Looking Back, Looking Forward... CSA Year End Review and 2021 Sign Ups Coming Soon!

First Looking Back - 2020 CSA in Review!

Every year, we do a CSA wrap up to assess the season and think, “Hey, we should send this to our members!” And then in the bustle of the holidays and travel and seeing family, that grand plan drops by the wayside.

Enter 2020, where we ain’t got nothing but time right now. (Okay, we actually have fairly little time because it’s a busy winter on the farm, but since we aren’t driving halfway across the country and back twice, it feels like more time than normal.) In the midst of all our normal winter thinking and planning and prepping, we wanted to share some of it with you, our great members and customers.

First of all, we really appreciated being farmers this summer.

We generally always like being farmers (at least when we aren’t breaking things or sliding around calf deep mud), but this summer it felt different knowing that growing local food helped folks reduce how much you had to buy elsewhere.

When things are so weird, it’s nice to be a part of the simple, low level excitement of delivering a sweet veggie box, talking recipes with kids newly into cooking, or encouraging folks to try new veggies. We loved the little normality of going to market and dropping off shares, when we got that old school 2019 feel of seeing people you don’t live with, as well as all the excitement of new members doing CSA for the first time, returning members loaded with new ideas, and kids really getting into food.

And despite the cold start of mid-May snow, this year’s weather was as good as it gets for us in Fenner, with tons of sun and heat to catch up all the veggies from their chilly start.

The hot, dry weather was helpful for us to harvest for more CSA members and farmers market customers than ever before. For the CSA, we shared a farm high of about 185 boxes a week, feeding close to 225 CSA households. Over the full year, that was 3500 vegetable boxes where we harvested, washed, and packed 70,000 items of produce.

For small shares, CSA distributions ranged in weekly value from $21 in those chilly first weeks to $36 for the hearty fall boxes, with about a $28.75 weekly average value and 8 items a week.

Large shares ranged in weekly value from $33 in the spring up to $57 at peak tomato (maybe that was too many tomatoes for you all?), with a $45 weekly average value and 12 items a week.

For the mix of veggies in CSA shares, 35% of items were staple summer crops (beans, peas, cukes, zukes, peppers, tomatoes, and the like), 24% root staple crops, and 14% easy salad fixings. 8% were more challenging cooking greens, 10% herbs and interesting stuff, and 9% hard to grow items (not hard to use, but those things that are a stretch for northern farmers nowadays - I’m always proud of any broccoli, melons, or cauliflower that we can make happen!). And look, I learned how to make a chart!

More 2020 CSA Season Gratitude:

• We are so thankful for our returning host sites in Fayetteville and Syracuse, but wanted to add a shout out to the Brenners for joining us to host our Manlius site, especially in such a crazy year.

• We are also happy to have been a little part of Cafe 407 (supporting Ophelia’s Place), dropping off there again this year. They are doing such great work in Liverpool, and while temporarily closed, we are hopeful that they will be able to open again soon!

• We also want to shout out to our stalwart team of Brooke, Rachel, and Angela. Part of what makes each CSA season fun is those we get the chance to work with. While we saw each others’ faces a lot less than in normal years, it didn’t lesson any of their awesomeness.

But most of all, we were especially thankful for you, our members and customers, and everyone’s flexibility adapting to our weird new normal. From social distancing at the farmers market to taking a break from CSA swap baskets and cutting back U-Pick. we appreciate everyone rolling with the changes.

Beyond the CSA, this flexibility carried over to a market that moved sites last minute, launching an online store, working out how to cover potential farmer sick leave, and figuring out how to juggle all these new protocols and technologies. Some things worked out really well, like the new Cazenovia market location (where there’s actually easy parking and space for customers to spread out). Others were a bit harder, like all the technological systems that were straining at the seams with so much ordering going on online.

Looking Forward to CSA 2021…

So at the end of 2020, we are looking forward to this new year and CSA season with a lot more focus and excitement than normal (thanks to having to get organized a lot earlier than in previous winters, and that whole not having anything else to do thing… we had hoped to get lots of skating and cross country skiing in, but nature is preventing that too!).

Our biggest new plans for 2021 are to fully utilize our new greenhouse and high tunnel space. Some of this won’t be visible off the farm (a lot of having the extra space just means things like we no longer have to seed trays outside in the rain or under tents!), but others of these space changes will likely end up on your plates - we hope in particular that the new field tunnel means more early and late season hearty veggie and greens crops! And if we have a cold wet year this summer, it will help us keeping those CSA shares filled with warmth loving veggies. We also will be offering garden plants and veggie (plant) boxes for sale off the farm at a few plant sales this spring!

