We dig into how Chris and Jessi learned how to grow this challenging crop, and how they get compensated for the high labor inputs chicories require. And while we didn’t get into proprietary details of the more specialty varieties, Chris provides a primer on producing quality chicories for fall production, as well as insights on how they produce other high-end crops bursting with flavor.
Chris also provides insights into their marketing strategy, how he and Jessi jumped from city jobs into farming, and how he and Jessi are working to solve the challenges they’ve had sourcing labor for their young operation.
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Quotes from the Show
Deer really love radicchio… they only eat the ones that are perfectly ready to pick, and they only nick just a little bit of it to ruin it.
We have really good weed control with the finger weeder, and it's kind of mind blowing how well it works. It's a really expensive tool, but I don't think I'd ever look back or think twice about it.
Why wouldn’t I take this amazing opportunity to sell to all these great restaurants and all these high end clients? Why would I throw that out the window because I maybe wanted to not have a long commute once a week or twice a week.
It's kind of nice because we're both in the city one day a week, at least. We have kind of best of both worlds. We can still go to an Italian specialty store and buy nice dried pasta or whatever, and then live out in the country in the quiet and be outside all day.
Show Links
Campo Rosso shares a ton of information on their Instagram https://www.instagram.com/camporossofarm/ ; including a video of the row-cover roller Chris discussed.