For What It’s Worth
How much money is a pepper worth?
Back in May, the one crop I had no doubt we would be swimming in by September was peppers. We planted tray after tray —definitely over 1,000 plants — of several varieties. Fast forward to September, and a herd of deer and bout of blossom end-rot has wreaked havoc on our entire pepper crop. It’s a bit shocking, and we barely have any peppers to sell at all. The above image shows a single plant with zero “sellable” peppers on it. Now imagine this multiplied by 1,000 and you may begin to form an idea of what this means to a small farm like ours.
It’s Saturday morning, and I (nikki, farmhand) am working the Zephyr Farm market stand in Providence. We have developed a detailed choreography that allows customers to purchase their produce without touching it. This keeps us and other customers safer by limiting the handling of the produce in our stand. One by one, customers pair off with workers and take a stroll down our lineup to see what’s fresh this week. It is a relished opportunity to socialize in our new socially distant paradigm.
This is really the place where the rubber meets the road for us. How will this week’s harvest land? Will the customers be as excited as we are by the new haul of carrots? Will they be as disappointed as we are in those scallions that didn’t quite grow into their full potential? Will they buy enough of this week’s bumper crop to save us from coming back to the farm and feeding the leftovers to the chickens? Are we offering our produce at a price that is fair and reasonable, both for our customers and for our finances? How do we even measure and compute that price point? Organic produce is not widgets. There are a lot of chaotic variables to consider.
I’m working with a couple of customers, moving down the line helping them select their produce. We come to the eggplants and I offer the different options based on size, shape, and color. It’s a little later on in the morning, and the eggplants that were the “most sellable” have already been sold. The customer questions the brown scars visible on the eggplant skins. I explain that they are sun scorched, a completely cosmetic issue that does not affect the taste of the flesh. It happens when the shade around the growing fruit is disrupted, either by removing nearby weeds or harvesting nearby fruit. “I’m sorry,” I say. “They aren’t perfect.” The customer replies, “Well for three dollars a pound, they ought to be.”
Before I had this job, I might have said something similar if I were the customer in that moment. Here are some insights that now give me pause to contemplate the value of growing food locally and organically…
It takes one worker
2-3 hours to weed a single bed on hands and knees —
no chemicals!
Our fall planting of carrots is 15 beds, 3 rows to each bed. At the time of this photo, this bed had already been weeded twice. And the carrots still have weeks to go! After the weeding, additional labor is required to harvest, wash, bunch, and pack the carrots for sale. There’s a lot that goes into a $3 bunch of carrots!
When a crop fails in the field, there are hours of labor invested in a product that won’t generate any income.
At this point in the season, there are already multiple hours of labor invested in each row on the farm.
From planting seedlings in the greenhouse through preparing and transplanting into the fields, weeding, and, if we get it all right, harvesting. Then there is washing, sorting, and packing to do before a crop reaches our customers.
Most of our brassicas (brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages) were afflicted with the same awful disease this summer. We lost a few dozen rows of summer crops, and also lost the fall-planting seedlings to pests. Any brussels sprouts or broccoli we manage to squeak out will be truly miraculous.
We could have “saved” the crops by spraying them with harsh chemical products to deter pests and microorganisms—but we are committed to growing organically and so we did not do that.
Selling our produce in multiple virtual storefronts comes at a cost.
Our website is a significant monthly expense, and the delivery services we sell through also charge us a significant percentage on each item. These expenses were not really a factor in the pre-COVID economy, when we could sell all of our product at two farmers markets each week.
2020 has been the year of excessive packaging.
Historically, we sold most of our produce at the farmers markets, where customers placed items directly into their own reusable bags — not this year! Selling online through our website and on other local distribution hubs such as WhatsGood, Farm Fresh RI and Pats Pastured has required us to invest in more packaging and labeling solutions. Packaging and labeling also requires additional labor and new workflow systems.
