Notes From The Field: Push and Pull

The past week has been all about finding our harvest rhythm again and these smaller early harvests make it a bit easier for us to do that. Just like that, full days that can be dedicated to bed prep, transplanting, cultivating or greenhouse work are gone. Harvesting is rewarding work and this transition is a great one to be in the midst of, but it does take some more mental gymnastics and shifting of expectations to juggle all of the other work needed to ensure we have crops to harvest in 6, 12 or 20 weeks from now. Now that the CSA has begun, we'll be harvesting every morning, working together to get in tender greens before the heat sets in and hustling through the late morning to wrap things up by lunch. Time flies in the afternoon as we race to get in transplants, put plastic mulch down for another round of cucumbers or seed 30 trays of Swiss chard in the greenhouse. All throughout the mornings, I'm invigorated when I look out across a field to see weed crew extricating kale from giant amaranth or teasing tiny carrots away from just germinating lamb's quarters. They came out of the gates strong this past week and hand weeded or hoed roughly 10,000 row feet...
...in other words, they weeded... 

almost 2 miles of the farm!

Dan took advantage of the great cultivating weather we've had (hot, dry, windy) and zipped around killing weeds with the Super As, then took it down a few notches to flame weed the carrots, which is most effective when walking at a snail's pace. In the words of Robert Frost, we have many more miles (of weeding) to go this season, and your help would be such a boost if you can make it out to Crop Mob this Saturday. We're hoping for a critical mass of volunteers to make a big impact on our weed population, so come on out to the farm if you have some free time between 9am-noon this Saturday. Stay a little while after for some tasty snacks from Basil Tree catering. The difference that a few extra hands can make during the beginning of weed-bonanza season is tremendous and helps make our crops healthy and vigorous; it also helps our weed crew stay happy! 

Anna, Erinn, Janelle, and the early season garlic. 

This week's share will have some beautiful red and green butterhead lettuce and Swiss chard, both of which we hope to have on the stand pretty consistently throughout the season. Garlic scapes and radishes will make their debut, and will be an option in your share the next couple of weeks. I'm a big fan of the chicory family and heads of frisee will be the first of a few crops from that family that we'll be harvesting over the coming weeks. (If you don't like it raw try it sautéed with garlic scapes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.) Kale, bok choy and spinach will round things out. On the horizon we've got a few nice plantings of beets coming on, along with some very baby summer squash that should be ready for picking soon. Pick your own crops are coming along nicely and we'll see some more peas and herbs added to the list soon. For this week though, I hope you enjoy the quintessential taste of early CSA with the sugar snap peas. I also hope you'll find some stillness and solace in the quiet rows of green and coming abundance while you're out in the fields this week.


With Gratitude,
Erinn, for the farm team