In the past, short season crops were only planted once or twice each season. That meant the crop was harvested, early, just right, and a bit past its prime. While this produced enough to eat and share it really wasn’t even approaching the full potential of the crops.
After reflection, this year Intensive Cropping will be tried out of these short season crops. The basic idea is to plant successively and to crop out (harvest the whole planting) at one time. The strategy is to plant smaller batches on an appropriate schedule and maximize the just right harvest.
In order to manage this spreadsheets will be used to calculate planting and approximate harvest dates. The starting data includes the crop name and days until harvest from the seed package. Based on the frost sensitivity last frost date and first frost date, planting dates are calculated on a two or three week frequency. Corresponding harvest dates are also calculate based upon the days to harvest. While the individual harvest quantities will be smaller, the overall harvest of higher quality harvests will be larger.
It goes without saying that long season crops can still be planted over a short period to increase their length of harvest as Intensive Cropping doesn’t seem viable with the modest growing season. However, this year long season crops will be both field planted and planted in hoop houses to help determine the viability of increasing the long season crop harvest (both quantity and duration of harvest)
Testing this system is one of last preparations to decide if a CSA model can be supported by the Farm. Once this system is tested, individual crops can be identified , and the potential CSA sized be surveyed in preparation for the decision to offer a CSA in the future.