Here it is, in the dim, chilly, gray 7:30 am light: the first snow to stick this fall. Familiar—we really do have such a short growing season, time flies—and of course not welcome, because there’s still fieldwork to do. And I’ll take warmth and greenery any day. But this first round will be gone by mid-morning, and if the 15-day forecast holds anywhere near mildly accurate, we won’t be in for snow that stays for at least another couple of weeks. The last two years in this region, winter came kinda early, freezing weather and long-term snow arrived by the end of November. But the couple of seasons before that, far as I remember, we were actually WATCHING for winter well into January. So, who knows?!
This year’s pumpkin haul
This season didn’t see too much pumpkin action in the garden, with less planted than in the past (although we’ve never planted A LOT). Mixed with winter squash in a couple of locations, the spread-out pumpkin patch added up to somewhere around 50’x50′ (15x15m), about half of the usual, enough for 3 weeks of CSA, plus some for the farmers’ market. The selection was to-the-point as well, with lots of the freakishly fast-growing Neon (60-80 days!), a few Connecticut Field, and some compact Small Sugar for pie and Snackjack for seeds, all basic mildly-ribbed-and-orange, without the unusual extras of most other years. True to past form, the hybrid Neons, even the ones transplanted quite late in June, completely ignored the mysteriously weird conditions this summer that slowed down just about everything else. Here, loaded on the trailer, is about half of the overall harvest. No intriguing pumpkin surprises, still, EVERY successful harvest is ALWAYS worth a high-five, therefore, officially fun… :)
Yes, carrots!
Just-rinsed carrots in the soft light of an overcast day: beautiful every time! Some veggies look particularly good without trying… These are freshly pulled Nelson, at a pretty fair size but not yet fully mature, from our fourth planting of the season. Every year so far, I’ve put in at least four, sometimes five plantings in succession, and we rarely see really fat, full-sized carrots. This has worked well for CSA and farmers’ market: our carrots are freshly harvested every week, never from storage, and at a versatile size, always perfect for eating raw and usually big enough for convenient cooking as well. Today’s haul, bundled and laid out for rinsing on the long screen table, will be heading into CSA share bags in just a minute, for pick-up this afternoon…
Harvesting Jerusalem artichoke
For tomorrow’s farmers’ market, Lynn, Andie and Jordan harvested more of this year’s Jerusalem artichoke. The tubers have gotten noticeably bigger since pulling some just a couple of weeks ago… Chokes are a really simple, satisfying harvest, at least, when you pull up the plants in their first year. These guys are spaced at 12″ (30cm), so we just grab the usually multiple stems at each spot and tug. The main root ball is shallow and contains most of the tubers: pull ’em off, and bang the root clump a bit to get at the ones in the middle. You also have to scrabble around for maybe a hand’s width or two past the little root crater to find a few extra outlying tubers—guess that’s where the “invasive” part of choke lore begins, they do try to spread. Overall, though, it’s quick and easy, especially when the fall weather is mild like today. Nice!
Eat good food
We’ve been faithfully bringing the matching pair of chalkboards to the farmers’ market since we bought them at an office supply box store in mid-summer, but it’s what to put on ’em that’s the puzzle. Today’s new message: “Eat good food”! The other one (out of sight on the left) has been a standing quote from Will Allen: “We need 50 million more people growing food, on porches, in pots, in side yards.” A little odd, perhaps, for the market? Maybe, but there they are. Promotional words on chalkboards is the plan. It’s a work in progress!
Fresh new garlic ARRIVES!
There’s almost no describing how pleased this morning’s delivery made me. Pretty happy! In two sturdy cartons, by FedEx Ground, 80 lbs of certified organic Music garlic, looking so fine! :) This shipment comes from a farmer named Warren, who grows a huge amount of garlic about 200 miles (320 km) from here—I’ve chatted with him about garlic, read his garlic literature, bought garlic from him before, a quirky and fun garlic grower indeed! And you certainly can’t have enough garlic… Possibly the WORST part of this mildly crazy tiny farm transition (moving farms from last year to this) was not being able to plant garlic last fall. On EVERY LEVEL, good garlic is GREAT…and if AT ALL POSSIBLE (it’s easy to grow!), you must have it around at all times! This season’s spring-planted garlic experiment did work out OK, but there wasn’t much of it, in number or in size. Now, we get to go again… Cool!
(By the way, if you’re really into garlic, this is the, um, BEST GARLIC SITE EVER: Gourmet Garlic Gardens! It has everything…)
Harvest board revisited
As the afternoon shadows get longer, Michelle checks out the harvest board to see what’s left to do for tomorrow’s farmers’ market. This same whiteboard is now in its third season of service, a little worse for the wear, with the surface no longer coming clean, and one edge of the frame fallen off (it’s lying there, right behind, waiting for repair), but fully functional. As long as I remember to keep it out of the rain and too much sun, it could have a few years in it yet. And I’ve grown to really like it. The shiny WHITENESS is a little glaring and kinda office-like—I considered switching to a chalkboard—but the printing stands out so well… It makes things clear, which is always good!