Hi folks,
Hope you’re all having a good week. Fall is almost upon us – officially it starts Friday – but it sure has felt like it’s already here. We had 37 degrees one recent morning. The crops have all crawled nearly to a halt due to the cold weather, even though we haven’t had a freeze and, frankly, we’re just ready for a change of seasons!
Picnic
The CSA picnic in Kalorama Park last week was fun, although the weather didn’t cooperate very well. It was cloudy and drizzled a bit, but not enough to drive us away. Thanks to Carol, Michelle and Dana for organizing it, and thanks to those of you who came out.
Our flood survival plan
We have now had the opportunity to do a more complete assessment of the damage to our crops as a result of the recent flood. (No buildings or structures were damaged.) My best estimate is that we lost $6000-8000 worth of winter squash (100%), $2000-3000 worth of potatoes (50%), and another $500-1000 worth of miscellaneous crops that were in the fields that flooded, making a total of $8500-12000 of lost crops. Those kinds of numbers are very significant for a small farm like ours, representing a sizable percentage of our total production. Also, while we will receive no income from those crops, we incurred all of the expense of their production, from seeding to planting to cultivation to irrigation, making the loss even harder to bear. While we are not in imminent danger of financial ruin – remember we get a significant amount of our produce from other farms and thus can continue to fill your orders – we will definitely feel the effects of that kind of loss. As we still have other crops in our upper fields and high tunnels, and most of what was lost were storage crops, the effects will likely start within a few weeks, once our other crops have dwindled and it becomes “storage crop” season.
At market and afterward last Saturday, many of you seemed quite concerned about us and our sustainability as your CSA farm. During several different discussions a number of you offered possible ways that you, as CSA members, might contribute to get us through this loss. Ideas included setting up a fund for donations, establishing an annual fee that would go to cover such losses (which will inevitably occur again in the future), or even adding a fee to each order to help cover our expenses. All of these ideas have merit, but also have some negatives associated with them.
Chris and I are uncomfortable with the charity option, at least for this type of loss. If our home had been destroyed I’m sure we would think differently. The ideas of charging some regular fees to CSA members would be unfair in that our outdoor market customers would be completely uninvolved, and there would be other unfairnesses within the CSA depending on the type (high volume/low volume, frequent/infrequent orderer) of CSA member you were. Chris and I have come up with another option which we have worked on for several days now.
We feel that if we raise our prices by about 5%, we could then take 5% of our weekly sales and put them in a special account reserved specifically for emergencies such as this one. After the flood losses are covered, we would start building for the next emergency, whether flood, pestilence, medical or whatever, so that we might be better prepared than we are now. We live pretty much hand to mouth in this business (no pun intended) and have never made enough money to save up against such contingencies. But as we get older we realize there is more to economic sustainability than a thriving CSA, and we are no longer comfortable with the risks we took when starting out. In fact, this year we have finally acquired medical insurance coverage (with its associated high monthly premiums).
The advantage of going with pricing to address this issue is that it effects all customers (CSA and market) and effects them proportionally to what they buy, thus seeming more inherently fair in our minds.
While we could have simply added 5% to each of our current prices, I wanted to know what was really going on with our prices (which I often don’t take time to analyze during the growing season). What I found was interesting. Compared to the same week five years ago, half of our prices were higher, while half were the same or lower than five years ago! And over time there were some items that didn’t really follow along with the general rise in prices, whether out of tradition or just my hesitance to raise prices for fear I’ll alienate people and lose customers. So I went over our entire list, looked at every item, and came up with a somewhat revised price list. Most produce is just 5% higher than it had been. In addition, we’re getting more produce from Tuscarora Co-op this week, and it is usually more expensive than other local produce. A few items, like glass jars and cheese, were significantly behind the times in prices as I hadn’t noticed how the prices I pay had gone up. Some of those items took a larger than 5% jump to catch up to where they “should” be.
While we’re sure you aren’t anxious to see your food prices go up, we hear that you like what we do, and if we are to remain a sustainable business we need to remain profitable. I would rather tell you that we are raising prices than that we cannot pay our bills and have to quit farming. Hope you understand and agree! We would be interested in your feedback, but are going ahead with the price adjustments immediately.
[Photo: Flood survivors; paper lantern chiles.]
Produce list.
- Fruit: Apples (Fuji, Gala, Honey Crisp, Jonathan).
- Greens: arugula, bok choy, baby rainbow chard, cooking greens mix, cress, lettuce, Lacinato kale, microgreens mix, salad mix.
- Veggies: beans (green & Romano), beets (bunched & roots), broccoli, carrots, sweet corn, cucumbers (English hothouse), eggplant (Asian & Italian), garlic, onions, peppers (green, Jalapeno, Paper Lantern, mixed chiles), new potatoes, rhubarb, shallots, sorrel soup pack (now classed as a vegetable!), sweet potatoes, tomatillos, tomatoes (heirlooms, standards, green fryers, plum & 1/2 pt. cherry), butternut squash, zucchini.
- Mushrooms: No mushrooms until October.
- Herbs: basil, chives, cilantro, lovage, parsley, peppermint, rosemary, sage, savory (summer, winter), sorrel, spearmint, stevia, thyme. Herb
- Herb sampler pack this week: parsley, thyme, winter savory.
- Other food items: eggs, cheese, preserves. (New are goat demi-sec and ash logs.)
Harvest Box contents
This week’s box contents are planned to be green kale, broccoli, 1/2 lb. of green beans, carrots, garlic, onion, a green bell pepper, a pound of smaller new potatoes, a small bunch of dill and 2 Honey Crisp apples.
CSA volunteers
Many thanks to Katie, Emily, Eleanor and Rob for their help handing out orders at the truck last week. We really appreciate it!
Thanks much for your support!
Randy, Chris & all at Star Hollow Farm
General farm info: starhollowfarm.com.
CSA-specific info: starhollowfarm.com/csa.
Online CSA store: store.starhollowfarm.com.
![[Star Hollow Farm logo]](http://static.tumblr.com/r7xthzz/MNOl68t1c/shf-logo-md-lt.gif){kind=logo}
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