First title that came to mind for this post was: “Yet another rainbow…” That sounded a little…downbeat. After all, rainbows are one of Nature’s delightful wonders, a free, magical expression of light and simple beauty. If memory serves, we usually get one or two spectacular rainbows every year, maybe a couple more that get noticed. With this year’s rain upon rain, they’re kinda everywhere! Still…pretty! :)
Farmers’ market cruises along…
It’s 11 am and most of our harvest is sold. This is good, because the quantities of what we’ve been bringing have been fine. Still, with no early tomatoes, late green beans, not much summer squash, a wiped out first planting of cucumbers, and hail-killed first round of much of the peppers and eggplant, the pickings feel a little slim. It’s funny how variety seems to work at the market (and probably in the CSA shares as well): the greater the selection, the happier people seem to be, even though they don’t really buy more, or still buy mostly the same things. Maybe it’s because, as consumers (here in North America, at least), we’re so accustomed to being wooed by apparent choice, a regular parade of the “new” and the “improved” and cleverly repackaged, that having the same staple crops for a couple of weeks in a row makes the stand seem a bit stale. It’ll be…amusing to see outlooks change if (when) fresh food starts to get scarce. Well, all in all, a good day at the farmers’ market!
Laid back Friday harvest…
With the poor weather-driven slow growth and setbacks (like, hail), Friday harvests so far this year have been nothing like last year, much easier, less to do, relaxed. There are usually three to five people for all or part of the day, compared to six to eight last season. Comparisons don’t mean much on a practical level—the season you’re in is what you’ve got!—but it’s interesting, and human nature, I guess, to rank and rate and contemplate. Michelle has become this year’s mesclun cutting specialist, cruising in later in the afternoon and slicing up 60-70 lbs (approx. 30 kg) in no time. This year, depending on the veg, we’re doing about 20-40 units for sale, and around 30 for CSA shares for pick-up at the farmers’ market. Harvest on!
Garlic all in
Harvested in three parts over the last week, the garlic is now all in! This crop seems to’ve done well once again (I LOVE growing garlic!). For the first time, there’s a small pile of damaged goods, water-logged from all the rain. But overall, things are looking good. The combination of oat straw (from last fall’s cover crop) and grass mulch worked great (below)—weeds were kept down, and although the paths weren’t as heavily mulched as around the plants, they weren’t bad. We’ve been having trouble starting the riding mower, which means no trailer, so the tractor bucket took its place for transport duties. The garlic is stacked on pallets in the barn. Lynn seems to’ve taken to garlic harvesting and went to town: fork and pull, fork and pull…around 3,000 garlic bulbs hit the local food chain!
Hail damage reassessed
Three days after the nasty hail storm, and the full extent of the crop damage is more evident. It’s quite a bit worse than it first appeared. The plants will bounce back, but we’ve lost a lot of the fruit that were furthest along. Little nicks in maybe 70% of the toms and eggplant and peppers means that the first harvest of these veggies will be…small. Curiously, but not really suprisingly, I’m quite unfazed by this turn. I can really fret about setbacks that I could have avoided, like deciding not to overnight frost protect with row cover, then getting hit with frost, or not seeding a crop when it’s dry, then getting a week of rain and mucky, unworkable ground. But where it’s purely a Mother Nature play, I’m instantly in half-full mode, seeing the good side of things automatically: well, we’ll have SOME first-round tomatoes…and there are lots of other, undamaged crops… So I’m good. But even from my relatively small (and small-scale) experiences with losses due to weather, I can imagine how nerve-racking large-scale monoculture must be, especially in these crazy weather times, when you have dozens or hundreds or thousands of acres tied up in just one thing. That sounds like really bad stress…and mixed crop tiny farming seems by that measure alone, much…better.
People in the field update
This has been an interesting summer for learning about tiny farming, people, and the ups and downs of growing largely without machines. I’ve had an ongoing debate with Bob over the years about the garden layout, using relatively short, 50′ beds, and hand cultivation, rather than planting long rows and doing most of the between-row weeding by tractor. The tractor approach lets one person, one machine, and some cans of diesel do most of the routine work alone. The hand-grown approach requires lots of labor, and you either settle in and do it yourself with many 10-12 hour days right through the weekfor a good part of the season (as I used to do), or…have help. I’ve found it’s definitely more fun to work with others, BUT, once there’s a bit of a regular crew, there’s the new matter of keeping the group dynamics smooth and making sure everyone’s HAPPY. Long days of often repetitious work, finishing one job only to launch directly into another, and working around the vagaries of the weather—this year is an exceptional case in point—aren’t what most people are used to. And when some of the people live on the farm, for a few days a week like Lynn (chatting with me in the pic), or 24/7 in the case of WWOOFers, things can get even more complicated, like, when is quitting time! At least in the start-up years, tiny farming can be pretty much an all-consuming focus during the growing season, and that’s not something most people really want or can handle, either—you’ve gotta love it! So finding the balance between going all out, and, well, providing a fun taste-of-tiny-farming experience for others, can be a bit of a puzzle. At least, that’s what I’ve found so far. All just another part of the ever-changing TFE…! (Guest photo by Maria)
CSA share check-in
Monday morning means a quick small harvest for about half a dozen CSA shares. What’s in each share is my main harvest concern each week. The goal is to maintain the basics, like lettuce, carrots, onions, and also have some exciting new stuff each time. In a year like this one, with slow growth, this can be tough. But we’re doing OK so far. Today’s veggie menu, taken directly from the CSA newsletter: “In your share this week: basil (sweet); bean (Jade); beet (Scarlet Supreme); carrot (Touchon); garlic (Music); green onion (Ramrod); mesclun (all-lettuce); parsley (curly & flat-leaf); potato (Yukon Gold); Swiss chard (Bright Lights).” This season, shares are packed in really nice reusable shopping bags from one of the supermarket chains. They’re big and roomy, decorated with an assortment of veggie and fruit photo blow-ups, cost a buck, and can be replaced free of charge when they wear out. Much cooler than the hundreds of plastic grocery store shopping bags with the farmers’ market logo on ’em that I used to go through, and we also pass on the bags at cost at the market.