Long Term Planning

Some crops require planning ahead more than others. Most of what we’re growing is annuals that start and end all in the same year. I would like to do more perennial crops for the CSA, but planning out quantities is quite difficult. For example, asparagus takes about 3 years to be ready for a significant harvest. At this point in my farm plan it’s pretty hard to know how much we’ll need in 3 years. I would have liked to plant more this spring (picture above is part of 500 plants put in last spring), but time and money dictated that we wait a bit. Also, I need to figure out better how to control the weeds yearly in the plantings before I make it too big.

Strawberries is another one of these crops. Last year I planted about 100 plants. It might not be enough for the CSA to get a good share this year. So this past week we planted another 100 June bearing plants that I hope will help with that but again – should have planted more! As we learn more about perennials we should get better at crop planning with them.