Your first-Sunday farm visit: what to expect
What happens on our monthly visit to a partner farm, what to bring, and how to make it a good day for children.
Wednesday in the packing shed: how 3,400 boxes come together
From the first farm van at noon to the last delivery bike at 11 am Thursday, here is what happens to your vegetables in between.
Every Wednesday our packing shed on Mettupalayam Road fills up twice: first with vegetables, then with boxes. Here is how a day runs.
The farms start harvesting early on Wednesday morning, when it is still cool. By noon the first vans arrive from farms around Karamadai and Thondamuthur, and Kavitha, who runs the shed, checks every crate as it comes in. She weighs it against the farmer’s order, looks for damage and records the farm name, which later goes on your box list. Vegetables that are bruised or too small are set aside for our soup kitchen partner, not thrown out.
From 3 pm the shed is sorted into stations, one for each vegetable, laid out in the order the boxes are filled: heavy roots first, greens last. A team of 28 people fills boxes along two long tables. Each box carries a printed list showing what should be inside, including any swaps the customer chose by Tuesday night.
Greens are wrapped in damp cloth just before packing. The boxes are stacked in the cool room at about 12°C overnight. At 5.30 am on Thursday the delivery riders start loading, sorted by area, and the first boxes reach homes in Saibaba Colony and RS Puram by 7 am. The last leave by 11. If something is missing from your box, send us a photo that morning; we usually find out exactly where it went wrong.
