We originally scheduled our experiment with season extension to begin on January 11th 2012. However, Steve had to rethink that start date due to the amount of rain we had toward the last half of 2012, the timing of planting and the slow growth of the vegetables in the hoop house. So, we did two things, we cut back on the amount of membership we would take in for this particular experiment and we began in December of 2011. Our goal was to see if it was possible to provide a fair variety of high quality produce in the Southern Illinois region in January and February when this area is lacking in local organically grown produce. The weather is the determining factor in this experiment. Hoop houses help, but they still cannot prevent frost damage from occurring unless, of course, a farmer wants to keep a wood burning stove going 24/7 which is near to impossible if that farmer wants to get anything else done. The other issue, that is of importance to winter vegetable growth, is the amount of sunlight or lack there of. As the days are shorter in the winter months so is the amount of sunshine the plants are exposed to. The lack of longer hours of sunshine is a huge contributing factor to the very slow growth of the plants. We are certainly learning, and we have been able to provide some very good produce to our members. The variety is, of course, lower than it would be in the spring and summer and it is also trickier as we move into January and February. So we are not quite done with the experiment yet. We have three more distributions.The reason for writing this post is to let everyone know that we will be reassessing how we will be achieving season extension for this year. Because of this reassessment our information about the 2012-2013 Winter/Spring section of the C.S.A. is yet to be determined and we will be working on getting everyone more current information soon.
We felt that it was necessary to conduct this experiment to learn what the possibilities were. One of the things we pride ourselves on is being able to provide what we say we are going to provide. We never want to overextend ourselves and find that we are letting our membership down. We are very grateful to the folks who are participating in this experiment and we are thankful for every one's patience and understanding as we go through these experiments to learn more about this regions possibilities for continuous sustainability. Ultimately, that is our goal!
In the mean time, we are taking memberships for the 2012 24 week Summer/Fall section of the C.S.A. If anyone has any questions or would like to come and visit the farm, please feel free to contact us at: fran.hollowpumpkin@gmail.com
