Preparations for the 2010 season are in full swing. We are busy completing our warehouse, the cold storage area and our chicken coop. The warehouse is an old barn which we have converted into an all-purpose building, re-cycling old barn planks from the self-same barn to create a cold storage area, a vegetable work area, a washing station, a general purpose workbench and a mezzanine which will serve, among other things, as extra storage space. Building a cold storage room is done in stages to ensure its long-term usefulness. Building materials and techniques are selected to minimize the negative effects of condensation on stored crops. The cooling system has to satisfy peak performance requirements in order to chill large quantities of fresh-picked field vegetables.
On Monday we laid the foundation for the chicken coop – weather permitting, we will raise the walls and complete the inside layout in the next week or two. We expect to house thirty-something layers this summer, along with a few free-range chickens. We’ll let you know as soon as we have organic eggs for sale – once the hens settle in.