From The Farmers:
This is the last week of delivery for the 2011 season. Following the two killing frosts last week, we’ve been scrambling to pick and glean of all of the harvestable produce left in the fields. We were not sure until we began the final harvest if this would be the last share box or if there would be one more. We decided that if everything would fit in one final box, you would rather make one trip to pick up the last of the veggies than two. So you are getting one final generous storage share. The potatoes will keep for several weeks at cool room temperature, both kinds of onions are good winter keepers and will keep up to 6 months at cool, dry temperatures, and the squash should keep for several weeks to several months.
This whole season from start to finish has been a quirky one weather-wise. At the end of May we were still heating the greenhouses and by the first week of June the temperature shot up to 90 degrees. For most of July into August, the temperature remained extremely hot and humid. The first of September, we had a 90 degree Monday dropping to coats and hats by mid week. Just last week, we had two night of extreme cold – dipping down to 28 degrees overnight. We woke up to fields layered with frost and ice on the livestock water buckets. As the sun rose, the crisp frozen leaves sagged into a moist looking dark green, - sure sign that no more growth will be happening this year on any but the most cold hardy. And yet, as we come to the end of another year, we rejoice in the abundance the land has produced: spring salads to summer melons to fall squashes.
Coming to the end of the harvest and delivery season is bittersweet - we are ready for a slower schedule and sad about no more fresh food, no more visits with all of you, no more long days in the fields. Our summer interns are already sitting in college classrooms or increasing their hours at other jobs. The barn is (literally) full of hay to feed the livestock over the winter. The new Saanen buckling who will be our newest dairy goat herdsire will be arriving at our farm very soon and sex camp will begin shortly after. Our two Coopworth rams will begin courting our ewes on October 10. We plan to harvest one more batch of honey from our six bee hives, leaving 70 pounds of honey for each hive to feed them during the winter.
What we don’t look forward to is all the fall clean up: tearing out vines of melons and tomatoes, eggplant and peppers; pulling dirty, muddy plastic mulch and drip irrigation lines from the fields; disking down vegetation; fall plowing some of the fields to aid the break down of crop residue and hay mulch; changing out the canvas Quonset covers on the intern housing to poly tarps so they become winter storage; adding support to the big processing and packing hoop houses so they can withstand the weight of winter snow; putting equipment like buckets and hoses away in the reverse order that it will be needed next spring.
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| Loading hay is exhausting. (Actually, they were just waiting for the hay to arrive) |
See you October 2nd at the End of the Harvest Farm Festival. We’d like to thank you in person for being part of Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm this year.
Check out the right hand column for upcoming special events including Robin’s FIBER ARTS DAY on Saturday, September 24, Our END OF THE HARVEST FARM FESTIVAL – October 2; STARK WINE OPENING on October 1st, and opportunities for next years CSA shares.
What’s In Your END OF THE SEASON Share
Watermelon: Mickey Lee, Starlight, Sunshine, Picnic, New Orchid
Winter Squash: Delicata (long striped), Sweet Dumpling (heart shaped striped),
Butternut (beige dogbone), Cream of the Crop (cream acorn), Burgess
Butternut (green turban), Mooregold (orange turban), Blue Magic (mini
blue hubbard).
Onions: Red Zeppelin (red winter keeper), Copra (yellow winter keeper)
Potatoes: Red Norland (good keeper)
Turnips: Scarlet Queen Red Stems
Tomatoes: Paragon (red), Pink Beauty (pink), Orange Blossom (orange)
Sage: Common
