I can’t remember a summer with so much rain in my 52 summers. I went outside to get some pictures of the harvest and found Robin and Kristin cleaning the carrots. It was hard to tell who was more soaked, the carrots or the people. The remainder of the crew was still out at the end of the row harvesting the rest carrots in the thunder and the mud. It is disheartening. It’s hard on the produce, it’s hard on the crew and it’s hard on Robin, the farm manager, who understands the most about the effect the rain has on the farm.
The animals are all huddled together in their shelters and seeming quite calm. I suppose they have gotten used to these stormy days. Agate, our youngest cat, usually stays out all day and half the night wandering the farm, but today even she is staying inside. Reba and her calf are laying out in the rain, probably enjoying the absence of flies on their backs.
Each season has its idiosyncrasies. This year the rain seems to be constant. One year we went without rain from the beginning of July until mid August, over six weeks. One year we had a million melons and we had no onions at all. One year when the tomato horn worms had to be picked off of the tomato plants every day, the squash plants were flourishing. The following year the horn worms did not return but the squash bugs destroyed nearly all of the squash plants. It is an ever changing adventure.
Our crew has spent quite a bit of time on the tomatoes this year. We did everything right, starting the plants from seedlings, transplanting into black plastic mulch in the field, carefully staking and running twine between the stakes as the plants grew. It looked like a seed catalog cover photo. But there will always be conditions we cannot control, and much of our good work on the tomato plants this year was lost to blight and sun scald caused by rain. You have gotten some tomatoes in your shares, just not as many as we would have liked. We canned many of the seconds and invited anyone who wanted to, (via the blog), to come up and pick the seconds for their processing. Some folks took us up on it and went home with buckets full. The bad parts of the tomatoes had to be cut away, but after that, there was still enough for some good sauces and salsas.
So, when an invitation like that comes up on the blog and if you’re interested, you should try to take us up on it as soon as possible. We do not charge you anything for the extra produce. It’s just a part of your share of the farm and sometimes we’ll even help you pick. This is one of the ways that we redeem a bad crop, by taking the “bad” produce and putting it up for the winter. That is why we have canned so much tomato sauce, tomato juice and cans and cans of carrots, etc.
Well, the crew is now inside the house, dripping dry and drinking hot tea. We’re hoping for a dryer day tomorrow to finish the harvest and pack up your shares.
Until next week…. Gigi
What’s In Your Share
Pie Pumpkin - Baby Pam or New England Sugar Pie [Winter squash will normally hold for quite a while but
with all of the rain, it will probably develop soft spots. Plan to use your squash soon.]
Carrots – Scarlet Nantes
Winter Squash – Sweet Dumpling (beige with green stripes)
Egg Plant - [The egg plants are mostly small to baby in size this week in anticipation of possible frost this
weekend] Any of the following - Dancer, Galine, Kermit, Orient Express, Orient Charm, or
Thai Green
Onions – Mars (red)
Peppers Sweet– Any of the following – Lipstick (red/green) or Islander (purple bell) or Snapper (green bell)
or Gypsy (yellow).
Peppers Hot – Newmex Joe E. Parker (mild, long green) Serrano del Sol (hot, short thin green), Conchos
(short blunt green jalapeno)
Beans – Eureka yellow [an unexpected resurrection crop. They came back after being mowed down]
Herbs – Basil (green Genovese), Marjoram – Zaatar,
Flowers – Our plan has been to give a big bouquet of flowers this week. With the rain, we’re not sure they’ll
hold up. Hopefully…
