Newsletter November 4, 2025

Vees of geese are flying south in their annual pilgrimage to warmer climes.  The smell of fallen leaves, the sound of coyotes on the chill night air and my desire to sit and read in the evenings under a blanket have all increased as the temperature drops.  Thankful to be slowing down a bit and starting to work on different projects getting ready for the seasonal change.

Our biweekly delivery season has started.  Our first delivery will be Wednesday, November 12.  The season will progress on an every other week basis with the exception of the one delivery before Christmas moving to that Tuesday.

Our Beef Boxes and Chicken Box are listed on the front page of our Farmshop.  Our meat boxes follow our discount levels for the buydown CSA.  The boxes are priced at $300, $500 and $1000.  Each box is listed with its exact content.  

We are running low on our winter storage produce.  Due to the drought we harvested about 40% less produce this fall.  This has left us with a small inventory going into winter.  For this reason our winter produce boxes will be limited.  We will instead be offering bulk purchases of what we have left in stock.  I will try to highlight what is available in each newsletter.  Right now we have winter squash, cabbage and carrots.  We will finish our market season with the last of the beets and greens.  Our pinto potatoes have all been sold.  

We will be starting our CSA deliveries later this coming year, after many complaints about getting only greens and spring crops. The late springs the last two years has made filling those early shares very hard and stressful. We also have a high percentage of share members trying to juggle vacation plans and deliveries around July Fourth week. 

If you would like a greens and spring crop share in June, it will be available for order on our website and will be delivered like our regular shares.

The first week of biweekly delivery will be after the week of July Fourth. It will continue biweekly for eight deliveries and end in October.

If you desire more vegetables consider ordering two shares. The shares are fresh and if properly stored they will last two weeks.

After you sign up and pay for your share, we will send you an add on menu in March that you can use to add on to your summer deliveries from many options including tree fruits, milk, eggs, meats and prepared items from The Heritage Kitchen. Payment for the add ons will be due in April.

The fruit shares this coming year will only be tree fruits. We will start with cherries, plums and apricots. Peaches, plums and nectarines will be our summer fruits. Apples, pears and prune plums will finish out the fall. Sourcing berries has been a large stressor for us this past year and it has gotten very expensive, an expense we don’t want to pass on to you.

Vacation share cancelations will be converted to a market CSA account balance instead of makeup shares. This value will allow you to get things from market or order items from our website for delivery with a share delivery. We need to know a week ahead of time to do this so we don’t pick and pack your share and waste the produce. Confusion and record keeping around vacations has been a huge challenge for us and we needed to make it easier for everyone.

The number of shares we will do this year will be limited. I anticipate that we will sell out fairly quickly, so if you want to be included please do it soon.

Early Signups are due by December 5 to be eligible for a free holiday share to be delivered on December 10.

Link for 2026 Home Delivery CSA: 2026 Home Delivery CSA

We will be taking our pigs to butcher next week and anticipate getting pork back by Thanksgiving.  We will do another newsletter with information soon.

The drought and a cold wet spring has led to the most challenging growing year we have ever experienced.  It is hard to explain how depending on an external climate for our success can frustrate the best of intentions and hard work.  We have put the field to bed in a very good condition and can only hope and prepare for a good growing year in 2026.  

Life has taken its twists and turns this year.  I am very thankful for all of our wonderful friends and customers.  We work hard to build a community around the farm and love that you all are here with us.  Faith, hope and love are the things that remain.  We are blessed in an abundance of all three.

From all of us at Plato Dale Farm, Thank You!