or for any other purpose.  Put them on just before you enter the site.  Remove them once you have exited and take them with you so you may launder them.

The CSA Delivery Team:

We will be providing additional training to our delivery team prior to the start of deliveries.  We will do our best to provide precautionary measures to protect their health and well-being while they are executing deliveries.  We will also be implementing additional measures to ensure proper handling of your CSA shares.  We are still working out all of these delivery details, however we are prepared to provide a sufficient supply of disposable gloves, a portable handwashing station on the truck, hand sanitizer and masks for our delivery crew.  Additionally, we are prepared to provide supplies needed to clean and sanitize any table surface, door knobs, etc that may be needed to facilitate CSA pick-up.  If you have additional questions about this process, we’re happy to share these details with you as we continue to develop our protocols.

How & Where You Can Source Our Vegetables in April:

We know our customers are anxious to start enjoying some of our spring offerings such as overwintered spinach and ramps.  We are doing our first spinach harvests this week and anticipate ramps will be ready to start harvesting as early as next week.  We are evaluating the possibility of offering some pre-season special offers, however we do not have the logistics in place for this at present.  In the interim, we will start supplying our vegetables through some of our regional distributors and food co-ops in the Twin Cities, MN area as well as Madison & Viroqua, WI.   If/when we are able to move forward with a pre-season special offer, we will share this information with you by email.  If you would like to receive email updates from our farm, please email csa@harmonyvalleyfarm.com.
  
In closing, we thank you for your support of our farm and for your patience as our plans unfold.  We will do our best to keep you nourished this season.

Thank You for Your Input! 2019 Season Survey Results

By Gwen Anderson

First CSA Box of 2019 Season

Our 2019 End of the Season Survey wrapped up on January 4th this year, and we have spent the last few months compiling, reviewing, and considering all of the information we gathered from the responses.  First off, we would like to once again thank everyone who took the time to participate in the survey!  Your feedback helps us make business decisions and improvements so we can better serve our members.  To show our appreciation, we wanted to take the time to share some of the feedback and information we received from you!

We put a lot of thought into the types of questions we ask on our surveys to garner the best information to help us improve in ways that are important to our members.  If you were one of the 528 people who took our survey, you may have noticed quite a few questions about our newsletters.  We invest a lot of time in creating newsletter content and this is one of our primary means of connecting with members every week during the season.  We feel the newsletters are important, and we have had members express this to us in the past as well, but it is hard for us to gauge the value of these types of correspondences without further feedback.  Are we hitting the target and giving our members useful information, or are we just shooting in the dark?

What did we find out?  Yes, people are reading the newsletters!  98% of our members said they read the "What’s in the Box" newsletter at least half the time, with over 77% reading it every week!  Over 66% of our members are regularly reading the "Weed ‘Em and Reap" newsletter as well.  We received a lot of positive feedback about our newsletters, and it made us feel like we are indeed doing the right thing with them!  Last season, due to feedback from a previous survey, we tried something new and printed two newsletters.  There is a lot of information we want to share with you, and a single sheet of paper had been too limiting.  Previously, we adopted a blog format in order to provide more information for our members, and put “teaser” articles in our printed newsletters to encourage people to visit our blog for the remainder of the article.  We received some feedback from members that this type of printed newsletter was irritating; they wanted the entire article without being directed elsewhere.  So, we decided to split the newsletter into two portions.  The "What’s in the Box" newsletter would contain the vegetable feature, recipes and the box contents for that week.  The "Weed ‘Em and Reap" newsletter would be the place for articles about other important topics including farm updates, news reviews, employee highlights, or whatever other information we feel is important to share with our members.  This change means there are two folders with newsletters at your pickup site, one with the "What’s In The Box" newsletter, and one with the "Weed ‘Em and Reap" newsletter.  It was clear from our last survey that there are still many people who are unaware of the change we made to the printed newsletters.  We are planning to continue to do the two newsletter format this year for those of you who prefer the paper copies; and as always, the information will still be linked in our email communications and posted on our blog as well.

