In 2023, littleGrasse remains committed to fostering a welcoming place where shareholders have the freedom to come when you want and flexibility to choose which items to bring home. These concepts are cited in the feedback as essential aspect of the farm and it makes our farm share one-of-a-kind.
Share Feedback Results
Shareholders, thank you for your input!
“I continue to love this experience and the farm as a space to enjoy nature and step away from the busy world around me. It was absolutely joyful and I can’t wait for next season!”
“I always love the quality and variety of items available, but this year I particularly enjoyed the social events at the new barn! They were really fun and helped me to feel even more connected to the farm and my community. The Swap It event was a ton of fun, and I always enjoyed the farm mornings I could attend.”
Overall, the shareholders saw the 2022 season at littleGrasse as nourishing, unique and lively. Us too!
Word Cloud of Your Favorite Crops
Our shareholders love tomatoes, carrots, greens, flowers, kale, and spinach! We will continue to plant and tend these important crops in 2023.
Fall weeding session in the perennial herbs and flowers
Incorporating your feedback into improvements for 2023
- Yes it’s true, the perennial beds got a bit unruly at times last year. Building the barn in 2022 was a whirlwind, and without that additional hubbub this season, we’re focused on keeping the herb and flower areas in tidier shape. Thanks for the guidance to make the farm more user friendly (and you are always welcome to pull weeds during your harvest)!
- More extensive training and reminders about proper use of the flag system.
- Expanded beds of spinach as often as possible.
- Flowers: Additional plantings of sunflowers and new colors of dahlias!
- Herbs: Larger plantings of lemon verbena, tarragon, and rosemary and more plantings of cilantro and dill.
- New events and social opportunities on the farm.
Note: Changes in our bodies and different mobility- for short or long periods of time- are natural. We’re still working it out, but we’d like to accommodate people to still be shareholders who may not be able to access all parts of the garden. More details to come.
Having free choice in the garden allows people of all ages, interests and tastes the chance to gravitate to different parts of the farm and enjoy it on their own terms.
Highlights of 2022
- Invested in additional harvest supplies and expanded wash stand area.
- Built a new barn with porch for hosting community events and potlucks.
- Decreased soil disturbance with additional no till plots.
- Developed several new growing spaces to increase crop rotation and production.
- Hosted 6 potlucks, plus Swap it!, tours and heritage corn talk.
- Started accepting food scraps to compost from village of Canton.
- Pulled some monster boulders from Dutchess field.
- Grew over 200 varieties of plants for distribution, plus another 100 of garlic!
- Hosted and mentored numerous apprentices, farm stays and community barters.
- Served 1,000+ shareholder visits to the farm, including 1 household that made the most of their farm share with 45 visits last season!
See below for details on how we will manage a new disease on the farm that affects the brassica family of plants.
Pest and Disease Management
Agriculture is infinitely complex and each season brings new hurdles. We have diagnosed a persistent soil borne disease in a couple plots, which marks a serious blow to our crop rotation, and added complication to planning and yield and management. The disease is called clubroot and it hinders plants in the cole/brassica family from taking up nutrients and water, so the resulting crop is stunted and/or has poor yield. The brassica family of crops has many delicious vegetables. It’s our top priority to reduce the chance that these disease spores spread to other fields, thus it’s too stressful and risky to try to commit the same amount of land this season to these crops. As a result, it’s likely that we won’t be planting any broccoli, brussels sprouts, or cauliflower for the Free Choice shares in 2023. This does not mean we’re eliminating this family of crops, we will still grow a few favorites that can be managed in a smaller area, such as kale, arugula, radish, and fall bok choy. Farming is a continuous juggling act of risks, and one aspect of this is balancing shareholder preferences, with need to plan for resilient soil in the coming years. Organic agriculture is rooted in focusing on building robust soil which translates into healthy produce and healthy people.
We know folks might be sad about this, (we are too) but we’re telling you now so you can make alternate plans and enjoy the dozens of other crops we still plant.
There’s just two more full moons until we’ll see our shareholders again in the fields of littleGrasse!
Link to 2022 Gallery
Word of mouth is our main source of new shareholders since we don’t have a presence at farmers markets or brick and mortar stores.
Stay tuned this month for 2023 sign-ups!
-Flip & Bob