Hello friends,
The month of November is over and we have charged your cards for your shopping this month.
I remind you that you receive two receipts. One for fruits, vegetables and sprouts that are not charged with tax. The second for the delivery fee and other dry produce for which VAT is required.
You can see the details of all charges if you enter your account in our site, under " דו"ח הזמנות ותשלומים". Please verify that the total sum is zero and that your account is balanced. If not, we may not have charged your card, so please contact us to sort this out.
Also, if you received two receipts (that are not "receipt קבלה") it means that our records show you are paying not by credit card, and we don’t have your card information. In this case please contact us to clear this up in your preferred way.
We are always under workload and are counting on you to help us. 🙂 Thanks!!
And to the Garden
It rained constantly and consistently almost all week. Here we got about 200 mm and it was said on the news that that this is the rainiest winter opening in the last 20 years. A lot a lot of water came down, just like a storm but in an "orderly" fashion and not by going wild. The water absorbed in the earth and met there the rain from the previous week and together they create a continuity of wet muddy soil healthy for our winter crops. Fortunately, there was no damage caused by flood or washout.
The gardening work is different under constant rain. First, the weeding is on "hold" – it is no fun weeding in the rain. All the weeds come out connected to a clump of mud, just like the root vegetables do. But the root vegetables, such as onions or leeks, are soaked in water and then taken out and shaken to remove the mud and excess water, and are allowed to drip a bit in a plastic box with slits. With the weeds it is just a mess because we don’t clean them, particularly the little weeds which remove more soil than the plant itself. So, as a result, there is much more weeding that we must get to later. In this business, there is a time for everything.
Second, picking the produce in the rain is fun!! Indeed, maybe if it was something regular on daily basis for a long time I would feel differently. But here all week was rainy and somehow it happened that most the picking was done when the rain was lighter. On Wednesday I went out to pick as usual, 6 AM and it was p-o-u-r-i-n-g. The cardboard box I use was replaced with a heavy plastic box, cause it simply fell apart. Bags of New Zealand spinach filled with water and mud. It didn’t help to shake off the spinach, because it kept raining and the spinach is short so it just kept getting muddy.
You must have noticed that lately I cut off the hairy head of the leek and green onion. They come out of the ground with so much mud, a real big clump too heavy to make it to the soaking tub, so I cut off the clump of mud while still in the patch in the garden, which less hurts the leek or onion (or the earthworms that are in there ) before they go into the vegetable box. It is also good for the earth for that part of the plant and its attached mud to stay in the ground, because the area around the roots typically has most of activity by those tiny organisms that live in the soil and make it fertile.
The last of the zucchini flowers (a summer crop) look very weird when wet. This is not their normal season. After picking I turn them upside down to empty them from water.
In every crop we do our best to clean and dry them. Yet, I know that you still receive plenty of water and mud in your box. So, when you get a wet muddy box, please remember that this water is so so needed by us, and not only for us farmers who grow our food but really for all of us.
It is fun for me to feel the changes in weather.. With that being said, our packing house is a different story. It is made of patches on patches, and the story there is a bit tougher. The packing house is made of an old container, a bit leaky, and a shed that is actually several sheds each built at a different time and which support each other. In the middle of the space there are even two trees…. the connections between the parts are leaky so when the rain does not come down straight but on an angle, as it does typically, water gets in. The amount depends on the direction and wind strength… In short, after especially long and wet picking we were confronted with the challenge of packing the muddy vegetables 🙂 in wet carton boxes.
The simple process of taking a cardboard box and putting something in it, that would normally take a couple of seconds, became a search for a dry box and dry paper and a search for a dry spot on a shelf. Everything takes longer in the rain, or just after the rain.
Accordingly, I especially want to say "good job and thank you!!" to the great picking and box packing teams, some of whom arrived in boots and some who did not. 🙂 We know to expect more COOOLLLLLD days. It is fun to see a team that enjoys the natural forces and such work. Thanks also to our delivery people that drive around in such weather and also need to handle wet, falling apart carton boxes.
I love my job!!
Happy New Ziland Spinach
I also want to thank you. Although you are not here experiencing this process on your own, you receive the rain and mud in your boxes with patience and understand, including the delays that often occur in this weather.
The statistics show that a wet November will be followed by a year blessed with rain. So, this may continue for a while.
Have a winter week, fresh, clean and healthy, full of healthy potential for the future.
Yours,
Maggie, Michelle and the garden staff
We expect in our weekly baskets (draft only):
Kohlrabi
Beets
Lettuce
Cucumbers
Tomatoes
Parsley
Swiss Chard
Sweet Potatoes, some baby
Peppers
And potatoes
Larger ones also:
Cabbage
Celery
And Fennel
Fruit baskets:
Oranges
Sweeties
Clementines
And star fruit
Larger ones also:
Persimmons
and more Oranges
