Jun 17, 20212 min read

A Good Problem to Have {Week 6 CSA}

At least 70% of a farmer's world is composed of projections. Between forecasts for harvests, the weather, or weekly markets, endless fluctuations are the only guarantee.

It's what makes farmers either super flexible or perpetually disgruntled. It's also a major reason why farms can so easily fail. But sometimes, it's what makes a farmer smile.

Enter 2021 and our first ever over-production problem. Yep, our crops are too abundant. Too healthy. Too robust and fast this year! We laugh as we talk about it and confront the intense reality it's created (namely, no days off!). You see, as we make our plans for each peak season, our labor assessment is based on our harvest projections. Historically, we've always accounted for an average 25% loss of harvests due to the innumerable challenges they face to make it to the consumer. That might seem high, but from seed to harvest, it's a fairly average figure when considering germination issues, transplanting issues, pest pressure, plant variances, and the looming threats of high country weather.

But this year, so far, that loss has fallen below 10%. It's amazing and daunting all at once. On the one hand, the unexpected bounty is a testament to the soil study Zach ventured into this past winter which greatly improved our soil practices. We started making our own potting mix and amending our beds with a more nuanced understanding of how to support soil microbiology. We stopped pulling up so many roots and began mulching in ways we'd not considered before. The plants responded immediately, both in propagation and production.

On the other hand, being 15% more productive is a big deal when you grow over 500,000 individual plants in peak season. That's tens of thousands more plants to seed, transplant, prune, harvest, and prepare for market. Considering we went through a six-week process to hire our peak season crew, the realization that our farm is looking much more robust from seed to harvest is an ironically challenging one. Spare time is a rarity in peak season, so hiring new employees once it's begun is far from ideal.

Alas, farming is life, so we flex and roll and celebrate and console. This month's jubilee over all the happy crops could easily be replaced by an aggressive hail storm in July. But our experience is that deep acceptance of whatever may come allows solutions to flow more easily. It's also a far more enjoyable way to exist. And indeed, we had a nice guy reach out to us just last week to inquire about helping on the farm. He happens to be doing exactly that this week and we're looking at a real day off as a result. Thanks, universe! :)

Farming is like everything else: a surrendered pursuit of the bounty of life. It's the curiosity and wonder that propels us forward, and fortunately, it seems an endless matrix of beauty awaits our fascination.