remember all those onions???

So, yeah, yesterday we addressed (read: cleaned and bagged) 1000+lbs of those 10,000 onions we planted in early April. Not only did we (we 3 and 10 wonderful volunteers) work, we socialized, we drank wine, we ate watermelon... we washed our hands to no avail.

But let me rewind quickly...

The morning was cool (as it has been the past several days). Wednesday, being our "space to breathe" day as we don't have to harvest, afforded us some time to take a status tour of the farm.
Many things to do including (as always) cultivation. Before that, though, I took a little time to prep for the Onion party we had last night. I washed the mesh onions bags to try to free them of any past residue.
With bags washed I needed to find a place to dry them...

Voila. Like these pics.











While I was prepping, D was fixing the spray jets on the root washer.
After this, E and I spent the better part of the rest of the morning weeding and thinning beets in D. Badly needed.

We had our afternoon off as we were going to work in the evening. Though I still managed to work. I hopped a tractor and mowed all the areas of Y field. My fastidious side was plenty satisfied having done so.
Cruised then in "my" bad motomobile to get some chips and crackers for the post-work eats/drinks.

Back to the work party then.
What can I say? People arrived around 6. We cleaned loads of onions and bagged them. We talked and laughed And then we ate and drank. How awesome is this "job?"







THANK YOU, VOLUNTEERS!!

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And today then.
What a strange day for weather. Coolish and partly cloudy in the morning, but still storms developed. Pretty intense ones in the area. Storms that would build to full size within a half hour, make some noise and move on. Just odd... The good news is that we don't have to irrigate for a while. Like that.

We harvested carrots first. (nts: d tried using the chisel plow to loosen the carrots. didn't work so well this time. using fork/shovels takes a little longer, but is more effective) And then we tried out the repaired root washer... like a charm. Nice one, D.

Our next move was to cultivate. I removed reemay, moved irrigation and then Basket Weeded our latest planted rows in D. Turned out very well. E used the Perfecta on every piece of field that was not planted and feeling weed pressure. D tilled in some headlands.

Lunch came quickly. Black beans and quinoa for me.

After lunch we ducked into the back barn to clean some garlic while we let a storm pass, then it was back to the tractors. This took me through the rest of the day.
A little hand weeding of carrots was thrown in there too.

Tomorrow's harvest is going to take a lot of doin.

Lookin forward to it. See what we can wrangle.

Dig.