I want to take a minute to talk about our harvesting process. This is how your produce gets from our fields to you. We aim to provide you with the freshest produce we possibly can while also harvesting at prime hours in order to ensure quality of your produce. Harvest days start at 5:30 in the morning. We get out in the fields as quickly as we can so that we can harvest greens, lettuce and other more tender crops as quickly as possible. These go straight from the field into an insulated trailer which we drive back to our walk in cooler and unload them into. In the past we have taken the greens and dunked them in water before putting them in the cooler. However, since we have no way to dry them off when they would sit in moisture we found that the quality would suffer and the produce will not last as long. This is something we have learned in general: washed produce does not keep as well as that which is brought straight in from the fields. Carrots when sprayed off with water shrivel up in a few days while those left with sand on them can keep crispy for months. The same goes for beets and other root vegetables. So now our lettuce goes straight from the field to a cooler where it is nice and cool and it can cool down from the heat of the field (yes even when you go out first thing in the morning there is still field heat on the produce). This enables us to bring you a higher quality fresher product. After your produce is placed in the cooler (we do still wash a couple things like spraying the dirt off the radishes) we leave it there until it is time to bring it back out early the next morning and put it on the truck and bring it straight to you.
It’s a fun and exciting process each week, with a crew out in the field, counting bunches and working together. And when we arrive at the pick up and watch all of you fill up your bags and hear about all the wonderful things that you are doing with your produce it makes the work of the week so much more satisfying. It is hard to think about all the produce divided up and sitting in your kitchens as we lug in bin after bin full of one thing and so seeing you all and hearing what you have done with all your food is a wonderful part of the week.
Your Farmers,
Margaret and Kevin
