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!
garlic
Hauling garlic
Today, we started bringing in the garlic. A gentle loosening of the soil with a digging fork—don’t spear those bulbs!—a gentle pull, and it’s done. When to harvest is a bit of a toss-up, at least, as far as I’ve made out from my three years of garlic growing. The general indicator of leaves dying off is a start, but I’m a little wary from last year’s harvest, where the garlic left only a week or so into August, with half the leaves still green, gave up a whole lot of split bulbs (the cloves began pushing back and the skin at the top split open). So now, I dig up a few, and if they look good, it’s time to harvest! This first haul is about a quarter of around 2,400. It’s off to the barn for curing in small stacks. The rest should be done in the next few days!
Freshly dug garlic
To add variety to this week’s CSA shares, I dug up 50 garlic a little ahead of the main harvest in a week or two. It’s looking great. Uncured garlic doesn’t store as well, but how long are you gonna let a single bulb of garlic hang around?! Really, there’s no such thing as too much garlic!
Wheel turning
Life moves fast through our short growing season. Lushness and abundance peak and fade quickly into decline. The garlic, so green and promising only a few weeks ago, is already dying back, ready for harvest by month’s end. (Here, we’re splurging on a watering by sprinkler; I’m not sure of effectiveness of this exact timing, but a nice soaking round about now should give those garlic bulbs an extra growing boost during their last days.) In front of the garlic, more crops past their prime. The third planting of mesclun (we’re already harvesting the fifth) has started to bolt, ready to be plowed under. And a bed of arugula that, despite row cover, had been invaded by flea beetles, was chopped down and now lies brown and overdue for tilling in. Wheel keeps on turning…! (LATER NOTE: Watering garlic during its last few weeks is not considered a great idea, but in this case, it didn’t hurt.)
New view
Here’s a view of the lower part of the field, from an angle that I don’t check out too often, looking over the garlic, past mesclun, carrots, green onions, beets, to the greenhouse, and you can see the veggie stand—it’s still roofless—tucked away behind. (Normally, only the mesclun would be in this area, with the root crops at the top of the field, but because the new section wasn’t ready in time for putting in fine seed—too much sod to break up—I’ve had to move things around a bit.) And so, it’s nearing the end of another hot and sunshiny day of weeding, seeding, more weeding…and so forth. We started pruning, staking and caging tomatoes, before they got too far carried away—it’s good to be on time!
Set to explode
There are many particularly exciting points during the growing season, and this is one of ’em! We’re on the third plantings for some crops, things are emerging everywhere, and some plantings are just getting ready to put on serious growth towards maturity and harvest. In other words, the field is getting ready to explode with veggies. This happens several times during the year, in different sections, with different plantings and crops, but the first time is right across the field and always a thrill. For me, it still seems like kind of a miracle when all those tiny seeds and plans and energy actually turn into…the new Veggie Garden! Here, green onions (in the faint furrows) and carrots under burlap are recent second plantings (yesterday), and the garlic is starting to shoot up on the way to tasty garlic scapes in June…
Garlic, now!
Garlic is shooting up once again. Although we’re only five days into a nice warm weather stretch, this year’s crop of Music seems to be at almost the same place as last year’s garlic in the all-mild April of 2006. You can see it growing by the day. Elsewhere in the field, things are moving ahead faster and with more on the go than ever before, with Conall (the all-new organic grower) picking up new field skills practically by the hour. Let’s see how things continue to shape up!