Farmer Kurt’s Weekly Farm Update August 17, 2024

This week I was spinning a lot of plates. This is normal for this month of the year, and it’s just part of the gig.

In addition to the “usual” heavy harvest days for CSA boxes on Monday, Tuesday, and  Wednesday, I had to fit in time for my crew to harvest 2 big wholesale contracts. We harvested 8 large bulk bins of fennel, and my first round of wholesale peppers. The crew has fun with the fennel — a crew on the ground cuts the fennel off with a knife and then tosses it up to a “catcher” on a wagon, who places in one of the big bulk bins. Later, these bulbs are washed in the washer and the yellowing fronds are removed and then it’s packed in a box, placed on a truck, and sent for shipment to a warehouse.

I don’t talk about wholesale very much with you all, because it’s not the main driver of our business. My hope is to increase our farm’s revenue portfolio to reflect more wholesale as we move closer and closer to retirement. I figure we have another 15 years of farming, give or take. As we get older, our bodies move a little slower. It’s common for farms like mine to develop a wholesale arm in their business to take on some of the heavy lifting.

Farms usually don’t start with wholesale, because you:

• A) need a lot of land
• B) need some experience under your belt to be able to consistently grow quality product week after week to meet the contract
• C) it requires capital investments for equipment and facility (large coolers, machines for mechanization)
• D) the ability to hire quality staff who can do the job quickly
• E) companies like to see that you’re an established farm with some social proof

Noah catches the fennel toss.

This year we’ve been growing for Whole Foods and finishing up our contract with a State Grant that allowed us to send food to local food banks (and get paid for it). Next year, when the state grant is retired, we will (hopefully) replace that source with a new relationship with Chipotle (currently in the works – please pray that it works out). My wholesale contracts are made in conjunction with Great River Organics, which is the cooperative my buddy Adam Wehly and I run together. Our farms are too small to source food for wholesale, but together, we can pack a mighty punch. To graduate to this next level, one of our big projects for this summer has been to upgrade our food safety standards and processes on the farm. We will have to pass a more rigorous food safety inspection in a few months to continue working with Whole Foods and Chipotle. So you may hear me talking about some of those upgrades later.

Yackee tries to locate the problem in the generator.

My generator powering the well went down on Wednesday, right when I really needed to irrigate, of course. I called Yackee and he came out to identify the problem — a blown fuse. A few hours later, it was back in operation — only to blow a fuse again a few hours later. This told me that something else was the cause. So I called in another expert to make an assessment, and he was able to determine the specific element in the generator that was pulling too much power (and causing the fuse to blow). After a last minute rush out to Findlay to find the part before closing time on Friday, I was able to install the part last night, and the well is working again. It’s little things like this that happen every week — I call them “fires” — that I’m constantly having to deal with. It’s the life of a farmer, and one of the reasons we are so well connected to people in our community. I appreciate my network of experts who drop what they are doing to help me in my moments of emergency.

I spent the early part of the week scooping up giant mounds of leaf mulch from along the driveway into a spreader, and those leaves are now decomposing and adding nutrient value to our fields. (Corinna was happy to see the piles of leaves finally moved). These leaves are gifted to us from the Village of Elmore every fall. They sit in piles along my driveway through the winter, breaking down and forming some nice compostable organic matter. It always feels good to spread it on the fields, knowing that I’m helping with the circle of life.

The new barn cooler is now operational. If you’re an Elmore customer, you may have noticed that you picked up your box from a different cooler location this past week. I was able to get the A/C unit installed late Sunday night, just in time.

Glen shows off his new CSA carts he fabricated.

Glen was busy this week welding new carts to hold our CSA bins. You may recall last week I talked about our makeshift system for loading the truck this year, since we’re missing a lift gate. The forklift can easily lift our U-boats of bins into the truckbed. But I wanted a rack system that would have walls on 3 sides of the cart to cradle the bins and keep them from shifting. I found some racks in Michigan, and I had Glen modify them to fit a pallet load of CSA shares. This will save us some time during packing and loading.

Asuncion (one of our H2A guys) has been out sick for the last few days with a respiratory virus. I think Jed has the same thing he has. We took him to Urgent Care to get looked at to make sure it wasn’t COVID or anything serious — he should be fine. He’s resting up at home for a few days. Jed, likewise has been taking it easy on the couch, watching movies and YouTube. Meanwhile, we’re gearing up for my mom’s 70th birthday party, which we’re celebrating at the Jerusalem Township Hall later today. Should be a nice size crowd. She’s well-loved by our community and family. Family is everything to me.

The Crabtrees help pack produce for CSA boxes.

Thanks to the Crabtrees (Jen, Drew, and Liam) for volunteering your Wednesday morning to bag 170 bags of green beans and cherry tomatoes for us. Last week, the CSA box had 3 things to pre-bag (corn, tomatoes, and beans). Normally we have just one. Thanks to the Crabtrees, our pack crew didn’t have to stay an extra 90 minutes late.

Loving all your tomato faces! Keep ’em coming! Hope you enjoy the box this week. I pulled back a little bit this week, since the last two weeks have been overloaded. Trying to give you a little bit of time to catch up. Be well.