We’ve made it back from our vacation. Now we need a vacation from our vacation. The interns seemed to have done a good job keeping the farm moving forward. But there’s no rest for the weary now. We are again looking ahead in a time of transition on the farm. Summer is coming to a close. The kids are back in school, the sun’s angle in the sky is falling, bringing that unique golden hue to the light, and we’re cleaning up around the farm. We will be on this year’s ASAP Farm Tour (Sept. 20-21), so we’ve got to tidy the place up!
Before we left we managed to get the first rounds of fall crops into the ground,and as is evident from your boxes this week, the first of the fall crops has made it into your boxes. The early Kales look and taste great after a long hiatus. Get ready for some raw kale salad or some crunchy kale chips. This time of year the weeds are really working hard to grow fast and set their seeds. Our new cultivating tractor is really showing how useful it can be as we try to keep our fall crops well weeded. We’re still planting and sowing fall crops. We have more kales, broccoli, cabbages, turnips, bok choi, radishes, arugula, and a small host of other things to get in the ground in the next couple of weeks. At the same time we’re sowing the over-wintering onions, growing out over-wintering flowers, preparing the ground for the strawberries, pulling drip lines out of old beds, mowing, discing, and preparing to sow winter cover crops. There’s a lot still to do! BUT, once those last things get in the ground, the pace on the farm slows down a bit, because beyond those last beds of greens & turnips is winter.
There’s still 7 more week’s of CSA boxes!
Carnival, acorn, & bon bon winter squash. We got 90 cases of butternut a few weeks ago, plus about 70 more of acorn, carnival, delicata, & bon bon. Conservatively that comes out to about 2,000# of winter squash! A GREAT harvest this year.