As we enjoy the last days of summer, the push to harvest and prepare for the coming season seems a bit overwhelming. This week, our request for extra help was answered with new volunteers signing up and some old friends coming by to help. They helped us make headway with preparing beds for cover crops, mowing, and sowing seeds. With so much to harvest, our gleaning partners stepped up, too. The last thing we want is to lose crops in the field. The extra hands allowed us to have another 1,000# week.
The first of the winter squash was picked. Here is Leigh Ann with a wagon load of Acorn squash ready to rinse and send off to recipients. Many more varieties will be ripening over the coming weeks.
We are also still planting and nurturing cool weather crops for fall harvest. Part of our mission is to extend the season with our new tunnels and under row covers. Cathy is admiring a tunnel full of Swiss chard and Japanese salad turnips. This coming week we will be planting more lettuce and spinach. Our fall cabbage crop is extraordinary, but I don’t want to talk about the Fall Broccoli. 🙁
Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes; so far we have harvested 2,666 pounds of this flavor of summer. As we pick and save some of the prize winners for seed saving, Laura decides to see if they are as big as Andrew’s head!
These foggy mornings provide us with a different, but equally beautiful vista on our early morning arrival. We had a group of young women from Hebron on Saturday who worked really hard at broadforking, weeding, and composting a plot for lettuce planting. The fog stayed with us right up to the last shovel of compost. Then we had hot blazing sun and were so grateful for the mist and fog that enabled us to complete all that work. Even fog has a silver lining!
Thanks to all of you who have responded to our call for help. We have about 6 more weeks of farming and farm-related tasks. If you can spare a couple of hours, we would love to have you on any of our teams!
Sincerely,
Theda