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One of the crazy results of a 2 year lockdown from the pandemic plus raising inflation is a huge increase in new gardeners in the last 3 years. Many many people are digging up their lawns, filling raised beds or simply planting into bags of compost, all in an effort to increase food security for themselves and their families and lower their food bills.
The result is that seed companies have been overwhelmed with orders, selling out popular varieties quickly. They have coped in various ways. Earlier release of seed catalogues, specific dates for new ordering, increased prices, higher shipping costs, limiting the number of packets of one variety anyone can order…
I’ve felt for these companies, used to going along in a routine yearly cycle, and then suddenly having orders increase dramatically right at the time when Covid lockdowns limited numbers of employees in warehouses, number of people available to work and all kinds of increase costs.
But the even uglier side of all of this increased interest? Terrible quality control.
For the record, I’ve been starting seeds for 20 years and have sold plant starts for the last 10. I have very strong systems in place to keep track of what is planted where.
Here are my examples:
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When I first started to grow produce for sale and not just for my own use, one of the hardest parts was figuring out how to preserve what I had grown so that it would last not only through a Saturday farmers market, but maybe to the next Wednesday market as well. (Side note: it’s a myth that farmers get up and harvest hundreds of pounds of produce the morning of a farmers market – they don’t. It takes too long to process produce to do it the morning of, and then also pack it and get it to market. Most things are harvested the day before).
During my research on how to handle produce for optimum holding, I ran across a phrase that was new to me: Field Heat. Field heat is the temperature the produce is at when its picked and how active the plants metabolism is at the time of harvest. REMOVING the field heat as soon as possible after picking is critical for making produce last longer. Turns out, this is also true for your own garden vegetables.
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MilesAwayFarm
Miles Away Farm Blog 