We get by with a little help…
Every week we finish set up for the market mere moments before it opens. The line to enter the market wraps all around Lippitt Park, and we are grateful to those who are willing to stand in line for the products of local businesses like ours. The bell rings and we are off and running—usually three solid hours of non-stop customers streaming through our line before we can pause for a moment and catch our breath.
Farming was already risky business before the COVID-19 pandemic. Disaster is inevitable in this profession, and Michele has encountered and navigated a full spectrum of forces working against the productivity of the farm over the years. But this is the first global pandemic of an airborne virus for Zephyr Farm. The virus has affected every choice she makes this season; choosing what to plant, how much help to hire, how to package and distribute our products, and how to operate our stand at the Hope Street Farmers Market each Saturday.
We are learning a lot this season. We are trying new approaches constantly. Every week we try to improve the way we organize for the farmers market. In years past, she easily managed our stand with three workers. This year we need six workers to accommodate COVID protocols to keep everyone safe. Spatial restrictions limit the number of customers we are able to serve, so we have double the labor force and we are not able to sell as much product. We see customers walk away because they can’t wait in line.
You can help everyone at the farmers market, including us, by ordering online. We wish everyone could pick up at our farm on Fridays, which is totally contact-less and definitely our preference. If you can’t make it to us during our posted pickup hours of 9am - 1pm, you can let us know what time you CAN come on Friday and we will make accommodations. Use the comments box during checkout to let us know.
When you pre-order and pick up at the farmers market on Saturday, you help ease the pressure for everyone there. You can skip our line and head straight to the checkout area, which minimizes our line. Pre-ordering also gives you access to our products before they sell out. That means you can order on your own time from home and come to the market later and you don’t have to worry about missing out on our most popular items. It’s a great solution if you don’t particularly enjoy the fast-paced, forward-only flow of the market during COVID times. And also if you like sleeping in on Saturday.
We are not the only market business offering online pre-orders. You can shop many Hope St Farmers Market Vendors and sweep through to pick everything up on Saturday from 9-1. Your participation in this system is a huge help for the vendors, the market organizers, and the other customers. The more you pre-order, the less EVERYONE has to stand in line.
Summer Solstice Report
This week we mark and celebrate the summer solstice — the longest day of the year and the beginning of the summer bounty. After a day of weeding vegetable and flower beds, chicken chores, watering, and planting seeds for fall fields, I (nikki, farmhand) take a walk through the farm with my camera to appreciate some of the subtle signs of what is yet to come.
The chickens have been recently moved to a fresh pasture, quite a few have found their way out of the fence and I catch some and toss them back in as the notorious hawk circles and screams overhead. Charlie is nowhere to be seen, but I hear he has been up late nights protecting them from 4-legged predators, so I do what I can by shouting up at the hawk to leave our chickens alone and see that many of them are taking matters into their own hands (?) and sheltering inside or under their trailer houses.
We have two long beds of peas growing that are loaded with flowers. One of the beds is everyone’s favorite sugar snap peas, and the other, I’m told, will be multi-colored peas. Their flowers are a beautiful pink color, and I love the way the delicate tendrils create a strong support structure for the stems to climb higher and higher. Nearby are beds of bright and frilly salad greens and salanova lettuces, scallions, and spinach.
It’s HOT inside our tomato houses where we are growing multiple varieties of cherry, slicing, and heirloom tomatoes. I’m pretty sure that if I set up a time-lapse camera I could record the plants growing in there—you can almost hear it. It smells amazing, like tomato plants. The vines are boasting the first bunches of fruit and I am dreaming of that first bite into a real tomato.
In another greenhouse, we are growing specialty cucumbers and husk cherries. I’m really happy that Michele chose to grow them in bags of dirt on tables that are waist-high—no weeds! No bending over! She has a mantra that I love and try to repeat to myself when I’m feeling a little exasperated: “work smarter, not harder.”
