2022 Spring Update
The snow is slowly melting, there is 50 degree weather in the weekend forecast and farmers are emerging from their dens of slumber. It's time for the TCBC 2022 Spring update!
2021 was a weird year for farmers (and everyone). Whereas 2019 was the wettest year in MN history, 2021 was one of the hottest and dryest. We had several 100-degree days, in May. We had tornadoes, in December. Weeks and weeks would go by without a drop of rain; the corn fields adjacent to my humble plot were suffering badly. Throughout the field season I kept thinking to myself 'this isn't just bad luck, this is the new normal'. The question is no longer "Will more crazy weather events happen?" but rather "I wonder what crazy events will happen this year, again?". I'll say it again: the climate isn't just changing, it has already changed. For farmers, and small specialty crop growers especially, that means adapt or die.
So how is TCBC adapting? Well, we've been transitioning this way for a few years now, and you've probably seen it on our social feeds, but we are making the difficult choice of going further and further away from traditional, open field production. No more wide open fields and scenic pictures. No more nostalgia of berry picking like it used to be when we were children. No, for us at least there are just too many pest, disease, economic and weather pressures. Too many obstacles forcing us away from those relics of a more comfortable past. Instead we are growing more and more with 'protected culture'- inside high tunnels and caterpillar tunnels where we can at least passively protect ourselves from the unstable whims of a changed climate. In 2021 we trialed in-ground production of strawberries in 4 caterpillar tunnels (see picture above) but this year we are ramping. it. up.
For two years now we've been trialing strawberry 'tabletop production' in a collab with the University of Minnesota. It is essentially container gardening, but the containers are long, narrow and propped up to waist level. Now we are ready to expand the trial and see how this method performs inside protected culture at a slightly larger scale. The benefits of a system like this are various, and plentiful. Whereas we could only plant 900 in-ground strawberries within the tunnels last year, a system like this can hold over 2,000 in the same, small space. No more bending and crawling to harvest. Weeding is essentially eliminated. The plants are protected against disease and pest pressures. And perhaps best of all, since we aren't using the ground it's possible to sow perennial cover crops below the plants, allowing a grower to restore soil health while simultaneously growing crops. These are benefits usually reserved for multi-million dollar Dutch greenhouses within a system financially accesible to young and beginning farmers like myself. I believe there's massive potential here, and while 2022 is exploring this technique only within one tunnel, once I work out the kinks I hope to expand it to the whole farm. Stay tuned!
This year TCBC will be returning to Mill City Farmers Market on Saturdays, with our classic array of fresh strawberries and raspberries along with specialty jams, shrubs, syrups and fruit leather! We will also be expanding our online presence by working with internet marketplaces like Market Wagon and GrownBy to give customers as many ways of getting Fresh TCBC products as possible. We also hope to have several fun videos up soon on the Twin Cities Berry Company YouTube channel. Make sure to follow our Facebook and Instagram pages to get the latest updates on your favorite local berry producer! Catch you all soon, -Andy