We harvested. I know that. But what?? And how much??
OOOOOOhhhhh yeah!!! We harvest LOADS of onions!!
And no, I have no pics to go along with my explanation... Dang...
....btw, just checked, E has pics on her blog.... nice one.
Anyhoo, Friday. As the greenhouse is fairly vacant at this point in the season, it conveniently becomes a curing room for thousands of onions. We set all of the tables up lengthwise against the sides to accommodate the tractor coming and going with the large harvest bins.
Short process shorter: The bins were carried on the loader forks down the bed(s) of onions and we (including Nancy, Katherine and Daniel) pulled as many onions as we could at a time. With both hands full, the onions are then placed side by side in the bins. When all bins were full, D transported the bins to the greenhouse one at a time. From there we layered them on the tables in one direction, giving each bulb the space it needs to "air out." (nts: we had a small number of rotten ones. d said if we would've harvested a few days earlier, perhaps we would've had less)
We broke in the middle of the process and finished up after lunch.
It was then time to pull out some shade cloth (a heavy woven black nylon mesh) to go over the whole greenhouse. The purpose of the cloth is to protect the onions from unhealthy high temps and the blazing sunlight. It works splendidly.
We just about finished the day by harvesting peppers and eggplants. Growing like crazy, those ones.
I made a few passes with the mower before quitting time and it was off to the train station to pick up h for a weekend visit.
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26th
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Saturday's distribution was colorful and well-attended. Why do I know? I actually got to stay in the barn to work it. Nice!!
Want a few pics of the harvest????
Later in the afternoon, we had our 10th Anniversary Picnic. A whole buncha members and friends showed up. There were: food, drinks, laughs, a hayride, costumes...(nice one, D),
and one mad, big bouncy house that I'm pretty sure most of the adults enjoyed as well.
...and Marie (whom I've introduced before) sang a wonderful song (accompanied by E on accordion) for everyone about giving thanks. So heartfelt. I teared up.
A few more pics from the picnic.
Indeed Saturday was a great one.
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27th
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Sunday was mostly about relaxing, though the storm(s) that blew threw sent a shot of anxiety into the middle of the day.
Quarter-sized hail at one point.
Luckily and happily, there was NO significant crop damage as the hail lasted for just a short while.
H and I drove around afterward and encountered quite a bit more damage than what I expected from a storm that size. Mostly downed trees, but still surprising.
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28th
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Monday, as is usually the case now, we harvested. (Of note: As D was indisposed at his house for the day, E was given the chance to be head honcho. She did quite well.)
Harvested:
Lettuce
Cilantro
Onions
Carrots
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Peppers
Eggplants
Late morning saw the arrival of 10 campers from a nearby sleep away camp. They helped us harvest Onions and Carrots.. and did a truly, truly awesome job, by the way. We took them on a tour of the farm and fed them watermelon (the first of the season) before they left.
I also had the chance earlier to fix a broken sweep on one of the cub implements. Good as new and ready to cultivate.
After work I needed to meditate, soo..... I mowed and weedwhacked... of course.
E trellised tomatoes in the lower Solar field. Not an easy one as the plant varieties are indeterminates. This means they just keep on growing upward. And if not trellised at the right time(s), they will fall all over themselves and present one with a very slow, involved trellising opportunity. So it pays to stay ahead of the game on this.
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29th - Today
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A fairly straight ahead distribution Tuesday.
Except first we learned how to use the root vegetable washer. (as I'm low on energy and don't have the pics uploaded yet, I'll explain it tomorrow)
We washed off yesterday's carrots with much less effort than by hand.
Leeks were up next.
And after that? Melons!
How do we do so? It's very similar to harvest onions in bulk insofar as the tractor and large bins are concerned. The picking/tossing method, however, is totally its own thing. Three of us (Pam included) tiptoed through the beds knocking on one melon at time listening for the right deep pitch that lets you know it's ripe.
Finding a ripe one, you pluck the vine from melon, lift it up, brush off the underside, swing it back between your legs and chuck it with all you've got to D standing 25' away. He catches each one and places it in the bin. Slowly, we moved our way down the patch. A truly fun (if not a little exhausting) harvesting process.
Before lunch we packed our remote distribution shares. Just about 20lbs of produce today. Man, that's some gooooood stuff.
I stayed here for distribution, which went very well.
While tearing down, D approached me about managing tomorrow.. and perhaps the next 3 days. Indeed. I'm down.
I walked the entirety of the farm this evening creating a status report/to do list.
We'll see what can be accomplished tomorrow. Whole lotta stuff to address.
Hmmmm. Never enough time.
We shall see how it goes.
Dig.
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