We harvested what was necessary as the week's share was going to be sizable due to our mad day of harvesting on Thursday. Pays to put in a full day from time to time. (On a side note, I keep waiting for our shares to get smaller as the Fall progresses, but happily... not so much. Always an abundance.)
At lunchtime D made the call and gave us the rest of the day off as it was to rain throughout. ummm... Rock on!!
I relaxed.
Friday night I watched the debate. ...and had some opinions about it...
Saturday's distribution went well. E gave a few demonstrations on how to make sauerkraut. People appreciated having options with their large heads of cabbage. Lactofermentation is a rather easy process to learn and hugely beneficial when it comes to both health and veggie storage.
E is behind the stand of produce.
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My second to last city visit followed distribution. I realize as I write this that my last day on the farm is exactly one month from now. (Mind scrambler, that thought). At which time I will be moving back to the city (which, admittedly, I miss).
Great weekend.
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Monday had us right back into harvesting. Picking enough for our Tuesday people.
Our Fall carrots were ready. On a whole they are pretty big as compared to our Summer succession. Same with Broccoli. Huge... and healthy.
Monday night I worked on the bench. This time I used a different approach to try to fare the inner curves. John (whose hand tools I've been using, THANK YOU!!) suggested I try drilling out the bulk of the wood that I couldn't reach with the adze. He gave me a LARGE drill and bit that could actually clear the width of the bench.
While it worked to a degree, there was still about half the wood waste left. What I needed at this point was a curved gouge and/or small chisel. More on this below...
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Tuesday was a fairly typical one. Harvest the first few hours, 7-10:30-ish. By 11 it's time to start filling the 70 bins for our remote distribution. We were done and had the van loaded by 12:20. I made the drive this week. Of note were/are the wonderful colors of Fall on the drive (and around here). Pics of this coming tomorrow.
Tuesday night? Food. Cooked... then slept.
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Today we began by clearing the mature Summer Squash plants from F in order to properly prep the soil in the first six beds for the garlic that will be planted there on Saturday. Yes, garlic always gets planted the previous Autumn.
We moved to harvesting right after as the next two days will involve some non-harvesting, garlic-related duties. Might as well cushion ourselves.
Radishes, Carrots and Broccoli were first up. Broccoli, while plentiful and beautiful this succession, is seeing a lot of green caterpillars. Seems they're coming from the cabbage that resides near the far end of the bed. No worries, they do no harm, just gotta rinse before eating (actually, not even as they are a source of protein... ha ha).
The rest of the day was spent on Sweet Potatoes (finally!).
We've been waiting all season for these guys to reach maturity. Yay. Slow process harvesting though. First all of the potatoes vines get hand pulled off the ground. Then the tractor goes through with the potato spade to unearth them. Then it's hands and knees picking and sifting, the whole 400'. Before we give them out they must cure in the greenhouse for about a week. I will, however, be trying some well before then. Believe it.
This evening? The bench. I finally got the inner curves roughed out. Did it with a rounded gouge. Worked beautifully. I then adzed and scrub planed the deck. It is, indeed, coming along.
Dig.
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