Core Meeting with the Farmers

Several of the CSA Core members — those of us who help to organize the CSA — were able to meet with Farmer Julia earlier this month to go over our survey responses and to start making plans for 2011.

Farmers Heather and Julia from Woodbridge Farm.

Farmer Heather also joined us — she's been working at Woodbridge Farm for two years and will be taking on a greater role next year growing the vegetables while Julia hopes to spend more time overseeing the general health of the farm and problem solving specific issues.

They'll be working with a program this year called the Real Food Campaign which will provide scientific analysis of their soil and veggies to help the farmers produce high vitamin and mineral content food. The analysis will tell them what nutrients they need to add to the soil, with the goal of improving the quality of their crops.

Last year's irrigation problem put on a strain on their entire crop. Julia and Dave rented a field from a nearby farmer, who told them that when he used to farm those fields, he used the pond on his land for irrigation. Unknown to all, the pond had filled in with sediment quite a lot since then, so they found themselves to be basically pumping mud at some point, and had already done quite a lot of damage to the crop by the time the problem was discovered. They tried to salvage what they could, but as we know, results were poor. The difficulty of managing this second farm impacted their ability to keep their own land maintained, and the overall crop suffered greatly.

The solution for 2011 is quite simple: they will not be renting the extra field this year. In addition to the water problem, it stretched their labor resources too far to have to go off site on a regular basis. Their own land has a very deep well with which they have had no problems, and they are adding a drip tape irrigation system to their fields. Overall, their hope is that refocusing on less land will bring a better yield overall and bigger and more nutritious vegetables.

The other major problem from 2010 that we were able to discuss was the many late deliveries. Julia acknowledged that some staffing issues on the farm made for their Tuesdays inefficient, and expressed confidence that this year's hires would be better at simply getting the truck packed in time for Dave to make the long trip to New York. We made it clear that we are very reluctant to start distribution any later than 5:00 since there are several CSA members for whom even 5:00 is already too late.

We did agree to create a better system for informing all members when traffic unavoidably delays Dave's arrival, including a way to get shares to members who are unable to come back to distribution. And Julia agreed that she could get someone at the farm to email us the share breakdown before Dave shows up so that the whiteboard and labels for the veg bins can be setup in advance, allowing distribution to start much faster once Dave does arrive.

Finally, we agreed that there needs to be a better effort all around to communicate farm issues to the CSA members. Julia's emails are often very informative, but we get too few of them during the season. But also, when Julia sent the core an email last summer about their irrigation problem, the Core members did not do a good enough job getting that information out to our members. We'll be using the website more, sending more emails to members, and the farm will get more information to us (possibly with their own Facebook page).

We'll have an update from Julia in January about what crops they plan on growing in 2011 — they are already planting in the greenhouse.

Finally, a bit of cheese news: cheese will continue to be a similar (small) number of varieties, that's just all they're set up for right now. We'll make sure to get better descriptions of those cheeses, though, so everyone knows exactly what they're eating.

Thank You from Breezy Hill Orchard

We got this nice letter from our fruit & egg (& pasta) farmer and wanted to share it with you:

Dear CSA Members,

We at Breezy Hill Orchard, Stone Ridge Orchard and Knoll Krest Farm would like to thank you for an incredible 2010 season. For five and a half months we brought you a selection of the best fruit, eggs, and pasta we had to offer. Your early support enabled us to invest in the vital staffing and equipment that kept us going strong at the beginning of the year. Without your support, the seeds could not be planted and the trees could not be pruned. In exchange we worked week after week to provide a variety of top quality fruit, eggs and pasta and to ensure a smooth delivery. We hope you could taste the result of our great effort in the shares you received every week. Like most years, we faced a few challenges in 2010 including an early frost and a summer drought. With trickle irrigation we persevered. Your continued membership can help us with the challenges we will surely face in 2011.

For the 2011 season, our determination to provide the highest quality product and customer service is even greater. Now that we have completed our sophomore year serving CSAs, our operation will only become more efficient. We'd like for you to join us in our third year of providing fruit, eggs, and pasta to CSA members. Seasonal, local fruit is a healthy part of any diet, and it’s our honor to share it with you. CSAs are a great way to ensure that local farms have a future in New York State, and the most important part of the CSA is your individual memberships.

Along with two years serving CSAs, Breezy Hill Orchard and Stone Ridge Orchard are Eco Apple certified for two years running. The health of our customers, the health of our land, and our own health are the top priorities in our decision making process. Through the Eco Apple program, our environment can continue to be healthy and strong for years to come.

In addition to our many farmers’ market locations, we are excited to announce a new store front location at La Marqueta in East Harlem. With the office space that this store front provides, our NYC based coordinator will improve communication and coordination with CSAs. In addition, this space provides a potential site for a CSA distribution. We have also opened a new store front in our own backyard in the village of Rhinebeck, NY. So if you find yourself in East Harlem or Rhinebeck, please stop by and visit us.

CSAs have become one of the cornerstones of Breezy Hill Orchard's success, and we owe it all to you. This year many CSA members made it up to the farm, and next year we hope to see each and every member come to see where their fruit grows. So as we celebrate the New Year, please renew your CSA membership. Say yes to local business, say yes to healthy eating, and say yes to sustainable farming practices. With that yes comes months of high quality food delivered directly to your neighborhood. We'd love to work with you again.

Best wishes during the holiday season, and Happy New Year!

Elizabeth Ryan, Anne Diaz-Matos, Stephen Burgess, and Everyone at Breezy Hill

More Survey Results

During the season, core members on duty at distribution get lots of feedback from members about which vegetables they're glad to get and which ones they'd be happy to never see again.

It's hard to take all that in anecdotally and give back to our farmers in some meaningful way. So the end of season survey offers us a chance to see much more broadly how members felt about the vegetable selection over the course of the season. We're sharing this data with Julia and David, and thought you might be interested to see the results as well: