That's right, with the 2021 season in the books, it's time to continue planning for 2022! I say continue, because as farmers we never really stop or start planning for future seasons. Even in April of 2021, we were talking about changes we would make for next season. All the lessons we learned this year will be carried forward into next year and beyond. Although it was a great season overall, we still feel like there are many changes we could make to be more successful in the future. Many of them are just small tweaks to improve efficiency and cut down on expenditure. Some are fairly major things that we hope will really help us with having more free time and higher profitability. Most of these changes are purely operational, we'll still be providing all the same outstanding produce you've come to expect. Here's a rundown of a few of the changes coming in 2022.
Expansion of our vegetable CSA Program to 20 seasonal memberships.
expansion of our chicken Flock-share Program.
Seasonal booth at the Wellington Farmer's market.
Contracting other local growers to raise more of our seedling stock for us. We are hoping to build a propagation greenhouse next year, but it'll be a pretty substantial investment. We still need to have things growing early in the season and our propagation space is quite limited.
Decreasing the quantity of broiler chickens we raise so we can focus more on quality and size.
Starting the CSA season 2 weeks later. We find its easier to keep things growing later into the season than it is to have a lot of things maturing at the same time earlier in the season.
Adding a third campsite to our Hipcamp offerings, as well as improved camper amenities such as picnic tables and composting toilet. Hipcamp was a huge boon to us last season and it is so much fun to have people staying on the and getting a taste for farm life!
Anyway, that's enough of my ramblings for the day, see you soon!
-Forrest