May 4, 2021- The CSA Main Season Begins!

Welcome to the start of the 2021 CSA main season!

 The farm is in full swing now.  I always tell everyone that there is no month as busy as the month of May for us on the farm.  I work hard to orchestrate all the summer plantings to fit in around the big harvest days.  Thus far we are on schedule which is a miracle.  I am hoping we can get back into the fields later this week to plant the winter squash, melons and all the peppers and eggplant for later in the summer.  Right now, we are harvesting from the early spring plantings in the hoophouses and the fields.  So many beautiful greens and roots are coming in right now, but we are also able to spoil you with warmer season crops from our heated greenhouse.  The heated greenhouse full of tomatoes has just started ripening and you will see these in your box this week along with the early crop of cucumbers.  The strawberries are delicious right now- we raced to harvest those before the torrential rains Monday morning.  We were very grateful to have a window just long enough to get them out of the field as the rain ruins them.

I thought I would share with you who works on the farm for this first newsletter to give you an idea of who and what it takes to bring your veggies to you each week.  We have a great farm crew as always and I am incredibly grateful to all of them.  Our year-round crew continues to operate at breakneck speed- I am continually marveling at their efficiency and hard work.  We laugh sometimes at the things we did in the past and appreciate each year the small changes we make to make the farm run more smoothly and efficiently.  I only have enough time in January and February to examine our systems on the farm and make adjustments because it seems that once March rolls around we start racing to keep up with everything again.  

Our year-round crew is comprised of:

The Field Crew- Adan, Wilbert, Orlando, Ivan and Torivio- they do a lot of bed prep, harvest, root crop washing and bunching, tomato work, trellising, irrigation, and a lot of planting    

The Packing House crew- Yenni & Rosa- they do the majority of the greens washing as well as all the packing for CSA, market and restaurants; they harvest all the arugula, herbs and microgreens; additionally they do all the greenhouse propagation and a lot of planting

CSA manager- Cory- he coordinates with all of you and packs your veggie bags on Tuesdays; he runs our Saturday farmers market; he keeps up with a lot of the tractor work and maintenance and he fills in wherever needed on harvest days

Flower manager- Molly- she spends the bulk of her time harvesting and arranging flower; she runs our market stand on Saturdays and does our main restaurant delivery route on Wednesdays

Farm Manager (Me)- Celia- I spend a lot of time trying to stay ahead of the crew with planting, work and harvest lists; I plan what goes in your box each week and organize sales through our various outlets; I harvest certain crops like head lettuce whenever I can; I sort a lot of tomatoes; I deal with the not so glamourous side of the business like all the crop plan, bookkeeping, organic certification paperwork and payroll; and I deal with putting out a lot of “fires” (or planning how to avoid them if I can)

Joining us for the summer:

Weeding and fruit-picking crew- Jesus and India- they get to all the jobs the year-round crew cannot get to once the main season gets into full swing and this tends to be the hand-weeding and fruit picking.

Flower assistant- Sophie- she is joining us from UGA this summer and will assist Molly with the flowers and of course plug in on every level when we need extra hands

The 2021 season feels like it is off to a good start and we hope it stays this way.  Woodland Gardens is entering its’ 21st year of organic vegetable production and while we have figured some things out, Mother Nature still has control of a lot of what impacts our success so there is always a certain amount out of control.  This is what keeps farming interesting for me as I learn to adapt to the constant changes and challenges presented to us.

Thank you all for joining the CSA program this year and supporting our farm and farm workers!  Celia