2011 Begins Now!

I wonder how likely it is that anyone is still reading this blog? If you've been checking regularly for updates these last two months, I'm deeply sorry for your ongoing disappointment. If you're rejoining us now, I promise that the updates will be more regular and forthcoming in the future, and if you've just discovered us, ignore all that. This is a highly active blog with a huge following, that you should share with all your friends because it's so awesome! Got that? Good! Moving right along...

The lack of activity on these pages the last two months has corresponded to a lull in our activities in Greenfield. For most of October and November, Terra has been concentrating on school and I've been catching up on personal business in Lexington. We've also both been participating in National Novel Writing Month for the past 30 days, and as of today have both completed that monumental task successfully! The farm hiatus is coming to an end however. Beginning today, we are gearing up for the 2011 season.

Now you might be wondering what 2011 is going to look like compared to 2010, our inaugural year. Hopefully, the answer will be very different. The biggest change, and one you will be hearing a lot about over the coming weeks, is that we will be introducing a CSA this year. We are still in the planning stages for this, and will be making a lot of our decisions about the scope of our farm based on the demand we see and the amount of capital we can raise before the growing season starts. Last year, we successfully demonstrated that we can grow a variety of delicious vegetables. This year will be about turning that effort into a successful business and scaling it up to a point where it actually makes a noticable difference in the larger community.

The first step of this process will be developing a business plan and determining what large investments we will be making this spring. We will need to make equipment purchases and also upgrade our facilities to meet our goals this summer, and we would greatly appreciate feedback and involvement at this stage in order to clarify our planning and give us some concrete data to build upon. I invite anyone who would potentially be interested in purchasing a CSA share from us this season to post thoughts. Specifically, we're looking for what types of produce you routinely use in your cooking, how you would prefer us to distribute it to you, and what you might reasonably expect to pay for it. Information like this will enable us to plan our crop layout and distribution scheme.

Terra and I are both very excited about what 2011 has in store. We had a lot of fun last summer and met some fantastic people along the way, and this year promises to be even better. Please post your thoughts and stay tuned for more!

-Dan