CSA Newsletter #22
Well folks, another CSA season has come to a close at the TC3 Farm. I can't thank you all enough for supporting the farm, myself and especially the student interns. This was a particularly challenging year with only two interns in each of the semesters of the season but it was an extremely valuable experience for them, as they persevered throughout. The reoccurring theme this year was dealing with adversity It was consistently handled with positivity by everyone, which is not an easy thing to do. I really appreciated how hard the students worked each and every time that they were out on the farm. This definitely was a year with more failures than successes for us but we still managed to produce a good amount of food using only a fraction of the land that we had available to us. The crop plan that we worked on in the spring semester was ambitious for such a small crew and we really made the most of what we could. There were lots of new varieties trialed this season with some definite keepers. We also trialed some new growing techniques. We successfully isolated fruit from a few pepper plants so that we could save seed for the next couple of years. And let's not forget 14 weeks of tomatoes!
We continued with our fall cleanup projects in the last week, with an emphasis on cleaning up in and around the greenhouse. All the beds in the greenhouse have been cleared out except for a beds worth of peppers. We are actually going to be planting those beds in the next couple of weeks, so some broadforking was done to prep them. We are going to take some cuttings from our currant and elderberries and overwinter them in a bed before potting them for sale next year. A bed or two will be planted with carrots. They won't be ready until next spring. Even though the days are getting shorter, we will grow some fast growing greens for Coltivare, as well. Some additional sprucing happened when we got all the extra seedling flats back into the barn and cleaned up outside where we keep all of our seedlings before planting/selling. And while the 2022 season comes to a close, we will actually start thinking about 2023. One of the biggest jobs that we will need to do is to inventory our seed and conduct germination tests on varieties as needed. Each crop that we grow has a different seed viability and we try to buy a few years worth of seed at a time. If a variety meets a certain criteria, we have to test the germination to see if the seed is still good or not. We will also evaluate the new varieties that we trialed this year to see if we want to continue growing them in the future.
As mentioned earlier, tomatoes were a success this year and they will be in the final choice of the season. There will also be a greens mix, cabbage, hot peppers, hakurei turnips (no tops), fennel and the 3 different powders. There will also be two new items this week that we are trialing. There will be TC3 Farm garlic powder and a TC3 Farm spicy salt blend. There will be at least two salt blends, one with jalapeno and the other with habanero.
Thank you all again! Have a great rest of your fall, semester, etc.!
-Farmer Todd