Along that sales front, we will continue (and hopefully improve) our online sales and market preorder system. It’s been a learning curve, but we really appreciate having the chance to offer veggies in lower contact situations than the market.

Finally, the 2021 CSA…

Most aspects of the 2021 CSA will be similar to past years (that’s the plan at this point), including pickup locations (the farm on Fridays and Saturdays, Cazenovia farmers market on Saturdays, and Fayetteville, Manlius, Syracuse, and Liverpool on Tuesdays). The main summer CSA will be 18 weeks, likely starting the week of June 15th (weather depending), but we will keep the option for folks to get your vacation/makeup shares after the season ends in mid-October. The 2021 UPick garden will be flowers only again this year (okay, we will sneak in a row of cherry tomatoes too), but thanks to Brooke and Rachel, we are diversifying and changing up some of our flower mix to more big focal and filler flowers (dahlias, anyone?) to spice up those bouquets.

2021 CSA signups for returning members go live on Monday, January 4th. For those of you that pre-registered (or emailed me about pre-registering), you are already in the system for having a share, so we’ll be emailing you with a link to confirm that you are still in over the next few weeks. CSA shares will open up to new members starting with folks on the waiting list on our farm dogs’ favorite holiday, February 2nd.

Small shares are $445 for the season (about $24.70/week) and large shares are $660 for the season (about $36.70/week). We just have the one price this year with your returning member discount included in it, since the majority of members are returning (thank you all!!!).

We’ve been struggling a bit with this pricing decision, as we know that it’s a tight time for folks, yet at the same time, we’ve seen our costs rise immensely, so we are trying to price and size the shares so that we keep the farm going.

We’ve been steadily becoming more efficient and minimizing farm costs. What’s been the challenge here is that our biggest expense increase since 2018 is hiring folks, not from increasing the hours worked much (we actually have about the same number of staff working the same hours), but from mandated wage, insurance, and benefit increases. From 2018 to 2021, our overall cost of labor rose 225%, annually increasing an average of 33% a year.

We are NOT complaining about this, because our team has always been great - if it wasn’t for them, the veggies and the CSA could not come together! In this crazy year of 2020, it was a relief to know that our employees are covered not just by workers compensation insurance, but by disability, family medical leave, mandated sick leave, and unemployment insurance. Yet all of those are programs that NY small farms like us were only required to include starting this year (right before Covid, coincidentally).

In many places in the US (California and Florida, I’m looking at you), there are fewer wage and labor laws for food producers, which is a major reason why food imported from outside the NY/New England region can seem so cheap compared with our local food (which is largely produced by workers that earn much closer to a living wage, with mandated benefits to protect them in case something goes wrong). It’s been hard for us to grow as a vegetable farm amid this environment where it’s essentially impossible to compete on store prices, though we know our veggies are better than the store (plus we have the UPick garden, and like you all, are striving to be part of the fabric of delicious eating and keeping our money in the community).

I’m also thankful though, to have much of the moral hazard of risking those who work hard for us mandated away. There is a relief to know that if someone gets hurt on our farm, or sick with Covid, we are able to take care of them. And we are thankful as well for you, our CSA members and customers, who help support us all in this adventure.

Thank you again for your support and for being part of this delicious eating experiment!

We have a wide range of payment options this year, and can set up automated payment plans of any duration (monthly, bi-monthly, weekly - whatever works for you!). And as in past years, you don’t have to pay at sign up (we do anticipate selling out early this winter, so we recommend signing up soon and paying later so you can guarantee a share).

2020 was a crazy year for us, even if being farmers meant it looked on the surface more like “normal.” As we look ahead to our future growth and changes, what’s rising to the top is asking ourselves what we can do here and now to help better provide food for our community across the greater Onondaga/Madison county region? How can we help folks start growing and eating more veggies? And what can we be doing to help make sure this beautiful part of the world stays vibrant long term - adding solar power? Trapping more carbon by our production? Working collaboratively more? As we plan and grow for this next season and CSA and explore options on all these fronts, we’ll keep in touch.

Thank you so much for your support, and we look forward to seeing you this growing season!

