A specially Thursday-picked Large share, tiny farm flexibility in action for a shareholder who missed the weekend pick-up. A Large is about one and a half the size of the standard Single share. This week: carrot (Touchon), beet (Golden Detroit, Scarlet Supreme), tomato (assorted heirloom), mesclun (9-lettuce), spring onion (Ramrod, Red Baron), summer squash (Sunburst, Golden Dawn III, Ambassador), potato (Gold Rush), pepper (Ace), onion (Stuttgarter), garlic (Music). The shares have been pretty good this year, not over the top (in a superabundant way) as they have been at times in the past, but definitely solid value for the fresh, local, organic dollar!
beet
More from the Market
Today’s wares set up behind the stand at the farmers’ market. First thing in the morning (that’s around 7 am), we open and arrange all of the crates and use them to stock the stand and assemble CSA shares. Here, we’re partway into the morning—as the day progresses, crates get stacked. Visible in the pic, an assortment of mainly heirloom tomatoes, carrots, assorted sweet peppers (we picked a lot of ’em green before turning to red rather than let them shrivel in the near-drought conditions), various beets, garlic, and green and yellow beans pre-packed for the CSA. As for the traffic, the day was on the quiet side, despite great weather—it seems the fresh, local, organic trend so pumped in the media this year, and apparently somewhat sweeping the cities, is taking its time hitting the countryside. All in all, though, a decent Saturday!
The Friday harvest
If it’s Friday… This week’s big harvest was the smoothest yet, with everything in, sorted, rinsed, bundled, bagged and COUNTED by around 8:30 pm. The crew this week: Sherry, Andrea, Molana, Lynn, Cezary, Conall and me. I’m over being slightly unnerved by the number of people—my reflex is still to wonder, “If I had to, could I do it all myself?”, but now it’s also…no worries, it’ll get done! Here, Andrea, Sherry and Cezary harvest beet greens, thinning at the same time. (And that’s last plantings of more beets to the left, carrots up top under burlap, and summer squash under row cover off to the upper right. Demolished pigweed strews the path.) In today’s harvest: beets, beet greens, eggplant, mesclun, arugula, carrots, green onions, potatoes, 60-80 units of each.
Dinner!
After a fairly lazy day in the field, half of it spent waiting for the ground to dry out a bit after an intense thunderstorm (only 15mm, though), it was off to a farm a couple of miles down the road to get some local rainbow trout for dinner. Then, a quick tour of the garden to pick the fixin’s: new potatoes (Norland, Yukon Gold), yellow and green beans (Indy Gold, Derby), summer squash (Sunburst, Flying Saucer…yes, FS), beet greens (mainly Detroit Dark Red). Nestled in by the beans, the first tomato to turn color, a Stupice, of course, not quite ready to munch, but only days away! And so, except for salt, pepper, olive oil and butter, your basic local dinner!
Red onions, golden beets
Veggie variety is great: different tastes, textures, shapes, colors… From the start, it seemed only natural to grow several varieties of each crop rather than just the most “efficient” one. This has worked out to at least a couple per crop (this year, two types of spinach so far, three potato, two corn…) to many (at the extreme end, 50+ varieties of tomato). The biggest difference is quite often in maturity date: crops fairly similar in taste and appearance can be two or three weeks or more apart in maturing for harvest. Sometimes the difference is only skin deep. The Red Baron spring onions in the pic are only red for a couple of layers, but they look great when you get ’em. The Golden Detroit beets taste a little different from red varieties, but the fun (for me, at least) is mainly in the striking and unusual golden-orange flesh. Look before you eat!
First carrots plus beets!
Today we harvested the first carrots of the year (baby Nelsons), along with baby Chioggia beets, for a small custom order. Veggies seen outdoors, especially when wet, are impossibly colorful in their own particular way, quite unlike…other colorful things! I’m still and forever surprised at how deeply pleasing and satisfying it can be to simply gaze at fresh veggies in sunlight (especially after harvesting them, and on overcast, diffuse light days!). Leafy greens are great, but the time for MORE is upon us once again!
Late June harvest
The harvest is still small: snap peas, broccoli, mesclun, the last of the garlic scapes and spring spinach, beet greens, the first few, baby beets. With 50 CSA shares to fill this year (around double from last year), plus the farmers’ market, a couple of local outlets, and the farm stand, I’ve really upped the ante. Even with PEOPLE at work in the field, I’m concerned about quantity. Where bad germination and losses from pest damage here and there have been no real worry so far, now every little setback seems…dire. Probably, most of this is in my head, endless millions of small farmers have done it before and are doing it now. Still, staying tiny and diversified at my particular scale seems tougher than before. It’ll work out, and for now, any uncertainty keeps the adrenaline on a steady slow drip! :)