Wow.  It has been a long winter here at Old Shaw Farm.  And we apologize about not blogging much.  But this winter we have been doing a lot of thinking about the farm, thinking about our family, and planning for future.  A lot of this work has been driven by the financial realities of farming, and the financial needs of our family. 

You see, we haven't been making enough money on the farm to support our family.  Actually, we haven't even come close.  And this winter, for a variety of reasons -- financial, personal, physical, spiritual, emotional -- we decided that some things need to change around here.  We have been trying to grow 40 different crops each year, and on the scale we are at, that is difficult to do efficiently, so we have decided to scale back, and just focus on crops we are sure are making us money.

That sounds easy enough, but the big problem with dropping a lot of crops is that it means we need to rethink our markets as well.  For example, if we are only growing 6 crops, instead of 40, all of a sudden it doesn't really make sense to be doing a CSA, or even farmer's markets.  A CSA with only 6 crops just wouldn't be very popular.

Where does all this lead?  Well, we decided that this year we would continue to build our seedling sales, to grow our greenhouse tomatoes, and to do the Danville Farmer's Market.  But we also decided to take a year off from the CSA and the Waitsfield Market. 

This will make us a lot smaller this year, but it will also make a lot of other things possible.  First, it will allow Peter to work part time off the farm again, and make our life more financially sustainable.  Second, it will give us some time to develop a new plan for the farm moving forward.  And third, it will hopefully give us the space to breathe a bit, recover from some built-up burnout, and to fall in love with this farm again.

Just like a plant must sometimes be pruned, it is our hope that this pulling back time will lead to a period of even more vigorous growth.  Although some of these decisions have been tough to make, we are excited to see what happens next.  We also want to thank each and every one of you for your support and love over the years.  We couldn't be doing any of this without you!

But now, the days are starting to get longer, and it is actually getting to be time to get back to work!  The greenhouses need to get cleaned up, our early herbs and onion seedlings need to get started, some gear still needs to get repaired, the tool bench needs to get cleaned up, so on and so forth.  So check back for more posts soon, and thanks again for all your support.

Shelby the puppy joined the farm today.  We love her!

Wavy took this photo the other day from midway up the farm road.  I love it.  She captured the beauty of the season.  Twilight, clean and windswept.  All the leaves are down.  Those are the greenhouses in the distance. 

Harvesting brussel sprouts in the snow.

Jamie working hard.

The old cherry (tomato) house waiting to be cleared out and cleaned up.  Rotten tomatoes and flies, oh my!

One of the lower greenhouses that's been "turned" and planted to crops for fall.  Turned means that we've pulled out the tomatoes, cleaned up the mess, put down compost, and replanted.  It's a challenge to find the right balance between harvesting every last tomato and getting them out in time to get the fall crops growing before we completely lose the daylight the fall crops need to get growing.  This is dandelion greens, and we've also planted scallions, baby bok choy, salad turnips and a lot of spinach.

These are the comments we've gotten so far in response to our annual survey of CSAers:

More beans 'n' peas

I wonder if the older people in our community would find it daunting to come pick up a basket.  And maybe nervous about commitment to amounts.  I'd be interested in their use of CSA and concerns.  I think we could get volunteers to deliver their baskets for them.  (I'd do it.)  Two thoughts: An Area Agency on Aging grant for CSA to older folks in St. J and surrounds could be fun.  They like small grants for social and pragmatic goals.

Many thanks Maryellen, Peter and crew for another fine year of veggies!  Overall, I loved the basket as much as I always have, but these are my thoughts/suggestions for the year:
**Love getting berries and melons
**Green beans?
**Peas, please! (Is it too late for peas when the CSA gets rolling?)
**More baby greens/mesclun mix!  I would always choose that over head lettuce and miss the weekly supply of earlier years.
**Didn't find the herbs useful since I grow so many, but understand that others might.
**Maybe fewer tomatoes (I know some would consider this blasphemy!) But there were generally too many tomatoes for one person - though I never wanted to go without entirely.
**Best beets in the world!
**You grow some great tasting potatoes!
**Kale?  Did we get kale this year?
**More peppers when the season permits!
**Love your winter squash and appreciate any variety.
Thanks Again!.
p.s. Just submitted some comments, but forgot to say how much I loved the cabbage! Would love cauliflower, too!

We didn't need the herbs.  We would have preferred something else.  A choice or herb add on?  We love the recipe section of your new website.  In general, we love the mix of veggies.  We missed salad turnips this year.  We would love broccoli rabe.  We love when you added berries.

More salad turnips and bok choy. 
Lots of tomatoes
Various berries, if possible
Melons

If possible, could we have lettuce/salad greens every week?  This is a real staple and we'd rather have it from you than elsewhere.  Also, garlic every two weeks or so?  Love the variety in general.

Thanks to all who've responded to the CSA!!  Feedback from our CSAers is really helpful to us, in deciding what to grow, how to organize the CSA, and more.  If you haven't filled out a survey form (St J CSAers didn't even get them this week, it was raining too hard), feel free to post a comment to this post or send me a contact us message - you can do either anonymously.

We had a hard frost last night, and another one expected tonight.  But even before that frost, we've been pulling the tomatoes out of the greenhouses to plant them to fall greens.