April 2013, Week 2

This was another week of improvements. It feels like we are starting to get a system together to keep the sorting and delivery running smoothly and on time. We are getting better with a notable exception on thursday, last week, we made it to all drop off locations by 5:30. Agnes was amazing on thursday, too. Working alone, she managed to do all the sorting and deliveries to hotels on time. It was only car trouble that made her 30 minutes late to the 13th Street Pick-Up location. Really well done, Agnes.

Help get the word out......

It seems that there are still lots of people out there, who don’t know that we exist. Please try to help us increase awareness, and hopefully, improve sales be telling anyone you know who might be interested, all about our service and all the benefits and value you get from subscribing to Sangai Farm CSA.

No lettuce this week

An extremely hot (though not necessarily unseasonable) February and March, left us with a large amount of early maturing and bolted lettuce. We were not able to use all of the lettuce harvested at the end of February and had to throw much of it away. The ones that bolted though, we are harvesting seed from right now that we hope will be more well adapted for next time. I suspect that this lettuce “drought”, will continue for the rest of this week and sometime in week 3 we’ll resume harvesting. By the first week in May, we expect to be back in full swing shipping about 2kg per share.

A positive Pest Control outlook

Almost everyone who comes the farm, remarks that we have  formidable pest challenge for organic production in Liberia. We are constantly hard at work developing our fields and pastures to create environments that are cleaner, healthier, more fertile, and less conducive overwhelming pest populations. This week we were visited by Dr. Jim Correll of The University of Arkansas, in the US. Jim spent hours with us, very keenly inspecting our plants and soils for pests of all kind. He collected numerous samples and took them to his hotel room for testing. He promised to identify all our diseases and suggest organic and sustainable methods of control. We look forward to his report later this week.

Pick Up locations

Two of the three pick up locations that we were trying to establish did not work out. We are still working hard to find some good spots, and hope to wrap all that up by the start of May.

Social Media

Please please please make sure that you follow us on twitter and like our fan-page on Facebook. Not only is that a great way to receive up to date information about the farm but it also greatly helps get our name out there.