As all of you know it has been ridiculously hot and dry for the last 4 summers. Each year is worse than before. This makes it very hard to try to grow anything. Let me back track a little.
As each Spring begins, I'm always hopeful of the upcoming growing season. We plant the trays for the greenhouse in early February. Then when the soil temperatures warm, we plant the seeds and plants in the field. We do this praying and hoping for a bountiful harvest. This is the process of almost all farmers. Otherwise, it would be foolish to do all that work and think, well, I'm doing this for nothing. The heat and draught will kill them. If I thought this way, then I would quit!
But sure, enough we get some rain, too much this year, then BAM the Hot weather is here to stay and no rain in sight. So, we take steps to keep the crops alive and growing. Mainly irrigating every day. We're on a co-op water service. Our water bill is at least $500 and higher every month during the summer. So, water helps the crops to produce. The water also has it downfalls. It's not as good as rain. The animals dying of thrist come in and bite the irrigation lines to get a drink. So we spend a great deal of time and money repairing the lines. We have all sorts of critter repellants deployed all over the farm but they come in anyways.
Next it's time to harvest the crops. We carefully pick each crop, wash them, inspect them, and put them in a cooler to draw the heat out of them. Without cooling them down, they will spoil very quickly. Soaking them in fresh water will pull the heat out as well. We try to harvest everything right before making our farm boxes, but some must be picked when they're ready. They wait for no one, so we pick them, or we'll lose them.
Now it's time to make the Farm Boxes. We always have buckets set out to put any fruit or vegetable that looks questionable. We look at each one and try to catch any bad one, but I know we can miss some. We're not perfect so I know some get by us. If they do get in your box, it's not done to give you something bad. We will make it right if we're made aware of it. We want you to order again. I take it very personally when we get a complaint. I get upset at us for not catching it before it went out.
We get up early to make the boxes and try to have them delivered as fast as possible. But here are some other reasons the fruits and vegetables can be bad. If the box is left out in the sun or heat too long. If the produce is left in the boxes too long. Our boxes don't have vent holes and are only meant for transportation. Please take the produce out of the box and store them under refrigeration. Also, if for example a case of peaches were bought and it's left out for several days before processing. All it takes is for one peach to go bad and every peach that touches the bad one will spoil very quickly. We realize that buying fresh organic produce is expensive and takes a little work to enjoy. Our crops are not gassed or sprayed with anything to have a longer shelf life, unlike what you see in grocery stores.
Please take the time to put up the produce so you can enjoy them. The Hot weather will make our crops a little uglier than what you see in the stores. But one thing about fresh organic produce, it may be ugly but will taste better than what you get in stores. If you want picture perfect produce to look at, go buy a picture and hang it on the wall. But if you want good taste and not sprayed with everything, we have it.
I joke about the heat and ugly crops by saying: You go stand in the field under the hot summer sun all day and see if you don't look rough by the end of the day. It's true, I know because I'm doing it every day!
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