Hi Everyone,
1. It is time to sign up for Fall CSA
If you know all about our Fall (and other "off-season" CSA Sessions), all you need to know is that it's time to sign up and that our prices for the off-season Sessions have gone up a smidge--$25 total spread over the six-week sessions. The increase in price is to cover both the increase costs of fuel and costs of (quality) food. For those of you who don't quite know how the "off season" works, here's a brief explanation of our CSA Sessions that occur between the end of October and mid-June of next year when we start our 2008 Summer Session.
We offer four, short (six-week) off-season Sessions. By "off-season" we mean that they are offered during the time of year that is outside our growing season. These Sessions are: Fall Session (six weeks starting with the first Wednesday in November), Winter Session (six weeks starting with the first Wednesday in February), Early Spring Session (six weeks starting in mid-March), and Late Spring Session (six weeks starting about May 1st). You can sign up for any one of these Sessions, any two of these Sessions, any three of these Sessions, or for all four. Registration is available on-line and is quick and easy.
You probably know that our belief is that "when we can eat locally, we should eat locally." Unfortunately, we can't grow enough food to supply the diversity of needs of most people (ourselves included) during our off-season. So, during those times we purchase produce to supplement what we can distribute from our own farm. Our priorities in filling our off-season shares are these:
Because of the ever-present threat of flooding during our off-season, we do not have on-farm pick-up during our off-season Sessions. We deliver to depots throughout the Eastside and Seattle areas. The cost of the off-season Session is $225 for a full share and $175 for a "three-quarter" share box.
You may both sign up and pay on-line. Our web page for sign-ups is www.jubileefarm.org. You may also contact us if you have further questions.
2. Why sign up now for next Summer?
This October, as we have each October for the past twelve years, we will be taking registrations for the following Summer's CSA. That's right, we are asking you now to register and make a deposit for the twenty week, 2008 Summer Session. Why do we ask you to do that now?
There are several reasons, but the single most important reason is this. The 2008 season for you, our members, will "start" in mid-June when you come in to pick up your first produce, or when you get your first box of 100% Jubilee Farm produce. But it doesn't start in mid-June for us. To be ready for those first boxes in June and for subsequent boxes each week until the end of October, we are planning throughout the winter. Our seed orders are mailed off in January. We start tomato plants in the end of February. In March the crew assembles and begins the laborious task of nurturing another season of produce into existence. April and May are extremely busy months and by the time we actually get to distributing that first box, we are nearing the "half-way" point of our season - and, this is the point in all this - beyond the half-way point in terms of our season's expenses. We can't put off those expenses until mid-June, and in bearing the cost of gearing up each year we make a very significant commitment to our members. In asking our members to sign up and make a deposit for the next season in October, we are asking you, our members, to make a commitment to us. The deposit helps us considerably in spring start-up costs. But equally important is the commitment you make by signing up that just as we will be here for you next year, you will be here for us. That's important to us.
Twelve years ago we were the only CSA in the Snoqualmie Valley, and one of only two CSAs in all of King County (the other belonged to our dear friend, Clare Thomas, owner of the Root Connection). Today there are many dozens of CSAs as well as organic delivery services in King County. I can tell you in complete honesty that I am thrilled this is the case. I'm especially thrilled that there are now three CSAs less than one mile from our farm. Ours makes four and yet another new CSA, still within a mile of our farm, is being planned for next season!
With the proliferation of CSAs and the advent of home delivery services, there has come, quite naturally, a wide range of "relationships" that fall loosely within the classification of CSA. I don't think this is a bad thing; I just want to be clear on what we mean by saying we are a Community Supported Agriculture farm. What that means to us is that we depend entirely on subscriptions from the families in the community to market the produce we raise on our farm. We are not an organic delivery service. We actually grow every item in the entire Summer Session, which is our entire growing season. And we do not supplement the sales of our produce with sales to wholesalers, or even (as of this year) to farmer's markets. This is what CSA means to us.
Because of this understanding of CSA, our members are very important to us. Our commitment to you is to not only grow the best produce and the widest diversity of produce that we can, but to do so in a way that is truly sustainable (can be carried on without imputs from outside the farm), that is truly economically viable (i.e. doesn't impose on society at-large the hidden costs of environmental clean up of toxins and pollutants), and that is truly attempting to discover and employ techniques of farming that will make us in all ways stewards of the land. This commitment is what led us to become Certified Organic; it also led us, subsequently, to discontinue being Certified Organic in favor of becoming Biodynamic.
I say all these things because I know there are a lot of options for families who want to "buy in" to local agriculture. You have the right to know what you are buying into. We're not a delivery service. We're not a vertically integrated farm that utilizes a form of the CSA model along with a variety of other marketing venues. We are simply and singularly a farm that depends on the year-after-year support of its members for its existence. Remove that support and our farm has no existence.
