Hello Cedar Down Farm members,
We hope you are all doing well out there and managing during all that is going on right now. We’ve been thinking of you all and wanted to send you an update of what’s been going on at the farm and touch on some of what we are thinking around adapting to COVID-19 measures.
Firstly, your veggies are already growing! Seeds have been seeded and transplants put into the ground for spring shares. We are well on our way towards the summer growing season with onions, celery, parsley, thyme and other things sprouting in our propagation greenhouse (see below in the top right corner) and many plants already up and running in the ground for spring harvest.
Lettuce, kale, chard, spinach, radishes, green garlic, bok choy, arugula and many more yummy things are growing nicely. We’re in and out of the hoophouses and propagation house all the time now, checking on crops, ventilating the houses, weeding, irrigating and continuing to seed and plant. It’s a fairly quiet time of year before staff has arrived and between delivery seasons and it’s nice to have some down time to start really getting things ready for the upcoming season.
Happily, we have hired an incredible team of staff this year, including our returning superstar Jess and new team members Connor and Amanda. They will be arriving between April and May and we’re really excited to be working with them this season. We’re back on board with all of our seasonal shares – spring, summer and winter – and are nearly sold out of all of them. We’re grateful for all of these things and are glad to be back in the soil, getting crops in the ground to feed our members.
And that’s all the normal stuff: observing the changing of the seasons, enjoying flowers beginning to peek out of the ground, watching the return of the red-wing blackbirds, putting in the seeds that will turn into the food that will nourish us over the next many months.
And then there’s the other stuff. We’ve been thinking about the implications of the current situation on the functioning of our farm and our farmshare pickups. We have been communicating within our farm community to brainstorm best practices for ensuring the heath and safety of our members at pickups and to be sure that anyone who cannot come out to pickups will still get their food.
For our upcoming spring shares, we will be sending out information soon on how we will be altering the pickup scheme to accommodate social distancing measures and we will be monitoring the situation as we move towards summer and will let you know what changes we will be making as the situation becomes clear for the summer months. No matter what, we will be be vigilante on the farm with best sanitation practices and we will ensure you get your shares in a safe and responsible way.
For spring share members, we are still planning on beginning deliveries on the week of April 13 and will be in touch before then to confirm the start date and with further info. For all of our members, we’ll be sending more farm updates throughout the coming weeks. Hopefully you are all able to get out and enjoy what sunny days there are and take in the arrival of spring. We wish you all good health and look forward to seeing you soon!
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