I definitely have a surplus of tomatoes right now. It took me the better part of the afternoon to pick them all yesterday. I decided to try selling some of them at the road by our place. We get a decent amount of commuter traffic so we’ll see how this works out. I don’t have time to go to the second market this week which would also sell a large amount of these.
In this past Mondays share (I think #13) was the following: 3 melons, onions, garlic, tomatillos (used in mexican salsa verde) + hot pepper, tomatoes, ground cherries, sweet peppers, acorn squash, lettuce, beets, carrots, broccoli, 1 zucchini and 1 cucumber. The last two are pretty much done in the garden. It’s definitely the biggest share so far and the quantity might be overwhelming for some. The upside is that many of the items will store for quite a long time. The acorn squash will last probably a month at room temperature, if not more. The carrots and beets can last a month in the fridge or more if kept moist (keep in a plastic bag or veggie drawer). The tomatillos last surprisingly long although I’m not entirely sure of the best way to keep them. I think they’ll ripen further at room temperature. The onions and garlic will last all winter if kept cool and dry-ish. Any not so ripe tomatoes can sit around on the counter for a week or more. The rest of the stuff is probably best consumed in a week. The melons are pretty ripe for the most part, especially the cantaloupe which I think I’ve just figure out how to harvest properly. I’ve been harvesting them too ripe, but I’ve been practicing looking for the “slipping” of the melons and I think I can see what’s going on.
The melon plants are pretty much finished now, so there won’t be too many more to come. I have 3 boxes full of melons that I will take to the market tomorrow to see if I can get something for them. I’m really not sure what to charge for them though. I also think I have a bunch of ripe watermelons but I have no idea how to tell besides eating them.
One final note to any shareholders still reading this: I probably won’t be giving too many ground cherries in the shares from now on. They are a lot of work to pick! You are however welcome to come and scrounge as many as you like. There are lots of them but they can be hard to find. We also have a lot of cut-flowers that you are free to make bouquets out of. Here is a picture of my son making the ground cherry harvest look like a breeze! Note: Those are jerusalem artichokes towering at 10+ feet in the background.
Jeff Says:
September 14th, 2008 at 3:16 amVisit Jeff
Chris —
First, I’d like to say thank you for sharing your experiences in this blog. I happened upon it by serendipity in the spring and I’ve been checking in every couple of weeks to see how it’s going. It’s been really neat to read about what’s gone well, what hasn’t, your thought process and gardening techniques. I’ve learned a lot.
I live in southern New Hampshire (US), also in zone 5, so a lot of your growing experiences translate directly. (We usually get your weather, just a day or two later.) I’ve been scaling up our home garden and have thoughts of market gardening somewhere down the road, so your experience has been inspiring. I’ve also been thinking a lot about jumping the track from software guy to baker, so it’s also been inspiring to see someone change careers to produce food. That takes courage and confidence, especially with a family. Hats off.
So, after that long and rambling thank-you, I do have a comment relevant to this post: This year we also joined a local first-year CSA here in NH. We have a farm-stand style pick up rather than a fixed box, and it seems to be fairly self-regulating, everyone taking what they can use. Most of the crops have a sign with an upper limit per share. One thing they’ve done with some crops that are time-consuming to harvest (beans, cherry tomatoes, hot peppers, etc) is pick a limited number per share with a no limit PYO on pick-up day. It seems to work well — on days when I have time I pick extra to freeze, but most of the time folks only pick 1-2 meals worth. I think it’s a good way to spend harvest time wisely and get members involved, too.
Anyhoo, thanks again,
Jeff
Chris DeVries Says:
September 14th, 2008 at 2:14 pmVisit Chris DeVries
Jeff,
Thanks for the comments. The main reason I did the blog was because I had found the forums and blogs that others had put together so useful myself in the last few years.
It’s funny you mention the box pickup idea. I was just thinking of that myself. It would save a bunch of work to have the shareholders put the boxes together themselves. I wondered how something like that would work. I would worry maybe that the last customer to come for pickup would get the dregs of the veggies. Have you found that to be the case? It’s a very interesting idea. I had also planned on doing the PYO extras idea this year, but it didn’t really pan out with a couple exceptions. It’s something I’d like to expand in the future.
Chris
Jeff Says:
September 15th, 2008 at 4:02 amVisit Jeff
Chris –
I’ve not found that to be the case (dregs), even with a late pick up. The CSA we joined (Holland Farm CSA) is a pretty good size — around 90 members total, with two pick-up days (about two-thirds of the members pick up on Wednesdays, the rest on Saturdays). They also run a farm stand a few other days of the week with the surplus. While obviously they deal with more members, maybe their basic stocking strategies could work for you as well. Here’s what I’ve seen:
I notice that on pickup days they don’t put everything out all at once, they harvest throughout the day as needed and hold some out back to put out later in the day so that everyone gets a reasonable selection. Being their first year (although they had prior farming experience), it took them a few weeks to get the balance right. Also, now that production has picked up, they “grade” some things, for example, tomatoes: They are sorted into two bins, those in top shape and those that are good enough for cooking/canning. For a full share, the weekly pick-up guideline is 5-6 regular tomatoes and whatever you could use from the cooking/utility bin. Similar for zucchini — an upper limit on right-sized ones, as many as you could stand from the monster bin. Upper limits change week to week, for example peppers started out at the beginning of the season as “Take 1-2″ then to “3-4″ up to “8″ and now back down to “Take 2.”
One of the hardest things I find as a customer is to balance using all the veggies before they go bad, figuring out what lasts longer and how to store it, and how to quickly freeze or dry the rest to keep for later. Picking my own box has helped me regulate that too. All things I’m having to learn while breaking the “more at the store” habit.
Jeff