5th Week of the Spring CSA season: Week of April 3rd

Mar 30

*kale forest with a chickweed understory, photo by Adam Ford*

This Week’s Availability

This week we will have garlic, green cabbage, yellow potatoes, carrots, beets, yellow onions, daikon radishes, Gilfeather turnip, rutabaga, claytonia, mesclun mix, green curly kale, baby kale mix, rainbow chard, spinach, and baby lettuce.

Click here to order your veggies for a delivered bag to Ludlow or Rutland

*peaking in at harvest on a snowy day, photo by Adam Ford*

Farm News

More seeds in trays, more larger plants getting potted up, more weeding in the tunnels, and some excellent cleaning and organizing projects in the barn… It’s been a full week! We have a highly busy work zone outside of one of our coolers that is the center of order and wholesale management and packing. Over the years how we use it has evolved, and it hasn’t been updated since we dropped markets, expanded the CSA membership, and offered the packed bags for delivery. So that space has been overdue for being redone. I wish we took a before picture that had all the supplies and stuff on the shelves before we took it all off. But there are pictures below of the empty space before, and the simple changes made after. It gives us more space to flow, and pack out various orders at the same time. It’s these little improvements—and all the associated decluttering and reorganization—that really make us smile around here.

This week Ryan spent some time talking with other farmers, and one of our state senators, about bill H.81, the Right To Repair bill that is currently stuck in the Senate Ag Committee, despite passing the house in a 137-2 vote. The short explanation is this bill would require equipment companies to provide diagnostic equipment and repair information to a farmer (or anyone), at a reasonable cost, so that farmers can either repair equipment they own or hire a 3rd party mechanic to make that repair. Mostly, this issue hasn’t yet been a big problem for Vermont farmers in our network. However, it’s likely that the future of most new equipment will integrate more software that would require access to specialized diagnostic equipment to make changes or repairs. One potential consequence of not passing this bill is that it would force farmers to limit their future machine purchases to older, used models so that they can maintain their ability to make repairs without being required to seek repair, diagnosis, or even simply clear a computer code through a dealership. Currently our senator on the Ag Committee has the perspective that the legislature should pass laws to fix existing problems, rather than pass legislation to reduce the likelihood of potential future problems. So we are hoping with enough outreach from the farm community directly to the Senate Ag Committee, this bill can advance through the committee and have an opportunity to be voted on by the full Senate, where it likely pass by an overwhelming margin as it did in the House. Passing this bill would make Vermont a leader for expanding Right to Repair bill access in other states where this issue is already playing out as a burden for farmers, many of whom already have extremely limited options selling into wholesale or commodity markets. (Colorado has already passed a similar bill.) If you live in Rutland county, and calling your representative is your thing, you can email Brian Collamore at bcollamore@leg.state.vt.us and tell him that your farmers (and you too?) want this legislation to pass. While Brian comes at this issue from a different starting place than we do, we have appreciated his willingness to listen to our perspective, and with enough voices of support I’m hopeful that he may see this as a bill that the agricultural community really does want.

I am busy with the less exciting, invisible, but somewhat important project of overhauling our website this week. It hasn’t really been overhauled in awhile, and the website seems to be the way so many new members (maybe you!) learn about our CSA program: why it’s cool, how it works, and how to sign up. After several years it’s time for us to make it a little more streamlined and effective.

Meanwhile, various new plantings keep slowly growing in the tunnels… hopefully by next week we will have the first cuttings of some baby arugula and pea shoots!

Have a great week,

-ESF Team: Ryan, Kara, K2, Cindy, Galen, Katie, and Taylor (and Sky and Soraya)

Weekly Recipe

Ukranian-inspired spinach soup