This week was intense. Our morning harvests were high volume and fast-paced. We all seem to have a good handle on how to move through the day with efficiently and purpose, which feels really good and motivates me to work even harder. This week we began the harvest of carrots, cucumbers, and potatoes. Potatoes are a fun one. You take a digging fork and loosen up the soil then pull the plant out – with potatoes attached to the roots. Then you keep digging and have to search out loose ones. It’s so exciting and I think of it like digging up buried treasure; you never know what you’re going to get! Unfortunately some of our potato plants have a disease called ‘black leg’ which is essentially a rotting of the stem (like our cucumbers). It’s a disease of the soil common in unusually wet and cold conditions (like our entire spring/summer up until this week of 80 degree weather); but, so far the majority of the plants have been harvestable so it’s not as dire as it could have been.
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Bill gives us a lesson on potato harvesting
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| A heart-shaped cull! |
On Tuesday we celebrated Lisa’s 36th birthday which was a night of AMAZING food – beer battered salmon, fresh cucumber, carrot, and radish salads, and a flourless chocolate s’more’s cake!
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| Lisa's Birthday Cake! |
However, the best part of my week was on Friday when Erin came out to visit and help out in the field! She spent the afternoon with us in the packout bagging spinach for Saturday market and then helped weed an unruly bed of carrots. The next morning she was definitely feeling the ‘bent-at-waist-hamstring- burn’ – lol – which is a distant yet eternally familiar memory of my first days out in the field. It was really fun to have someone I love be a part of my experience out here. I can’t wait for my mom and dad to get here August 28th!!
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| Erin samples our Nettle Beer! |
My garden has been producing some good food as well. I especially love my thyme-oregano plant – some sort of hybrid that tastes great baked into a pizza crust! I feel like the more crops we harvest, the more we eat! All day long we talk about what we could make for dinner with the copious amounts of food we bring in. Eating has been as much of a learning experience as farm work as been. Especially living with a professional cook – I never knew all of the things you could do with the most basic ingredients. Our kitchen is eternally busy with creative energy; all four burners going and dishes piling up. Today Paul attempted to brew beer but had to call it quits when we ran out of propane. However this didn’t quell his spirit – he continued drinking and gave us a good laugh when he stepped out into the back yard holding a mug of his last success (a mugwort beer) wearing only a t-shirt and Ashley’s flower print apron. Unfortunately I have no pictorial evidence of this.
All in all, another great week with beautiful weather and lots of great energy!
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| Planting baby lettuce! |
After reading your blog I can really appreciate how much work (and love) goes into growing food that we just take for granted. When prices go up, we don't stop to think about all of these factors that might have influenced the growing of that food, causing an increase in price. Gee....
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I can't wait to see the fields and especially your little personal garden. Only 3 more weeks!