Wednesdays, noon-1:00 from February 5 - April 30. Free, via Zoom.
The full line up is at https://go.uvm.edu/webinars2025. All webinars are free, but you must pre-register at https://go.uvm.edu/webinar-registration to receive the link to join. Webinars will be recorded and posted at https://www.youtube.com/@vvbga, or listen on Spotify.
REPORTS FROM THE FIELD
(Hinesburg) Winter greens production is down relative to the past few warmer Januarys. Disease is down too. Consistently cold makes it easier to focus on getting winter tasks done: 2024 financials done, 2025 financial projections done, seeding plan done, seed order done, field map done, CAPS plan done, VOF application done, Real Organic application done…but getting tired of desk work. Feeling the need to have more tangible accomplishments. Thinking about microgreens, more hoophouses, and more storage crops for 2025. The dangers of winter boredom.
(Shrewsbury) A sunny January allowed just enough solar gain in our high tunnels to offset the freezing nights: we fully harvested our unheated tunnels by the end of 2024, and the cut greens look amazingly undamaged in their slow regrowth gearing up for March harvest.
For the previous three years, we've rented a soil steamer to control chickweed in our tunnels. This fall instead of steaming, we mulched all three tunnels with 2-3" of composted hardwood bark on the beds, and fresh bark in the pathways. Weed control is excellent, and the material also acts as a capillary break: our tunnels have been covered with 3 layers of row cover nonstop for the past 4 weeks, and with the gable vents always open, the covers are dry and plants are not suffering from excess humidity.
Since in our down-season I prefer skiing to moving row cover, this is a wonderful benefit. The downside? Moving row covers on and off the greens during their harvest season moves bits of bark on top of the greens, and slows down harvesting, washing, and packing a bit in order to sell clean produce. All in all, next year I'll put more composted bark on our tunnels rather than rent a steamer again.
(Burlington) The word of winter farming is low. Low light and low temperatures equal low growth. Easy to forget in recent years is that January can actually be cold and that has an impact on the growth rate of our unheated winter tunnels. We are well below our recent years’ harvests and it will be a few weeks before we have much of anything to harvest. Fortunately, we can string together modest amounts of greens for the CSA each week since they hold well in the coolers. Root crops are holding well too and local wholesale is picking up for winter veggies.
Just kicked off our summer CSA signup last week and have good early response. I am nervously watching our numbers to see how enrollment goes after two years of major floods. While we lost a few more CSA members than usual last spring, overall we hit our summer CSA targets. We'll see about this year, though our 2024 summer CSA production turned out significantly better than our 2023 summer CSA share.
(Guildhall) Due to the summer flooding, we only had 30 acres of potatoes to harvest out of the 52 we planted. Knowing we'd have a smaller pile of potatoes than usual, we did not send any to the terminal and really pushed our grocery store outlets. Particularly our new 5# retail bags which are variety specific, with unique colors and UPCs/barcodes to make it easy for the retailer.
Selling strong in October left us in a good position to make the big Thanksgiving sales we sometimes miss. We needed those big orders and endcap displays this year. Watching the big repackers and Idaho crash the price of 5 lb. bags for Thanksgiving was disheartening though.
Harvest went well. We harvested 966,000 lbs., down from our usual 1.3-1.6 mil lbs., but 8 of our 30 acres were reds, and they aren't a yielder. The whole crop (including the new potatoes) averaged 32,000 lbs. per acre; golds did 40,000 lbs. so yields per acre were down, but not disastrously so. The quality was the best ever. Zero hollow-heart in golds or russets. Only the early chippers had a problem with it. No scab anywhere this year. Some rhizoctonia on golds but not enough to matter. Boron, magnesium, and kelp foliar-fed this summer paid off.
Taxes are done, working on field plans and seed orders. We're switching to a 3-year rotation and not planting potatoes in fields prone to flooding anymore. Endless mechanical issues with trucks this winter keeps us busy: brakes, carbs, and fuel pumps.
2025 VVBGA ANNUAL MEETING SLIDES AVAILABLE
Over 200 people attended the meeting in Burlington. The slide presentations are posted at https://go.uvm.edu/vvbga2025. Topics include Response to Flooding, Start Up Infrastructure, Cover Crops and Rotation, Organic IPM, Labor, Tracking Profitability, Blueberry Renovation, Strawberry Production, and a tour of Asian Vegetable Farms.
2024 NEW ENGLAND FRUIT AND VEG. CONFERENCE SLIDES AVAILABLE
Need more screen time? There is a lot of valuable information in the slides from 26 different sessions posted at https://newenglandvfc.org/2024-presentations-and-proceedings/