Hon Tsai Tai & Shiitake Potstickers

Recipes continue to be the most valued resource we provide for you, and the request for more recipes topped out the list of suggestions for improving our newsletters.  The "Cooking with the Box" segment we offer on our blog was started in 2017 as a means to address this request and features recipes and suggestions for every item in the box!  We do our best to provide you with as many recipes as we can each week, with a little something for various levels of cooking experience.  Nearly 82% of our members said they read the "Cooking with the Box" segment, and over 69% said they regularly use the suggestions found therein.  If the "Cooking with the Box" segment still leaves you craving more recipes, check out our Facebook group!  There are always great posts about what people are cooking up with their boxes, including recipe links.  Sometimes, we even borrow the recipes shared in the Facebook group and use them in the "Cooking with the Box" segment!

Additional feedback we received for improving our newsletters included providing more vegetable storage information.  We were also asked to provide an earlier “best guess” or a "What’s in the Next Box" section to give you an idea of what might be included in the current week’s box as well as the next week’s box.  We are currently brainstorming on how we can improve our communications to include more of this valuable information.

CSA Box from June 2019

As your CSA farm, we strive to provide you with as much information as possible to ensure that your CSA experience is both positive and successful.  By asking what resources you may have been struggling to find last season, we were able to identify additional resources to call attention to or create.  Vegetable storage information showed up often in this question as well.  There were also a great deal of requests for more information on how to preserve, freeze or dry vegetable for later use.  As of now, we have a list of vegetable storage suggestions in the back of our current CSA calendars and include this information in our weekly vegetable features.  We will continue to include storage suggestions in our calendars each year.  Due to your feedback, we realize that we need to have the information available in more locations that are easier to reference.  We will do our best to provide this information more consistently in our newsletters each week, and we are looking into how to get the information available on our website.

Fresh Ginger

“What do our CSA members want in their boxes?” is always a fun question to ask on a survey, and it is one we ask ourselves each year when we do our planning in the winter.  This year, we took the guesswork out and decided to ask our members directly.  The answer? Ginger!  And in one very emphatic case it was GINGER GINGER GINGER GINGER GINGER GINGER PLEASE BRING BACK THE GINGER!!!!!  Lemongrass was a not-too-distant second.  We hear you, and would love to grow these items for our CSA boxes this year.  For the sake of transparency, the seed for ginger and lemongrass has been challenging to source this year.  We are still trying to secure enough seed to plant in order to provide these highly requested crops, and are hopeful that we will be successful.  Ginger is grown in our cold frame greenhouse, so we had to take a few years off from growing it in order to rotate crops in this space just like we do in the field.  We’re looking forward to growing both ginger and lemongrass again this year!

Egyptian Spinach

The next three runners up were globe artichokes, Egyptian spinach and purple Napa cabbage.  The silver lining is that we will for sure be growing Egyptian spinach and purple Napa cabbage this season!  Our plan is to harvest the Egyptian spinach for summer boxes, and to have the purple Napa cabbage available in the fall.  We’ve grown Egyptian spinach before, and used it for a delicious soup we are excited to try again.  Purple Napa cabbage is a new variety and we are anxious to try it out!

The last batch of questions we ask on our survey were geared towards marketing.  We know, as it has been proven time and time again, that our customers are our best source of advertisement and are a wellspring of creative ideas and solutions.  By finding out what it is that you value about being part of our CSA program, we can use those values to draw in more like-minded members.  By asking what we can do to help you promote your CSA farm, we are able to create resources and promotion materials that reflect what would grab your attention, and thus the attention of the people who share similar values.  We have already heard from some members requesting the promotional materials we have available, and we are always happy to oblige!  We have several different printed material options available, and we have plenty of pictures and short messages we can send out for our members to post to social media.  If any of this sounds like something you would be interested in, please feel free to call or send us an email for more information!

