I shall do my best to recount most of each day... with a heavy dose of brevity.
Tuesday, 12th
D put E and I in charge as he was in dire need of house construction time.
We managed to harvest (the two of us, then joined by Johanna and Pam):
Cucumbers
Eggplants
Parsley
Lettuce
Peppers
Squash
Tomatoes
Not too shabby.
I stayed here and set up/managed distribution all by my lonesome. I really dug it.
Our "pick your own" list included:
Beans
Basil
Dill
Cilantro
Scallions
..and Flowers of course.
I was happy with the day's smoothness.
Wednesday, 13th
My day began by cleaning the greenhouse. Knee high in onion remnants. Making way for those arriving later in the day. After that, I prepped the onion harvesting areas with harvest bins and organized the tables in the greenhouse.
The late morning/lunch hour saw several teenage "vacationers" (who were staying with a counselor in the guest house on the property) helping us harvest our last 3 beds of onions. Storage onions on this go round. These ones will last through the winter if kept properly.
After onions, I went to work handweeding/hoeing the beds of Asian greens that are now coming up nicely.
E had family visit in the afternoon. Later she and her family laid out 2+ large harvest bins of onions on greenhouse tables to cure.
She laid out more in the post work hours, and even later I finished up the job.
Thursday, 14th
I started with the basket weeder.
The purslane growing in D (in Carrots, Beets, Chard, Herbs, Etc) is relentless.
Knock it down and if it's not completely severed and/or totally dried out by the sun, it's back w/in a day or two.
I was a little skittish about basket weeding the carrot bed as they are still seedlings and easily covered up by the flying soil coming from the weeder. I made my pass and it seemed to work. Asking D about it the next day, I realize I could've been even more aggressive.
(Events on Wednesday and Thursday are a little foggy, so I may be just a hair off on some of these. Rest assured they all happened though.)
We cultivated for the better part of the day. D was working on his house again.
Thursday night was our 3rd work and wine event.
We had a few wonderful volunteers show to help trim and bag garlic and onions.
Then we had wine. Simplicity. A gorgeous evening too...
Friday, 15th
Harvest harvest harvest.
With help too. Thankfully.
Lettuce
Leeks
Beans
Potatoes (the first time too...which I missed as I was harvesting Squash. I did volunteer to do so however...)
-afternoon-
more Squash
Cucumbers
Peppers
Eggplants (they are FINALLY slowing down)
Tomatoes
All ready for distribution. Quite a feat of harvesting.
Saturday, 16th
A few pics from distribution...
(first big tomato harvest! yay!)
(10th anniversary t-shirts, aprons and bags. nice)
...which I left early to mow/weedwhack all morning and into the late afternoon in preparation for our second BIG picnic of the season. Oh yeah, and in case you forgot, mowing rocks! Curiously within the first 10 minutes of weedwhacking I unknowingly hacked into a nest of yellow jackets. This I didn't even realize until I was already stung (in the temple...ouch) by a quick one. ^#%$*&!!! (Sunday the right side of my face swelled up. My eye all puffy. I looked like a prize fighter. Nice.)
Picked up H around 4.
People arrived around 5-5:30. We socialized, we drank, we ate good dishes made/brought by members.
Curiously (again), I entertained with a few songs on the old geetar and vocals. People seemed to dig. Martha (one of our regular volunteers) joined me for several more (we put them together just a couple hours prior). She rocked it.
And then...talk about cool stuff...two children of one of our members played violin and cello separately and together. Really awesome.
And then...!! Bob (member) used my guitar to bang out and old Woody Guthrie number to much applause.
And finally.. D sang one of his field songs for everyone to hear. Go D.
A truly wonderful evening.
(all pics taken by H. thank you.)
Sunday, 17th
I rested.
Monday, 18th
First up was an early morning run to the train station to drop off H.
Back in time to hit up the gas station for some coffee.
A slice and a half of cold pizza for breakfast and I was ready to break me off a lil Monday sumpm sumpm.
We took (what seems to be) our regular Monday morning farm tour. What did we see?
- Winter Squash plants are beginning to turn. We'll let them die out completely and harvest their fruit. Pretty self-sufficient plants.
- Asian greens are rocking right along.
- Cultivation, cultivation, cultivation. Everywhere. Not only do we want to give our growing crops as much space and nutrient access as possible, BUT, we want to seed our fall cover crops soon (in the used/bare beds/fields). However, we need to make sure we eliminate as much potential (and actual) weed seed as possible. Tough to do when they just keep coming. Perfecta will probably work best as it is a surface cultivator. Rototilling will turn any viable weed seed too deep into the soil, basically setting up another few years of that particular weed in that particular spot. Not good.
- We've planted too many leeks. Must harvest.
- Something has eaten a sizable portion of our fall kale in Y. As well as some Broccoli and Cabbage...and some sweet potato leaves.
Groundhog?
Rabbit?
Deer?
Not sure yet. We can't seem to find its route to and fro. We shall keep our eyes open.
We harvested leeks.
We harvested tomatoes (450+ lbs).
We hand weeded carrots in D.
I cultivated with the perfecta for the last 3 hours of the day.
Straight ahead farming stuff.
I made an amazing salad and roasted some potatoes for dinner tonight. SOOOO Good.
Phew!! Happy I'm caught up now.
Thanks for reading.
Dig.
No comments:
Post a Comment