slugs!

For the past two Saturdays, Cold Water Creek Farms has been at the Winecoff School Road Farmers' Market selling radishes and lettuce. We haven't had enough produce to make much money but it has been a good experience and lots of fun. It has given us the chance to meet several of you who also shop at that market. One of our CSA members, who will remain nameless in this update, made a good humored joke by suggesting that she was only at the farmers' market because her CSA hadn't started up yet. It has been cooler (46 degrees this morning- the greenhouse heater kicked on!) and wetter than we might have liked but plants are coming up and getting bigger by the day. Warm weather will set in and allow the tomatoes, peppers and all the other heat-loving plants to get to work. The food is on the way!

Last week one of our CSA members stopped by my house while on a bike ride. She bought a bag of leaf lettuce from us at the farmers market and made a joke about whether or not we should have charged her extra for the slug that hitched a ride back to her house along with the lettuce. I told her that in fact we do charge extra for slugs and that she now owes us a nickel. You might think this is where I explain that because we don't use synthetic pesticides that you should expect slugs in our lettuce but it's not. You should not expect slugs in your lettuce and you should let us know if you find any unwanted critters in your food.

It is entirely likely that we will make mistakes during this CSA season. We're shooting for perfection but we all know how that goes. The reason I'm sharing the slug story is that we want feedback from all of you about how this is working out for your family. As we move forward through the season we want you to let us know how we're doing, what you like, and what we could improve upon. Letting us know that a slug slipped through our lettuce washing process helps us to make adjustments that keep that from happening in the future so please send me an email or give me a phone call if you have any concerns this season. Your feedback will make us better.

As we target which week in June to start up we're considering a transitional week or two as a way to get the food flowing early. This would mean that the first few baskets of food would be less than the $25 full share amount or the $13 half share amount. We would make up for this of course by increasing the amount of food later in July and August when we'll be running at full speed. Or we could add an extra week to make up the difference. As always communication is the key. If you are getting less than promised on any particular week I will let you know and I will let you know how we plan to make up for that later in the season. Our goal is 40 happy families at the end of 2009!

We're purchasing the containers that you will use for picking up your food each week. Each family will have two containers. On week one you will pick up your food in its container. On week two you will need to bring your empty container from week one and take home a full container already prepared for week tTwo. If you forget to bring your empty container back we will shame you by emptying your container into paper bags making it look like you were at the grocery store buying food from far away and not supercool CSA members supporting local agriculture in Cabarrus County. I'm kidding, well kinda ;-) but I thought I'd let all of you know how the container rotation will work. I'll send reminders to help everybody remember.

This week we're planting more corn and beans and some okra. We're hoping to transplant tomatoes, tomitilloes, peppers and some other heat-lovers out into the field. Now if we could just get rid of this arctic air in May.

Best Wishes,

Aaron