Garver Feed Mill, photo from garverfeedmill.com

We want, and need, to build our membership in order to keep our CSA program sustainable, so we asked for your suggestions to help up improve our outreach.  One of the top suggestions we received was to partner with area businesses.  We are happy to announce that we are now partnering with Twin Town Fitness and Lakewinds Minnetonka in the Twin Cities.  In the Madison area, we are partnering with three new UW Health System locations, the VA Hospital, MGE and the Garver Feed Mill.  We’ve also added an additional residential site in Middleton for our Madison Thursday route!  On top of these confirmed new locations for next season, there are a few potential sites in all our CSA areas we are still looking into.  As exciting as the new sites are, we still need our current members’ help bringing in new members.  We’ve added the sites, please help us add the people!  What tools do we have at our disposal to help you bring in new members?  We offer a new member coupon, which will give the new member between $15 and $25 off their first season depending on the share they select.  This coupon also comes with a referral line, and the referring member will receive a $20 gift certificate!  Another great way to get our standard $10 referral coupon is to write your name in the referral line on sign up forms when you hand them out to neighbors, friends and family, or that stranger in the co-op line!  When they sign up, we’ll send you a coupon!

Andrea Enjoying the company of some of our CSA members
at Strawberry Day 2019

What do our members value most about being part of our CSA program?  The vegetables, of course!  The top five responses we received on this question were high quality produce, supporting local businesses, variety of produce, freshness, and being organic.  We were a little surprised that organic didn’t come in higher on the totem pole, but we were very pleased to hear how highly our quality, freshness and diversity were regarded.  Community was also a common theme we ran across in the comments of this section.  While we appreciate the positive feedback about our vegetables, what really touched our hearts was the human connections our CSA program has fostered.  We enjoyed hearing that the information we provide to you in newsletters strengthens the connection between us and how important that connection is to you.  The connections our members have made between each other were also a joy to hear about!  (Thank you to our Powderhorn site host for being “a wonderful person and a great site manager!”)  We also care a great deal about our land and the people who work on it, so it was also wonderful to hear that the care and dedication we strive for in maintaining both is something our members value as well.  Our organization and attention to detail is something we also loved hearing is appreciated.

There were many other interesting things we found out through our survey, too.  We’ve received quite a few requests for videos of all kinds: cooking demos, field work, newsletter recaps, etc.  The videos we have made in the past have been fun to do, and broadening our horizons in this form of communication is something we have a great interest in.  We are currently brainstorming how to incorporate this into our day as well as what type of content will garner the most interest from our members.  As well as videos, we received many suggestions for having a larger social media presence in general.  After carefully considering our options, we have decided to continue using Facebook and to start a Harmony Valley Farm Instagram page!  Please feel free to follow us on Instagram @harmonyvalleyfarm for more great updates from your farm.

Merchandise was another suggestion that popped up here and there.  We do currently have t-shirts available for purchase during our on-farm events, and have been thinking about what other cool things our members might like to see as well (like re-usable tote bags)!  My personal favorite suggestion was to create a hot sauce subscription program to supplement our CSA.  The Korean Chili Sauce has been a big hit, and it might be fun to try new sauces in the future.  We don’t have any immediate plans to pursue this, although it is a really hot idea.

Our website was also a subject we received lots of feedback on.  We understand the one we currently have needs improvement, which is why we are working with our friends at Leum Tech to roll out a site that has a fresh look, greater functionality and will work great with mobile devices!  Converting our information to the new site takes time, and we are currently prioritizing what needs to be on the site for launch day.  Eventually we will have features like online ordering and an integrated blog!  Our current recipe and newsletter archives are going to be available much like they are now, and we are looking for ways to make our future newsletters and recipes easier to locate and search as well.  Additionally, we will be releasing a new and improved Vegetable Gallery that will include photos, descriptions, storage information, and much more!

As our review of the 2019 End of Season Survey comes to a close, we would like to thank you one more time for the invaluable feedback you have provided.  Your support, positive feedback and creative ideas have helped in more ways than a simple newsletter and a “thank you” could ever express.  We are truly looking forward to doing an even better job at being your CSA farm next season.  See you then!