Peace, Maryellen and Matt (and don’t let the squirrels win, adds Beulah)

Ch.. ch.. changes: Our First Big Covid Change on the Farm

Farming in 2020 has been weird mostly by not being weird.

Sewing cabbage leaves turned out to be a bit more difficult than expected. Duct tape to the rescue!

The world around us shut down, switched to virtual, masked up, and moved outside, all hugely different from normal. Most farms of our size, however, more or less trucked along like always—still working outside, usually at a distance from others, following food safety rules, and wearing scarfs against sun and cold half the time anyway. On the day to day level, Covid hasn’t changed that many of our physical operations. (Psychologically, yes, but that’s a whole other blog post!)

Harvesting storage carrots before the freeze (and check out that future rhubarb planting!)

Bizarrely, Covid made some aspects of being a small, direct to customer farmer a little better than before.

Kids are way more interested in vegetables and cooking (I am so excited to see what this group of kids cooks up in ten or fifteen years as they start living on their own!). And our customers, like we were ourselves, were a bit shaken at the initial rockiness of our supply chains.

I know that we are more thankful for being farmers (and I’ve been seeing so many of our members, neighbors, and community being thankful for having farmers around).

Sunrise always puts on a show, regardless of what else is going on in the world…

As the 2020 world flails deeper into dumpster fire territory, farming and gardening and growing things, farmers markets where we get together with other humans (distantly in open air), and CSA pickups are like a reminder of normal life, nice things, and good times.

So it’s belated that we have to make our first scary big change around Covid nine months in (because masks and distance and sanitizing aren’t really *big* changes). But we’ve decided not to attend our indoor winters farmers market this year as vendors.

Racing storm clouds to get the last outdoor farmers market harvest in…

First, don’t worry—we are still here and will be back in summer (or in-person at any event that can be held outside, because we are crazy northerners and willing to stand outside and sell veggies in upstate NY in winter!). Our fall/winter Extended CSA is still on, and we have online sales for farm pickup (Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays) and local delivery (Fridays).

And the great winter market is still going on the first and third Saturdays at the Legion in Cazenovia.

Tiller practice as we prep the greenhouse where next March’s harvests will come from…

As customers, we totally will go hit up the market.

It’s just from a vendor’s perspective of staying indoors in close quarters for five hours rather than fifteen minutes, we really had to examine our risk levels and tolerance. It’s one thing to know that you might have some pre-conditions, but another thing when data starts to show that your chances of not surviving Covid are higher than anticipated.

So we are still going to be farming and going to any markets where we can be outside, but are not going inside (except to zip in as a customer). Amid all the changes in so many peoples’ lives, this isn’t really a big thing, but it’s scary for us (because we love and rely on the winter market).

We hope you enjoy your shopping, inside or out, and hope that for local folks, you can check out our online ordering options for farm pickup or local delivery!

More sunrise shows… I can watch these all day!

2020 Wasn’t All Bad (on the Farm)!

I have to confess, most years I don’t blog as much as I want to in the summer because I’m too tired to write. But this year, it was more like I was too down to write, and I didn’t want to take that down-ness out into the world (because in 2020, who needs more of that?).

But I wrote, just keeping the less happy pieces off line, and I’ve been working on pulling them into something more like a look back onto the season. It feels easier to do, after this first round of frosts, when the fields are a little bit quieter, but I’m also a little bit more relaxed and able to breath—the brilliant sun that seems to never quit shining this year (a rarity here!) lightening up the softly turning leaves.

But now that it’s fall, it’s time for a big ole blog dump, starting with the sunshine times, because as in all moments, there were bright spots and joy on the farm…

We kicked off this year with a mid-May snowfall (remember that? Because I sure didn’t until I was looking through my pictures last week!)… Fortunately all those crop covers worked to keep the veggies alive and happy for early CSA shares and markets. And the early season wouldn’t be complete without a mask (or fifty)… the silver lining to making all the masks for our team was to remind me how much I enjoy sewing, and to inspire me to start sewing more farm schwag for next year!

Every year on the farm, more nature seems to pour in, for better or worse sometimes (I’d like to take a hard past on some of the pesky critters!). From rampaging foxes to hard working assassin beetles (good bugs that hunt and kill some of the veggie pests), there was plenty of wildlife to go around (and feed the next generations of bug hunters)!

Per usual up here along the escarpment, Mother Nature put on quite a show in the sky as well! Hands down, this was the sunniest, most pleasant to farm in summer we’ve ever had up here, and despite a shortage of rain, the pond held up well!

