2022 Year End Reflection
This season marks my 9th running my own CSA farm and I can’t believe 2023 will be my 10th! In many ways, I feel like I have just begun and I also know I have gained so much knowledge and experience over these years. I still think this is the funnest job in the world and I feel lucky to do this work. I am so grateful for the 130+ families, 3 school districts and 4+ Madison area restaurants that support my small farm!
We had a big change this year that I haven’t talked about yet: my husband, Travis, left his job in June! I know, it’s weird that we didn’t announce it then but we really wanted a low pressure transition for our family during a very busy time of year for us. So far it has been AMAZING! There definitely are challenges to living and working full time with your partner and child but I am so proud of how well we have been communicating and sharing our needs. Plus going from almost no child care in 2020 (which meant I was farming and parenting full time, at the same time) to full time child care in 2022 (thanks to Travis, mom and a neighbor) has been great, especially since now I have the added pressure of making most of our income from the farm. We know not every month is going to be easy (cash flow in farming is notoriously difficult) but after 6 months after Travis leaving behind a paycheck, we are doing well and loving it!
From a financial standpoint, the farm had the highest revenue year yet! I was able to pay our family regularly and it covers most of our needs. I took on an apprentice (Hannah, who is an official state apprentice for organic vegetable farm managing) and we continue to run a lean, yet effective operation. Now that the geothermal greenhouse is up and running (and all the related out of pocket expenses are paid for) I am forecasting 2023 to be even more stable and profitable.
From a production standpoint, it was a very challenging year. The spring was late and slow to start (which was nice for the fruit trees) but we really saw a steep drop in tomato and melon production because of the weather. It was also really dry again which meant I had to irrigate nearly every week which has brought it’s own challenges with our soil pH due to our alkaline water, our naturally higher pH soil to begin with and lack of natural rain water for soil profile flushing. But the good news is that we were able to fill all CSA shares with at least 2-5% more in value than what folks paid for! That is our goal and we haven’t missed a year yet of filling the shares to their value or more!
2022 Highlights:
We grew over 26,000# of produce on just 1 acre for 130+ CSA members and local restaurants/schools/businesses for 12 months of the year. That’s with me full time with my crew: Hannah 4 days/week, Julie 3 days/week and Olivia 1 day/week! Plus Travis as he is able to help.
Travis quit his job in June and has transitioned to full time on the farm. He raised 200 certified organic, pastured chickens, 4 hogs and cares for Tillee 3 days/week. He will be offering more home-scale chicken and hog butchery workshops in 2023!
Our orchard went from 200# in 2021 to 875# of fruit production this year!! We had a CRAZY blueberry year (over 200#) and so many apples, and our peaches and quince this year!
Thanks to Travis, we actually attended some farmers markets this year after 9 years of me avoiding them like the plague :)
Our new geothermal greenhouse was a blast to learn how to grow in! Tomatoes, giant peppers, a wall of cucumbers and ginger, oh my! We still have a lot to fine tune as we learn to grow in this space but so far it’s been so fun. Right now our self-fertile avocado and lemon and lime trees are blooming!
Tillee was, again, sometimes helpful and always cute!
Crops that did well:
Chard: CSA members, did you notice how HUGE the chard leaves were this year? They were like palm fronds and very happy. I have always grown 1 full 100’ bed of chard and the last two years have seen a huge increase both years with no increase in space. Who knows why?!
Cucumbers: We had huge yields of those tasty, seedless cucumbers this year! Most of that is due to growing a few successions in the greenhouse which the cucumbers absolutely love. They grow fast and hard; peaking quickly and then dying. It seems to be their ideal growing environment and we had walls of cucumber plants that required ladders to harvest. We did attempt lower and leaning one succession to see if it increased yields but they didn’t seem super happy with it. We got the same yield over 7 months vs. 3 months in the same space with the different trellising techniques. It makes more sense financially to grow multiple successions just letting them grow up like crazy without spending hours trellising them weekly.
Peas: Oh boy did we have a good snap pea year, nearly matching our yields from 2020 with half the row feet of plants. I was so happy to put them in the CSA many times as I know folks love them. We seemed to have settled on a system of transplanting them and basket weave trellising them to stakes that works really well.
Sweet potatoes: Over the 6 years I have been growing food on this land, the sweet potatoes have alternated every other year on good vs not-as-good yields. This year we had nearly 300# per 100’ bed whereas last year we had just under 200# per bed. I think they were really happy with the compost quantity we added before planting.
Crops that didn’t do well:
Most brassicsa (Brussels sprouts, cabbages, kales, kohlrabi, rutabaga, etc.): Looking through our harvest log tabulation, I was not super shocked to see up to 50% reduced yields on most brassica crops for 2022 compared to 2021. I have a few ideas about why that might have occurred and will implement ways to do better next year. The main teachings include: brassicas struggle with no-till because they need such huge amounts of compost and nitrogen and with our sandy, low organic matter soil that makes it a challenge.
Melons: While melons are not a hugely profitable crop for us, I just love growing and eating them! The last few years we have had enough for even the Nibble CSA folks to get one but this year, not so. I think it was mostly the cold soil from the late spring but also disease issues are a constant threat. And with the cold spring, the melons ripened later which put them at risk for disease overtaking them before they are harvestable. So we saw about half the yields compared to 2021 :(
Spinach: One of those crops that you have to constantly be reseeding and replanting as it bolts fast most of the year. I also consider spinach a crop that requires constant optimization from germination to irrigation management. And this fall, I struggled to manage what our spinach needed (I think 1st trimester fatigue in the primary seeding season could have been part of it!). Spinach is so sensitive to the weather and to pest issues too. Oh well, we will try to do better again next year!
Tomatoes: This goes with the caveat that we still had PLENTY of tomatoes in 2022. Right CSA members? Ha. Production was down 1300# in the high tunnel compared to last year and I am still not exactly sure what was going. Could be a combo of the slow, cold spring and/or the soil pH challenges we have in the high tunnel. The good news is that we got over 700# of tomatoes in the greenhouse from May through, well, we are still harvesting now in mid-December!
What’s in store for 2023?
In case you didn’t know yet, I am pregnant!! So the biggest thing in store for or family next year is giving birth in early April! Since our daughter, Tillee, was born in late October 2018, I am doing the best I can to prepare for a less than ideal postpartum time for this next baby.
We plan to have new CSA additions for 2023! My employee, Julie, of Root to Bloom will be back with her gorgeous seasonal flowers with more flexible options. My apprentice, Hannah, will begin her herbal CSA option (more on that soon!). Lastly, Travis will be offering a monthly fresh-butchered (never frozen), organic, pastured chicken CSA add on! So many exciting options in addition to your veggies. Join our mailing list to hear about it first in early January.
More workshops coming in 2023! In addition to raising our chickens and pigs, Travis also began offering home-scale butchery workshops this year so we will be doing more next year. Check out our offerings from this year here and get on our mailing to be the first to see our schedule for 2023.
Cheers!
Farmer Beth