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The 2020 CSA Season is Unfolding!

By Richard & Andrea

Harvesting curly willow earlier this week

When winter sets in we always feel like we have “all this time” to tackle our projects, brainstorm, lay out plans, etc.  Here we are, approaching the end of January and believe it or not we’ll be packing our first CSA boxes of the 2020 season in less than 100 days!  We’re thankful to see the days getting longer—it’s still light outside at 5 pm when the crew is heading home!  Sign-ups are rolling in as are shipments of seeds.  This week our winter crew was in the field trimming curly willow as we take advantage of appropriate conditions to get the willow out of the field while it’s above zero degrees and the snow is not too deep.  We’ll spend the next few weeks trimming and bundling it in the greenhouse before we need to prepare that house for growing transplants.  Yes, we’ll be setting up our first greenhouse to start planting onions and celeriac next month!  It’s exciting to see another CSA season starting to unfold!

Drip tape line used to deliver nutrients to sweet potato plants.

As farmers, weather is always on our minds, so we might as well tackle this topic and get it out of the way!  There is some evidence that El Niño is finally turning to La Niña, which typically means less moisture and maybe even a bit of drought.  Since you just never know what you may get, we thought it prudent to update our irrigation permits and make sure our equipment is prepared and working well.  Whether we need irrigation as a means of delivering water to a crop or not, we use buried drip irrigation lines to deliver nutrients, microorganisms and trace minerals to our crops.  This year we are excited to expand our use of “sap analysis” to determine the specific nutrient needs of individual crops.  Sap analysis is kind of like a blood test for plants that allows us to better understand the plants’ nutritional needs at different points in growth.  Last year we saw some dramatic results when we used sap analysis to help us determine what support some of our crops needed in order to thrive.  We are planning to use sap analysis more proactively this year so we can be more aware of deficiencies and do what we can to correct them before they become a big problem.

As for crop planning, we’re laying out the plan and getting all the parts and pieces in place.  Sweet potato plants have been ordered, all 18,000!  We’ll be growing our two favorite orange varieties, Burgundy and Covington, and are also going to try a new variety called Bayou Belle.  We had better luck growing the white-fleshed Japanese sweet potatoes last year, so we’re going to expand that part of the planting a little bit.

Diana radishes, freshly washed!

We continue to appreciate the color and nutrition we get from our line-up of purple vegetables.  The color purple represents anthocyanins, plant compounds that play an important role in our physical health.  We’ll be doing one planting of the beautiful Amethyst beans and are considering growing the sweet and tasty purple tomatillos again this year.  Last year we also tried Diana radishes for the first time.  This is a spring radish that is shaped like a traditional red radish, but it has purple on the top and white on the root end.  We received positive feedback about this variety and we liked the way it looked in the field with regards to disease resistance, etc.  We have secured seed for our new favorite purple cauliflower, Purple Moon, and have our fingers crossed that we’ll get the Purple Majesty potato seed we have on order.  Lastly, we have to try a new bright magenta napa cabbage named “Scarrossa.”  We don’t typically grow napa in the fall, but that’s the recommendation for this variety so watch for this around October.

Fresh baby ginger with greens

We have been reviewing the results of our end of season survey that closed the fourth of January. We asked members for their input on which specialty produce items we should grow this year.  It’s clear that ginger is high on the list along with lemongrass!  We can’t make any promises at this point, but know we are trying to get some ginger “seed”.  Our supplier has closed ordering for now, but we’re on the list for an opportunity to purchase seed when they open ordering again sometime in February.  Wish us luck!  The other crop that had a lot of support was Egyptian Spinach.  This is a unique vegetable that grows in the heat of the summer when other greens struggle.  It is packed with nutrients and you just feel really good when you eat it!  It is a little challenging to grow, but we’re willing to give it a try!

