CSA share December - Many of these crops were sown in September!!!

We started our first CSA exactly 11 years ago this week!

We magnified our home garden which provided our family all of our vegetable needs to providing a box of diverse vegetables each week to CSA members who committed for the season. We did not start with farmers markets nor wholesale. We just jumped in to the model we felt offered the best direct connection between farmer, farm and community.

How did we consistently provide 8-18 items each week?

Peter had been keeping notes of our home garden throughout our first years on this new land. Those records and records from each subsequent CSA season provided us the framework from which we built each unique key harvest.

Key Information to Record for Future Success

Cultivar Name - Cultivars matter so do write more then ‘Red Capsicum’ or ‘Green Cabbage’
Sowing Date
Soil Preparation - Including which green manure crops preceded, soil additives, and how it was readied
Transplanting Date
Weather Reflections each week - High/Low temperatures, lots of rain, no rain, gale force winds, frost, unusual weather events (such as 5 straight days of above 40C)
Pest and/or Disease Pressure and general notes on how happy the plants were
First harvest date
Thoughts on flavour and usability
Thoughts on yield
Notes about spacing (perfect, needs more/less next season and what the ideal might be)
Who is a KEEPER and why

Through these notes, we had records of what was thriving here, in this unique place, in this unique soil, in each unique season!

And after a few seasons, we could begin to see patterns in how cultivars performed and their optimum conditions. This helped us to feel confident that despite the unpredictability of weather, we had covered the bases to ensure a consistent harvest.

Only YOU can provide yourself with this information! Trust yourself and your observations about what is working in your patch!!