Typical Workday in a CSA Farm

My Fine Homestead Family

By Stacey Fiener, Owner/Farmer of My Fine Homestead

The tasks vary from farm to farm however these are our daily and weekly tasks at our farm, My Fine Homestead.

• Bill waters the vegetables started in flats daily. 
• We feed and water the chickens, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, goats, horses, and cows – our menagerie - each day. I milk the cow in the mornings, and someone (often Aidan) gets eggs. Sometimes these chores spill over into the afternoon even though we try to have them done by mid-morning.
• Afternoons are usually filled with field work, repairing fences, or maintaining/fixing equipment.  
• And, with a little luck, Bill or Liam mows the lawn each week.

Included in this category is harvest. Each week we spend two days, Tuesdays and Fridays, harvesting produce from the fields for members and market. The number of boxes changes from week to week because shares are every other week.  Tuesday is a bigger day with at least 50 boxes to fill.  There are less on Fridays (local pickups) at the farmers market. 

Harvest days are long days, but fun because harvest is the culmination of growing produce. It is also a day to look forward to because others arrive to help us. There is a spirit of cooperation and camaraderie that makes the work go quickly.  We spend the morning and afternoon picking, pulling, digging, cutting, and collecting vegetables.  As we harvest, we cover the crates with thin, wet white flour sack towels to protect produce from the heat until it is delivered to the pack shed.  Once there, it is soaked to remove the heat from the field, rinsed, bagged (if necessary), and stored in the walk-in cooler.

After that is done for all the crops harvested that day, I print labels.  Bill, and whoever is helping, counts out and assembles boxes. Next, labels are taped to the appropriate size box. Then the fun begins, the washed and cooled produce is brought back out of the cooler to be distributed. This is when we find out how well we did counting items in the field. If we’ve done a good job, we have the correct number. If not, someone hustles to the field to get more amid good-natured calls of, “It wasn’t me that messed up!”, or “I got all mine!” Then with all the produce accounted for, boxes are closed up and sorted in stacks according to their delivery location.  We load the boxes in the cooler – first delivered are first in so they are the last loaded into the van the next morning. 

All that is left is to shut the lights off in the pack shed. Harvest day is done.
Wednesday is delivery day the various pick up sites.  I get up early to put the weekly newsletter together. I try to get most of it done pre-dawn before I’m distracted by the rest of my family as they get up for the day.

I list the box contents, any announcements, add a recipe or two, and write this part – what has been happening on the farm. This section gives you a window into the work we do. My goal is to connect you to us, your farmers, our practices, and ultimately to your food.  After the newsletter is sent out, we load the van. Bill and Liam line the back of the van with a combination of styrofoam insulation and bubble-wrap to keep the produce cool. We load the boxes, and after a final check with the kids, we’re off! (Saturdays are similar except the newsletter is done already, and we deliver to only one stop – the Spring Green Farmers Market.)

By evening the boxes will be in your hands, and we will be on our way home. Tired but satisfied. Harvest and delivery days are busy yet rewarding.