January 29, 2025
Dear CSA members and friends,
Here we are 2025. Happy New Year! Time sure flies by! I write this sitting on my couch in a living room full of green plants huge windows that bring in that bright southern light this time of year. A cat curled up next to me snoring and another buried in a blanket under the window. The wind is howling, but I cannot hear it or feel it just see it. I am warm. There is no breeze, no leaks. So very thankful for this warm house for me and my family: to plan in, process veggies, wash and dye wool in a basement and organize all of it. To have room to plan, to think, to play, to read, to laugh, to rest, to eat, to share. What an amazing year it has been. Thank you for being part of our farmily and journey with us. It is so true what good stable healthy housing can do for someone’s health, well being and peace.
It has come time again to sign up for Blue Heron Farm 20th CSA Season – 18 weeks of fun vegetables, flowers (remember those EPIC zinnias, sunflowers, celosia, strawflowers, and marigolds last year) and being part of our BHF farmily. We have 85 memberships available – between delivery and at home farm pickup. We really appreciate your support. You can sign up on paper or through our website. By signing up now and paying now, we are able to pay for the needed inputs: seeds, potting mix, containers, mulch, drip line, property tax, land mortgage, water, fuel – you get where I am going. We are ordering seeds and supplies next week and prices are up are up again from last year! Your early sign up helps us to order the needed things for the farm without accruing more debt and interest fees.
We also totally understand that some cannot pay now or need a payment plan or can’t pay at all – We get that. Believe me we do. So still sign up – and pay when and if you can. We do not want to add to the stress. Just let us know if you are planning on signing up and send payment when you can – you can fill out the form online and if you can pay online. For those who would like to apply for the NOFA-VT supported share – the link goes live on February 1. https://www.nofavt.org/services-resources/consumers/community-food-access/farm-share-program . If you think you will need financial help, please sign up for our CSA and sign up at the NOFA link. This will help secure funding to help pay for the CSA share. No one will be turned away from a CSA share who wants one and who can not pay. There is always enough food to share.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are taking another year off from egg and chicken shares. We accrued a huge loss of income due to bird predation, organic feed costs and weather in 2022. And with the bird flu…better stay with just the 4 legged woolly folks who can eat the grass and extra veggies.
We are in the middle of planning and ordering right now for the farm. Also, end of the year financials and reviewing the last season and what we want to improve on for this year. Last year was a very tough year for us so we have made some decisions to help get our cash flow back on track for this year. Also, last year’s rain did not allow us to get to our plans that we had for last year. So some of them have made it to this year’s list.
- Due to two years of raining Julys, we are taking some fields out of production and putting new fields into production. We would like to tile the fields at 23 Quaker and fix the ditches, we are looking into costs and grants for this. I don’t see this happening this year. But we will be cover cropping and getting the sheep and cows on those cover cropped veggie fields to graze which will help regenerate and rebuild the soil along with resting it from veggie growing. The two summers of rain have really depleted certain fields and we need to do some deep recovery to help them get back up there. We will be adding more field space by where are new home (!) is and moving more pasture to up the road. The soil in the cow field/home field is better draining but does not have as much organic matter as the fields up the road. We are carefully making a paper and pencil map to figure out how to navigate the heavy soil and climate change that we are in the middle of – building a resilient soil. Keep working on creating a climate resilient farm.
2. Veggie: Growing broccoli and cabbage as fall crops instead of spring into summer crops because we have noticed the weather fluctuation is too much at the beginning of the season and we waste so much growing space for two failing crops. Growing more winter squash, pumpkins and turnips so we can supplement ours, yours, and the sheeps’ diet with these nutrient dense storable food. Trying to get early veggies in the ground like greens in March so we have greens and turnips before the tomatoes go in our hoophouses in mid may.
3. Flowers : Increase flowers and dye plants and make the starters available for sale. Because flowers bring immense joy to all who go in the field or get a bouquet. Maybe a whole PYO sunflower field!
4. Farm help: We will be hiring fulltime employee/s for the growing season. We are taking a hiatus from our apprentice program again this year. We will continue to have Monday volunteers. (Monday volunteers and farm workers you rocked our world last year! Thank you! We got so much down including fixing the hoophouses, put doors up, weeding, picking, planting, cleaning and so much more )
5. Work on putting in a real compressor in a real walk in to store crops. We have a walk in now – and have had it for the 16 years but it an air conditioner that’s overridden with a device to cool to 35 degrees. This set up costs $200 in electricity to run each month. Um. No. we need to make things more energy efficient. Also, get some better refrigeration for the farmstand.
6. Work smarter not harder. If a crop doesn’t work – why do we keep trying to grow it ? – using the pen instead of pencil in our growing plan and this will allow us to grow more beautiful produce, herbs, plants and flowers – while still feeding all the people we can in a sustainable way. There are also some other crop tweaking and growing, we are looking at everything and trying to figure out where we can tighten up and be better farmers.
So here we are in 2025- community and food security. We can do this. You know how I know this – because we have been doing it for over 20 years together with many of you old and new members. We are resilient people. We are thankful for you and your support. Please reach out if you have any questions. Christine’s cell is 617-276-4728 – you can text her or call. Or email at farmers@blueheronfarmvt.com or harmonyvt@yahoo.com.
We look forward to handing over the clippers and for you to pick flowers to your heart’s content. To come get all those juicy heirloom tomatoes – to eat crunchy bok choy and green scallions again. In the meantime, we will feed and nourish and plan and rest for this amazing season to come.
In gratitude,
Adam, Christine, Sadie, and Delia
Blue Heron Farm
34 Quaker Rd
Grand Isle, VT 05458