No year is complete without a great team, and Brooke, Rachel, and Angela helped us hold down the fort. Beulah was mostly along for comic relief and occasional majestic photo shoots.

But even in this crazy year, the vegetables are at the front of our minds… getting all the deliciousness we can from the fields out to folks’ bellies…

And we planted extra onions, potatoes, beets, carrots, and cabbage for the fall to keep the local food going longer!

And every season farming occurs as one piece in a longer term vision/picture of the farm… even as we harvest this year’s crops, we are working to make the farm more vibrant and healthy and functioning next year, no matter what the end of 2020 or 2021 brings us all! From soil testing and cover cropping, to building new sheds and trialing weed smothering tarps and tons of new varieties, there’s always something exciting going on at the farm!

We've Got a Plan for That

So, in the realm of things I never thought I’d have to write an email or farm post about, global pandemic is pretty high up on that list.

And yet here we all are.

For our CSA members and market customers trying to figure out your future eating, we wanted to let you know our farm plans.

First of all, we are doing a LOT of the things that come naturally to us as vegetable farmers—washing hands, social distancing, and planting all the things.

The greenhouse is up and humming, high tunnel planting started, and we are seeding up a storm, because that’s what farmers do. We all need to eat, and our goal is to do our best to keep providing healthy, delicious food to you, our community.

But like you, we are watching the news, worried about how Covid-19 might impact our older or immune-compromised family and friends, those with underlying health issues, or the many of us with jobs where you can’t work from home or take a leave from. We worry about the cracks showing in our fragile health care system and the household finances affected by the economy.

Yet it’s spring, and so we plant (or in Matt’s case, help Critz Farm make maple syrup).

Having worked before as a farm food safety educator, I sat through a slew of trainings and helped write a lot of farm food risk management plans. One of those trainers (thank you, Betsy!) emphasized that while you hopefully never need an emergency plan, when s#@! goes down, you will be thankful to have thought about it.

All the flats cleaned and ready to start seeding in!

And here we are, digging into that contingency plan:

• Our main focus is to keep on planting on like normal. Our goal as a farm is to grow healthy, delicious, local food, and get it to you, our community and customers, the best that we can, and in the safest manner possible.

• For farmers markets, it’s an evolving situation, but with two months to the start of summer markets, we have time to prepare, both as a farm and as a market. Some of the options we are looking at include: pre-bagging all of the food, taking online orders in advance, having extra folks there so one farmer handles the veggies and the other any money, and of course, a lot more sanitizing and hand washing! We will not be reusing bags, bands, or baskets this year (I know, we really want to cut down on waste, but we also want everything and everyone clean and safe).

• On the CSA front, we have contingency plans for distributions, depending upon how things look by summer. In the ultra-worst case scenario, we plan to deliver pre-bagged shares to porches/garages/etc, if folks are stuck in their homes. We haven’t worked out all the logistics on this because we really, really, REALLY don’t want things to get to that point in the world, but home delivery is on the table if needed. In the less than worse case scenarios, we will have lots of hand washing facilities at the pickup sites and around the farm.

• We also always build a buffer of a few weeks at the end of every season in case of bad weather. If things are unsettled because of Covid-19 all summer, this buffer will let folks take a week or two off the CSA when you have your hands full at home, and then make it up at the end of the season or into the fall. Likewise, if we have sick employees or are sick ourselves, this buffer allows us to stop distribution for a week or two until we are back at full health on the farm, and make up those shares in the fall. Again, we haven’t fully figured out the logistics of managing this, but we wanted to let you know that we are working on building in a bit more flexibility to the shares.

• Finally, we understand that there’s a lot of economic anxiety going on, and we have explored recurring payment options. For CSA, the idea of committing to a whole season helps us farmers manage our plantings and cash flow. But we totally understand the hesitancy folks might have to commit to a long-term relationship with a CSA veggie box right now when you aren’t sure what the future might bring. We do have the capacity to set up automatic monthly and bi-monthly payment plans that can help give your household a bit more financial mobility.

Yes, you’re nervous and we are nervous, and we hope we don’t need to dig into these plans. But we also all need to eat, so we will keep doing what we do best—growing healthy veggies, washing our hands a lot, and getting our farm’s bounty to you!

With peace and hope, Maryellen, Matt, and Hartwood Farm