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!
Michelle
Packing shares: done!
CSA shares are packed for another Monday of on-farm pick-up! It’s one of those great hits of momentary satisfaction to see them all, 100% absolutely and finally done, waiting to be collected. Mel, Jordan (above), Michelle, and Tara were all in the field, and the whole harvest went by kinda quickly, maybe three hours. I’m also figuring out the easiest ways to use different spots around the new farm. Today, as a temporary improvement, we moved the long screen table into a tree-shaded part of the drive, allowing us to line up the bags in one row, instead of grouping them on two smaller tables indoors in a shed (it’s all in the details! :). Keeping the packing space uncluttered is kinda critical if you don’t want to spend half your time rechecking shares to make sure that they’ve got everything. When the set-up works, filling shares is really suprisingly satisfying. On the tiny farm, assembly lines can be fun!
In the share: baby leaf lettuce salad mix, baby zucchini, cauliflower, garlic scapes, young carrots, beets, new potatoes, curly& flat-leaf parsley.
Early season harvest day
It’s a harvest Friday, second for the farmers’ market, and first for CSA, but the load is still light. After picking snap peas, we spent the day doing other field work. In the photo, Libby, Jordan and Michelle are hand-weeding the small strip of spring-planted garlic, and we spent some labor-intensive time thinning a 400′ (122m) of carrots, and several beds of beets (the thinnings were the beet greens harvest). In late afternoon, time to cut greens: spinach and mesclun. Plus a little parsley.
Checking back over the last four years, at this time, we had broccoli once, radishes usually, baby Swiss chard a couple of times. And, of course, garlic scapes. And, a couple of years, no peas yet. So, all in all, with the slightly slower planting schedule in this start-up this garden, and all the cloudy weather, we’re doing pretty well!
Another hand-watering method
Another fine temporary measure this spring (and another of the many things the trusty Kubota compact tractor can do) is our new spot-watering method. Michelle waters in a last, experimentally late tray of onions with a slightly modified, inexpensive ($5) plastic watering can that holds about 2 gallons (8 l), and has big holes for fast, high-volume output. These cans we usually plunge into a rain barrel (or snow barrel) for filling, and to speed that up, I cut a squarish opening in the top (I always forget to cut the opening to the back, so water doesn’t escape from the top when pouring when full). The trick here is that the water comes from the Kubota’s bucket, maybe 30-40 gallons (110-150 l) of it, depending on how carefully the drive. You fill up, then head over to exactly where you want, like a movable rain barrel! The whole thing is quick and easy, good for watering in new seedings and transplants, until I hook up the field-long irrigation pipe. Quite the luxury, in a way, but the tractor’s already there, and we gotta keep things moving along! :)
50 feet!
Nice sun, but kinda cool and definitely windy. Michelle came by for a day of mostly organizing and arranging: managing seedlings, and measuring and staking out garden sections (now, according to the new garden map). We’re once again using 50′ (15.2m) squares as the basic garden unit. The 100′ (30.5m) reel-up vinyl measuring tape is the handiest tool for this, as we walk up and down and around, a person on each end of the tape, calling out measurements and planting fluorescent-flagged stakes… There’s a satisfying sense of order when a freshly tilled section is staked out. All those neat squares tell you, you are master of your garden, and things are well under control! :)
Allie’s photo gallery II
Michelle, back for her first farm day this year, sorted out seedlings while daughters Allie (7) and Violet (3) checked out the new farm. Clearly, kids take well to…activities, so, to follow up her first successful camera mission last summer, I gave Allie my camera, and off she went off on a photo shoot. Little sis Violet, camera-ready and joyful, turned out to be the subject du jour… (Photos by Allie)
Allie’s photo gallery
Without much thought, I handed visiting Allie my camera and let her take pictures around the farm. After she’d disappeared from sight, I did start wondering if the camera—500 bucks to replace—was safe. But if this six-year-old can, just from watching, efficiently harvest sweet potatoes with a digging fork about as tall as she is, she should be able to handle a point-and-shoot, right?! Right! First, I showed her what button to press to take a photo. A few pics later, I showed her how to use the autofocus (“point at whatever, hold the button down halfway till it beeps, wait till the rectangle turns green, then push all the way!”). That went well, so I showed her when and how to switch between normal and macro mode (“turn the dial when you want to shoot up close”), which is how she shot the Bulls Blood beet (above). Wow, that was easy!
She took around 40 photos in all. Above, mom Michelle rinsing beets, below, her little sister Violet, with carrot. Kids, digital technology, and the field…all part of the TFE! (Guest photos by Allie)