We want to remind you, our members, from time to time about the nature of our business. It is especially important now, as we unashamedly request you to make a commitment of support for the upcoming season. There are certainly other options and some very good ones. But I think that all things considered, and especially recognizing, as Dr. Viki Sonntag says, that "Spending involves a choice about the kind of future we want to have," (see #4 below), your investment in and support of Jubilee Farm is worthy in both respects.
I know some of you don't know if you'll be in the area next year, and I know there are other reasons why some of you just can't make a commitment for next season now. But that's not the case for most of us. We know we'll be here, and we know we want to continue to support and be a part of this expression of local agriculture. So to all of us in that situation, I would say, as gently as I can, but as forcefully as I need to: get those applications in!!! Let us know you are behind us for another season!!! Let us know you are behind what we are doing and creating here.
You can sign up on-line (www.jubileefarm.org) or by using an application available in the market. Thank you.
3. Next Summer Session CSA: changes and time to sign-up.
I've said enough about the "why." Now what are the changes? The main change is in the price of shares. For the 2008 season, our Couples Share will be $600, and the Family Share will be $800.
Wendy and I think things went very well this year. Yes, we had a couple of less-than-stellar crops (cantaloupe and strawberries come to mind). But in general, having watched the farm in production now for many years, I see it to be producing better all the time - better quality crops in taste and nutrition, larger quantities of crops and more diversity of produce. We also think that we learned things this year that will lead to more improvements for next year. But the successes this year came at a cost, and that cost was borne by Wendy and me. I'm not complaining, but we ended up working most of the season one full-time person short. We picked up the slack this year, but we have to hire another full-time person next year and that will cost. That is one of the reasons, and the main reason, for the price increase.
But there is a secondary reason, one that is probably no less important (although we don't feel it as powerfully) for the price increase. We think there needs to be commensurability between the amount and quality of produce given in a share over the season and the cost. This year I think we leaned on the side of providing more than the twenty-four-dollar weekly cost of a Couples Share. In light of how hard we work, and the hours we put in, that doesn't seem right. So, should we make our shares smaller? I'm optimistic that next year we will grow as much or more produce as we did this year. Our feeling is that we can do that, and keep the shares the same quantity without overwhelming members, so long as we keep the produce diverse. For example, adding more grapes, more apples, more strawberries, and more plums - next year, I will go on record here, we will have plums, those trees will produce!! - is unlikely to make anyone feel they got "too much" produce. The same could not be said for more kohlrabi or more radishes. If we had more of these, we would hear grumbling. We see the solution to be to keep the quantity the same or even increased but to maintain diversity.
We see this - the size of the boxes to be increasing in quality, quantity, and diversity - to be what has been happening over the last few years. And we expect that to continue. But we need to keep the price in line with what we are offering in the boxes.
4. A vote for the future
It's interesting how sometimes someone is able to encapsulate in a succinct statement a thought that you've been working toward expressing for a long time. That happened to me rather unexpectedly when I was given a review copy of a study being done by a local Economist, Dr. Viki Sonntag. The study is titled, "Why Local Linkages Matter - Findings from the Local Food Economy Study." It is introduced with this simple but powerful statement:
"Spending involves a choice about the kind of future we want to have."
This sentence stopped me in my tracks. That's it exactly! Most of us do have a choice when we spend our money. And that choice isn't only about now, but it's about how we want the future to be.
I have a friend, also a farmer, who is fond of saying either "that pencils out," or, "that just doesn't pencil out." What that always seems to me (for this particular person) to mean is, that it is financially profitable to do the thing in question, or it is not. I think that is the way most of us think. But the simple little observation by Dr. Sonntag helps us to see that there may be another factor in what "pencils out" and what doesn't: that factor would be, does this endeavor lead to the kind of future I want for myself, or my children, or my country, or for the world? And it's possible that this consideration could veto the simplistic, one-dimensional, financial consideration.
I suspect we all can think of illustrations where a value-based, teleological analysis of a potential action yielded a decision that was completely different from the conclusion that a utilitarian fiscal analysis would have led to. Here's something that comes immediately to mind. Wendy and I, as many of you know, want to build a home on the site of the original farm house, out by two big maple trees, between the river and plum orchard. It's now been four years since we submitted our first application, and we still don't have an approved permit. That amount of time has give us opportunity to really think about what kind of home we're going to build, and we've become quite committed to building a home that will be as energy-free and environmentally "friendly" as possible. The electrical and heating systems are obviously places where there's a lot of room for innovative approaches, and I've been told by the friend who will do our electrical work that we will pay, at least up-front, a great deal more than for a conventional system. Does it "pencil out"?
