Here is a quick mid-season review and what a season it’s been so far!

The Wins

• Sold-out VegBox CSA program in our first year (equivalent of 70 weekly customers)
• Successful 1st round of community-financing ($32,500 raised)
• Great support from friends and family in the form of financial investments, participation in work parties, electrical repairs, branding and sign making, editing, food-processing, general repairs and plumbing.
• No serious fights between David, Lise-Anne, and I. (Don’t forget, we run this farm together while also being housemates!)

The Challenges

• A bit of a rushed start to planting this spring because of all the other things we need to do to get a business off the ground! That’s why our tomatoes are a little late…  (read more in our spring update)
• Deer disregarding our fence and making a buffet of the vegetables
• Difficulty keeping crops sufficiently irrigated due to a drought-like early summer, combined with a late arrival of the irrigation well pump
• Flooding in the vegetable field once the torrential rains arrived, due to the sheer volume of water and to the agricultural drainage installation being delayed 1 year until this fall

Our Resolve

With all the challenges thrown our way this season, it’s impossible to follow the plan for what vegetables our CSA members will receive each week. We’ve suffered enough crop losses that in order to meet our commitment to them, we’ve had to adjust the crop plan.

We plan to make up for that in the following ways:

• We potted up basil plants to share in the joy (and challenges!) of taking care of their own.
• This week we are bringing lettuce from Roots and Shoots: another rad small-scale, Ottawa-area, certified-organic vegetable farm.
• In the nick of time, we planted extra fall crops and plan to give some extra big portions in October.
• We’ve added microgreens to our regular offering

See you soon!

Jeremy Colbeck
Worker-Owner