6 things I learned from my 2022 CSA
I’m not an expert. I have one year of experience running a small CSA.
Is that a lot? No.
Is it more than I had? Yes.
Can you learn from my experience? I dunno. That’s for you to decide. If you have even a little more experience running a CSA, reading this probably isn’t worth it for you.
Planting and seeding calendar: I worked for weeks on the 2022 planting and seeding calendar. Based on what I was able to produce, I did OK. I had five to six fruits and veggies available for my five to eight CSA customers every single week for six months. I’m pretty proud of that. It’s not much, but it’s better than I did last year working at a farmer’s market. At the market, sometimes I only had three different things for sale. I think I can build on this success and have even more available next year.
Plant two rows of everything: I planted way, way, way too many rows of cucumbers. I accounted for too few eggplants. The first batch of beans I won (two rows) the second, I lost (one row). Trying to match expected yield to actual yield is tricky. The rule of thumb I’ll use next year: Plant two sixty-foot rows of the same produce for the CSA.
Experimental varieties are fine, if you’re not counting on them: I have a bad habit of getting excited about produce from a photo or well-written description. The produce promised in the seed catalog is not always what gets produced on the plant. Maybe the photographer had a plant with more fertilizer or sun or love – but I think it more likely that the photograph was doctored somewhat. Whether my poor growing habits led to an underwhelming result or a type of produce Instagram-filter knocked expectations askew, new varieties are untested and should be considered as exciting samples, not out-of-the-park homeruns.
Instagram marketing didn’t work: At least not for me. If I shipped products nationally or internationally, it might work. But I don’t make tschotskes that can go wherever whenever — I grow food that will, eventually, rot. And I don’t grow enough to fill an 18-wheeler, just enough to fill a truck bed once a week. Trying to get local Athens-area folks to sign up for the CSA from Instagram did not work. Even the people who followed me didn’t know that they could sign up for the CSA because they never saw my posts (yep, I asked - although I guess some folks could’ve been lying). I got likes on my posts from folks I know in Minnesota, Savannah and North Carolina, but wow, does that not help me sell CSA shares. I received local Instagram approval too, but not as much – possibly because folks don’t find photos of veggies as wonderful as I do. The local flower farmers I know don’t seem to have this problem, so it really could be just a lack of general veggie-photo love. Next year, I plan to focus more on other marketing avenues and keep Instagram just as a place to post weekly CSA share photos.
Efficient structuring of the week: I’ve heard a lot of good advice about “doing the most important thing,” or “completing the most stressful task,” but that doesn’t work so well for me. Everything seems to be falling down all the time! Every task is the most important! So then I stress out and worry and walk around in circles pulling out my hair. Instead, I have assigned a batch of general tasks for each day of the week. It helps get things done and quiets the voice of “but you actually need to be doing this other thing instead!” I figured this out because the two days I got the most done were the two days I knew, from waking, all the tasks needing completion. Then I just started and stuck to a schedule of what I needed to tackle that day of the week, until I learned the system. Now, there’s way less fretting about if I prioritized the days’ goals correctly.
My beta CSA customers were stars. Some very nice folks agreed to pay me $15 a week to bring a box of fresh produce to their work or home. I couldn’t have done this year without them. They were patient with me as I asked them to sign up a different way, and when I completely dropped the recipes I wanted to include. They returned the blue CSA boxes and gave me feedback about what they liked and didn’t like. It made me realize that I enjoyed the interactions with my CSA customers in a way that I hadn’t with the farmer’s market experience. Talking to folks while dropping off their produce – even while rushing around on busy days – felt less forced than trying to talk during a farmer’s market. I could actually have a conversation and stare at someone’s eyes instead of constantly looking around for other potential customers who might be interested in buying something, but were shy about coming up to the table to look at the offerings. I also liked accommodating my customers. When someone got sick, or needed to work from home, I delivered to their house instead of their work. I felt like I was doing something that made their choice to eat vegetables a little easier. And that felt nice.
Life changes quickly, and I don’t know what the next few months holds. But I do know that I will have a big garden again in 2023, I’ll continue my CNG certification and I’d like to continue and grow Troublesome Creek Farm’s CSA next year, building on the lessons of 2022.