Well, if the only consideration is financial, it doesn't pencil out at all - not now, possibly not ever. But how big a picture do we want to consider? What if we include in the picture a vision of "the kind of future we want to have"? What if becoming independent of fossil fuel is a value we want to see instantiated in the future we want to have? What if we wish to have a future that is less dependent on the dams that have been so damaging to native runs of salmon? What if we believe that even if we lose money, and even if we end up being part of the learning-curve toward something better, that we ought to try? What if. . . what if . . . what if . . .? All these "what-ifs" are the building blocks of the kinds of value-driven decisions that provide the potential for changing the world. In truth, financial decisions are also "value-driven": they are driven by the value that money is the most important factor that exists. But isn't it the case that the wise of all ages and all civilizations have come to see that the solitary value of financial shrewdness is a narrow and unfulfilling value? So why be limited by those whose raised eyebrows scoff at those of us who would cast their ballot for the value of the way we want the world to be more than of the short term, pecuniary prudence?
5. The Wind-Down...
It usually happens more gradually than it seems to be happening this year. Long, warm, September days that reluctantly, teasingly, blend to the glorious shades of October - this is our more accustomd entry into Fall. But this year the change has seemed, to me at least, to be so abrupt, so sudden: darkness creeping from the horizon early in the evening, angry clouds driven by uncaring breezes - and wet.
This was a good year to have been single-mindedly insistent on early cover-cropping. Those of you who walk the farm each week, as the crew, along with Wendy and I, do each day, are amazed at rapidity of the "winding down" of the farm this year. It's happening fast. Never have I been so pleased to have so much done as early as we did this year. The compost is spread, the cover crops are planted everywhere they could possibly have been, and the final crops are awaiting harvesting.
Maybe we'll be blessed with an October surprise. But if that doesn't happen, if we just descend into the darkness and saturation of November, well, the farm's ready.
6. Insurance rebates for being CSA members?
There is ample evidence that eating fresh, local, organic vegetables provides a healthy diet. So, why shouldn't people who eat a healthy diet get better rates for their medical insurance? Non-smokers get better rates than smokers, why wouldn't those who go beyond avoiding what we know to be unhealthy, and chose to eat what is healthy, get better rates?
This idea isn't just idle speculation about what should happen. It already does - at least in some places. One such place is Madison Wisconsin, where CSA members get rebates of up to $200 for joining a CSA. A pilot program is being worked on here with Physicians Plus, and there are discussions with other insurance companies to include them too in a rebate program. Why not?
7. Farm chatter
Something that members have asked for year after year is that we grow butternut squash. Until this season we've had little success, and probably because we didn't try hard enough. This year we made a concerted effort, trialing about ten different varieties. The problem with seed catalogues, as most of you know, is that they make every variety of every vegetable sound like the ultimate performer. And I don't think they are lying about the varieties, it's just that it doesn't follow from the fact that a variety performs well somewhere, that it will perform well everywhere.
So we decided to pay the price to find out just what does and what does not do well here; we chose a cross-section of varieties of butternut, seeded them in the greenhouse and then planted them out. The trial isn't completely scientific, of course. But out of our ten varieties, we had three that did very well, a couple that did just ok, and the rest were duds. I can't tell you how gratifying it was to walk the field carefully a few weeks ago and for the first time see just how well some of the varieties were doing. Then last Thursday, Randy, one of our Workshare members (Nancy) and I harvested all the butternut. In all the varieties we had a total of about 700 squash. Of course I found myself wishing I would have only planted the three that worked! One of the varieties that we planted seventy plants of only produced 18 squash! But, that's the price one has to pay to know what works here. And now we know.
Wendy and I left late last Friday afternoon to attend a prep-making workshop at Wintergreen Biodynamic Farm in central Oregon. It was great to see a farm about the same size as ours that has been in BD production for twenty years. We wished we could have spent some time there, but we had commitments here (there's always the animals) and had to drive home on Saturday. Early Sunday morning when I went out to move the cows we had a big surprise - our first calf of the year had been born! It was a pretty wet, miserable morning, but the calf was warm, on his feet, and staying close to mama. The other cows, of course, were very curious - we've not had a calf born since the two we had last October. We expect four more, sometime this month or next. So, keep watching! And remember - if you walk over to the cows, which you're welcome to do, remember that the white wire that makes up their fence-line is an electric fence. It is on a solar panel and doesn't have much electricity - I've been shocked lots of times and it really doesn't hurt - but just let your kids know not to touch it.
I guess that's about it for my "farm chatter" time. I'll try to get one more update out before the end of October.
Erick and Wendy