Home for next year’s garlic, carved out of the oats yesterday, is looking good! Mow the oats (the riding mower got a good workout and did a reasonable job), spread aged cow manure from the barnyard, and rototill in with the Kubota compact tractor. Simple! What sight is sweeter than a rich, freshly turned new garden plot, ready for another round?! :)
Year: 2007
Harvesting Brussels sprouts
That was interesting! I’ve harvested Brussels sprouts by picking the individual heads, but for our first bigger harvest of about 60 plants, to speed things up, I decided to take the whole thing.
First try: chopping the base of the stem with the machete-like harvest knife was like hitting a piece of hardwood. Wow! Tough and cut-resistant… Next up, a sharp hatchet fared no better: a solid whack hardly penetrated.
So, we pulled ’em up, roots and all. They set in pretty good, but the main roots are shallow, so even with knocking off the clumped soil, this went quickly.
Next, we discovered that removing the roots is easily accomplished with a short, fairly rigid hand saw. Once we figured out the right starting angle, one and half strokes cut through the stems like butter: zip-zip!
Then to the harvest knife: swipe off the head, and then, holding the base of the stem, about four downward lopping strokes, rotating after each, to shear off the leaves. Kinda odd looking results, but efficient all around.
The sprouts, catching up from the summer drought, haven’t all filled out, still, a healthy yield of full-size to tiny heads from each one.
It was a completely novel, different harvest process than for all the other veggies. All the chopping and cutting was…fun!
Last big harvest of the year!
And then there were two! For the last big Friday harvest of the season—it’s the 18th and final CSA share and second to last Saturday at the farmers’ market—the crew was down to Conall and me. It was a rainy one, with the ground soaked from a couple of days of showers, but it was all smooth. With the cooler, cloudy conditions favoring a little extra storage time, Conall did the Brussels sprouts and eggplant yesterday. And with the shortening days, the mesclun growth has slowed to a near halt, and there’s not enough for CSA shares, so that fairly time-consuming task was out. In fact, things went so well, we managed to take a couple of hours off and head into town to pick up some things, and were still done by 7 pm. In the pic: bok choi and beets up for rinsing, with carrots and Brussels sprouts already in the bins. In today’s harvest: the spicy greens mix (arugula, tatsoi, mizuna, mustard), about 20 lbs (9 kg) of mesclun, collards, parsley, beets, carrots, bok choi, kale, a few broccoli and cauliflower, plus potatoes, onions, garlic, pumpkins and winter squash from storage. Conall’s done for the season tomorrow, so next week for the last farmers’ market harvest, it’s down to one. Time flies…!
And now for something completely different…
Looking through photos on the computer today, on a rainy afternoon after the farmers’ market, I ran into this one. I’d saved it from somewhere on the Web three or four years back (public domain, I think). It’s a striking shot, although whether it’s advertising safe pesticide handling or the scariness of chemical agriculture, I’m not sure. And, hey, that could be me, all dressed up and getting ready to go—you’re never too tiny to do some spraying! I looked up the pictured product, Monsanto Lasso. It is, or was until recently, the biggest selling agricultural herbicide in the US, used “everywhere” on corn and soybeans. It’s also a “known or probable carcinogen” and apparently messes with human reproductive and developmental functions as well. Hmmm… Luckily, I use a wheel hoe…
Pumpkins on the stand
This year’s pumpkins eventually made it to the newly roofed farm stand. It makes a nice autumn scene, especially on a fine, balmy fall day like today. I suppose this coming together of pumpkin and stand is a fitting progression and a good sign, since both are works in progress. For the last couple of seasons, I’ve PLANNED to open the stand full-time for at least a day or two a week, but various things got in the way. And pumpkins have been too bulky to take in quantity to the market so far (we absolutely pack a pick-up truck; a roomy, custom-fitted trailer is on the big-purchases-when- I’m-able list). At least, the pumpkins are now on the stand! Several CSA shareholders have picked some up, and I’ve given away a few, so it’s working, kinda. The greenish-gray ones are Jamboree, the white ones are Lumina…
Welding
A second incredibly warm and sunny day, perfect for a little welding in the barnyard. Yesterday, something kinda disengaged in the riding mower deck, leaving behind a pretty nasty racket and nearly no mowing action, and now the deck is getting a long-overdue overhaul.
Hitting rocks in the field can’t be reasonably avoided. After four years of pounding, the spline on one of the pulley assemblies that spins a blade was completely worn down and the whole thing had to be replaced. We picked up the part this morning, and an hour later, the mower was back in business. Here, Bob welds on a washer to patch a cracked mounting hole (he’s brazing, which is a type of welding, or high-heat soldering, depending on how precise you want to get…it’s all joining molten metal to me!).
DIY repairs keep the tiny farm rolling. I can do routine minor repairs—splicing hoses, replacing tines, sealing tire leaks, sharpening blades, re-priming pumps, basic rough carpentry, banging on things until they work, and the like—but welding is still far in the distance. Welding is great. We should all learn to weld, right away…! :)
Big old barn
The main barn is huge. I’ve gotten used to it, because it’s always around, but it’s on a whole other scale from my tiny farming, and I don’t know it that well. Upstairs, in the cavernous main space, mysterious rigging and wooden contraptions that probably have something to do with hay float in the shadows 30-40 feet up. There are hidden stairways, built-in ladders, chutes and trapdoors in the floor. In a little corner in the back where it stays cool, I store garlic and onions during the summer and fall. I also take a long view of the garden field from the top of the gangway leading in. The barn was built in 1949, after its predecessor was accidentally burnt down by the idly discarded cigarette of a wandering stranger (“hobo”? “itinerant rural homeless person”?) who’d spent the night. The main structure is all wood—mortise and tenon—with no nails or other metal fasteners involved. I’ve picked up lots of details and stories centered around this barn. It symbolizes farming, it makes this place look like a farm, but to me it’s mainly just…space. That’s a little weird. As I took stock of the last of the onions and the seed garlic today, I decided to spend some time on really looking around. Explore now!