Summer 2019:  Richard sampling and selecting
French Orange melon seeds

We continue to look for a personal-sized, yellow seedless watermelon, but there just isn’t anything available.  What about the French Orange Melons?  Good question.  For those of you who know the sweet, delicious, aromatic, one-of-a-kind French Orange melon, you may remember the sad story about how the producer has decided to drop the seed.  Richard has been working on saving seed for this melon for several years now.  This is not a quick or easy process.  The original seed was a hybrid.  When we plant the seed from melons produced from the original seed, we get a variety of results.  The sizing, color and characteristics of the melon are not always a direct reflection of the original seed.  As such, it takes several years of selecting the seed from the melons that most resemble the original set of characteristics and eliminate the off-types.  We feel like we are at a pretty good place with the quality of the seed we produced in 2019 and we finally have enough volume of seed that we can put in two nice sized plantings for actual production and harvest.  Richard will continue to carefully select seed and plant a separate seed production plot each year in an effort to refine our seed stock for this variety.  Wish us luck—we’re really hoping for a much better melon season than in 2019.  One of the problems we experienced last year was fewer pollinators.  We think the cold, late spring may have caused a decreased population of pollinator creatures.  It’s easy to take these little creatures for granted, but when something affects their population and they don’t show up, the results can be very dramatic!

Our crew happily putting together our first pollinator packs in 2016.

Speaking of pollinators, we are going to be planting pollinator packs again this year!  This is a project we started back in 2016.  In 2015 we published a series of newsletter articles we entitled “The Silent Spring Series.”  If you’re interested in reading these information-packed articles, you can find them all on our blog.  Basically the series took a look at the impact the use of agro-chemicals is having on our environment, ecosystem and our bodies.  The topic is pretty heavy and as we worked our way through the series we felt like we needed to create some light at the end of this very long tunnel.  We needed something positive to move the needle back to a point of hope.  We decided to plant pollinator packs, a garden pack with 9 different plants.  We started the seeds, transplanted them into the trays and delivered them to CSA members in the spring so everyone could use them to plant pollinator gardens in their own yard, on a patio space, in a community space or anywhere else they could think of where they would flourish, grow and serve to attract and support pollinator creatures (bees, butterflies, birds, wasps, etc).  We only intended to do it once, but it was so well-received, we get requests for them every year!  So, for those of you who already have an established pollinator garden, perhaps you’d like to add a few new plants to your space.  If you are just starting out, no worries!  We’ve included some plants in the pack that are easy to establish and will bloom in the first year!  Our order is nearly finalized and here is the list of seeds we ordered for this year’s packs.  Please note, the packs only hold 9 plants, but we’re ordering more than 9 different things just in case something doesn’t germinate very well and we can’t include it in all packs.  Here’s what we’re looking forward to:

Anise Hyssop, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Wild Bergamot, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Lance-Leaf Coreopsis, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

New England Aster, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Brown-Eyed Susan, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Prairie Sage, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Lead Plant, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Little Bluestem Grass, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Blue Wild Indigo, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Leafy Prairie Clover, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Purple Coneflower, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

Butterfly Weed, photo from Prairie Moon Nursery

We are looking forward to a great season and packing boxes for you and your families.  Once again we hope to strike a balance between supplying the staple items (onions, garlic, carrots, broccoli) and longtime favorites (sweet corn, tomatoes, green beans, strawberries) with some interesting and unusual selections to bring a little extra variety to your meals and challenge you, just a bit, to step out of your vegetable comfort zone and experience something new.  You never know, you just might discover a new flavor or vegetable you didn’t even know you liked!

In closing, we would like to share an excerpt from a note we received from a CSA family when they signed up for their second year with our farm.  Here’s what they shared:  “This past year was our first year getting a CSA share and it is not an understatement to say that it has changed our lives.  Thank you for doing what you do!  We love you guys!”  Thank you so much to all of you who send us notes like these.  We hope you understand how meaningful it is for us to read these and we also hope you understand that we think of you as we make our plans, select the varieties and pack your boxes each week.  Cheers to an awesome 2020 CSA season!