On to the fields across the street where our signature Zephyr zucchini are emerging from behind bright yellow blossoms, a true harbinger that summer is here. Tiny baby cucumbers appear on every vine for row after row of slicing and pickling cukes. This week we nearly completed planting every row in this field, which is planted with zucchini, kale, chard, bok choy, radishes, cucumbers, bell peppers, hot peppers, frying peppers, cippollini onions (my favorite!), lettuce, escarole, eggplants, broccoli, cabbages, and probably some other things I am forgetting. And then at our fields on Urban Edge Farm we are growing sooooooooooo many potatoes and onions and broccoli and cabbage and more peppers—-and we haven’t even planted the fall squashes yet! I am blown away by the variety and quality of produce that we are growing here. We can feed so many people!
So I hope you enjoy these few glimpses of what’s going on at Zephyr Farm. This is my first season working on the farm, so there is a lot that I don’t know and I appreciate learning so much every day I come here. I have a feeling that a month from now I’ll feel less inclined to take a leisurely walk with my camera after a day of working in the new summer heat. Happy summer to you, and thank you for being a part of what we do.
Meet Badger, BCF
Badger is one and a half years old and very curious!
We are pleased to officially welcome Badger to Zephyr Farm! Badger came to us via the RISPCA (RI Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). He was part of a special project to train young cats for working on farms and in barns, called the Working Cats Program. Badger has been sweeping through the greenhouse, hoop houses, and fields, keeping EVERYONE in line—the workers, the dogs, the chickens, and the “unofficial” animals of the farm like mice, voles, and moles. Now that he is settled in, Badger is very happy here. You might see him chasing butterflies in the field, playfully frolicking through rows of Remay rowcover, tracking runaway chickens, and relaxing in the shade. Now and then, he will approach a farmer for a little head scratch, and he enjoys hanging out wherever we are working. Badger is home. This week, Badger was officially named BCF—Best Cat on the Farm.
Eggs!
We are very excited to report that the Henriettas are laying eggs every day and we are now filling egg orders! Our flock of 500 Rhode Island Red hens enjoy plenty of pasture to rummage for their favorite bugs, vegetarian and non-GMO feed, and adoration from the Zephyr Farm crew! Their eggs are fresh and delicious, with deep orange yolks. Just ask Charlie and Addie—they’ll tell you how good these eggs are!
Order your eggs now, while supplies last!
What comes after chickens?
Our flock of Rhode Island Reds, lovingly named Henrietta, is right at home! We rotated them to a fresh pasture this week, and we search eagerly for eggs every day. The eggs are coming at a trickle this week, but we hope to be collecting enough to start boxing them for sale soon! To be notified when we have eggs for sale, visit our online shop and select a quantity to be added to the waitlist.
Our new flock of hens has arrived!
First round of “chicken chores” for 2020. Our chickens eat non-GMO feed, plus all the bugs and grubs they can forage. Their presence fertilizes the soil and helps control pests in the fields, without using any chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
On Friday, we had our boots on the ground at sunrise to meet our delivery of 500 Rhode Island Red hens at the farm. It was all farmhands plus some workshare workers on deck as we transported them from the road to their laying house and fenced-in portion of the field. Now that they are home, the chickens will be rotated every two weeks, fertilizing and aerating the soil for future crops. We also raise chickens for eggs, and we hope to be offering eggs for sale very soon! If you want to be notified when eggs are available, visit this link and select a quantity to activate the waitlist form.
Our first field is seeded
The first seeds went into the ground this week. We took advantage of the first sunny day in a while by planting outdoors for the first time this season. Peas, spinach, arugula, radishes, and turnips are planted in freshly plowed fields.
A muddy week!
With almost 3” of rainfall in the last two weeks, we had some muddy tractor tracks this week! The sun made a brief and welcome appearance on Saturday afternoon. The thousands of seed starts growing in our greenhouse are taking the cue to reach towards the warmth and light above, and Charlie can’t wait for the new hens to arrive soon.