THE BEET: VOLUME 18; WEEK 17

 

FULL SHARE & GREEN HALF SHARE PICK UP TONIGHT

Pick up today: 5pm - 7:30pm at PS 56 on the corner of Gates and Downing

This Week's Share

  • Romaine lettuce - 1 head

  • A mustard mix or arugula

  • Dandelion

  • Carrots

  • Delicata or Acorn squash

  • Yellow onions

  • Garlic

  • Parsley

  • Plus the last of our tomatoes and one or two peppers, eggplants, squashes or cucumbers

  • Fruit: Yonder Farm’s Bartlett pears.

Next week you should find potatoes, leeks and celeriac in your shares, along with red onions, acorn squashes or pumpkins, more garlic and an assortment of greens. Sweet potatoes will be coming the following week. Sounds like fall! Borden's apple cider will be coming next week.

Delivery #17, Week of September 30, 2019

What’s new on the farm?

I started my morning with a farm walkabout. It was cold, and it was the first time since May that I really appreciated the warmth I felt when walking into the greenhouse. Our first freeze is expected at the end of the week, and I wanted to put together a to-do list that will keep things snug during the cold nights ahead. We started covering greens last week in anticipation of this eventuality. We use spun bonded polyethylene “blankets” that are said to keep crops four to six degrees warmer than those left uncovered. The frost won’t be a hard one, so that should be fine. We’ll cover about an acre and a half of greens, herbs and root crops when all is done by Friday. Our to-do list includes bringing pumps indoors, harvesting the remnants of some sensitive crops like peppers, eggplants and squashes, and tucking under cover our inventory of shallots, onions, beets, sweet potatoes, carrots and potatoes - the roots, bulbs and tubers that will make up your final five shares.

I decided that it would be best to tackle any remaining weeds in our beds of greens before rolling out covers. So, before lunch, I started in with Steketee sweeps on the Allis Chalmers G cultivating tractor that my boys and I converted to electric propulsion several years ago. I’m pleased that instead of the groan of some diesel engine, all I hear is the squeak of the left front wheel bearings telling me they need grease. When I broke for lunch today, a group of new farmers came by. Organic vegetable farming attracts a young and idealistic crowd, and these folks were no different. If there were differences between today’s group and those that typically visit, it was that this one included women and people of color and older couples pursuing second careers. Change is coming to Washington County, I thought! And this diversity is something that I think will be good for our conservative community. After lunch, I climbed on my new homemade electric tool carrier and I used Kress cultivating hoes on the last of the direct-seeded spinach, arugula and salad mix. This machine is somewhat unorthodox in appearance, but it does a fine job on weeds. Its chief shortcoming is that it has no brakes. That’s not a problem when I’m working on the level vegetable beds. To slow down on our hilly roads, however, I have to turn left, then right, back and forth, like a skier on a slalom run. If I get going too fast, I lower the belly mounted weeding implement like so many grappling hooks. If they survive the frost, the greens I cultivated today will be in your shares next week.  

Best wishes, Ted

Veronica