And the winners are: Sungolds! Eggplant! Tomatillos! And mini cucumbers!
I am doing my crops of 2024 year in review right now (a little later than usual because I recently had knee surgery.) Every year I compile the gross sales of every crop that I grow in a spreadsheet and make notes about labor, disease pressure, pest pressure, and general thoughts. It is a way for me to review what did well, what didn’t do well, and if I can do things better. There is always some crop I am shocked by how well it did. This year I was surprised to see that I had twice the sales of mini cucumbers than I had projected even though I lost the entire crop in early august to a high wind event. Eggplant and tomatillo sales were also higher than projected. Every year I sell more tomatillos and it is nice to see the demand increase in such a specialty crop. Sungolds always sell well, it is just a matter of limited disease and pest pressure.
The crops that did the worst this season were strawberries and filet beans. Filet beans are almost always a struggle to make profitable. It isn’t that they don’t grow well, it is that it is extremely hard to find employees who are able to pick at a fast enough rate to make them profitable.
This was the worst year for strawberries since I started growing them here nine years ago. Their production has been on a steep decline for the past four years due to heavy disease and pest pressure. I had hoped that I could turn it around by experimenting with different varieties and being attentive to weed suppression, but to no avail. And because of my own overly stringent desire to not spray any fungicide or pesticides, even organically approved ones, there is little more that I can do. So, I am not planting strawberries again at least for a few years to try to mitigate the worst pressures. This will be quite the change on the farm because they are the crop that first got me into the markets here and by far use the most field space. Firefly Fields has a dedicated following because of the strawberries with many people telling me that they are the best strawberries that they have ever had. It has been a difficult decision to not grow them this coming season.
Jicama was another crop that did surprisingly well. It was the first time I have ever grown a couple of beds of jicama and It was great to see such heavy production in such a small amount of space. They are such sweet and juicy roots when eaten right away. I experimented with many different ways of cooking them: fresh, pickled, friend, breaded, and roasted. They are in the bean family (fabaceae), which is really amazing! Who knew bean roots could be so tasty!
Due to the success with Jicama, I am going to trial another bean plant this coming season, peanuts! I am very excited to see how they grow here. Outside of really enjoying eating peanuts, I have always pictured Firefly Fields being a fruit, berry, and nut farm with some specialty vegetable crops. The idea of making my own peanut butter and other value added crops is also very appealing.
Thank you crops of 2024, the bounty that you produced, the beauty you shared, the lessons taught. Now on to 2025!