June 14

Today was a harvesting day, despite the virtually constant drizzle/rain. Tomorrow we pack the boxes for the CSA's and we need to do some of it today. Of course, everything is better the later it's harvested, but if you're careful about the way you do it, some things can be picked a little ahead. There's only so many hours in a CSA day, anyway!

We harvested leaf lettuce and sugar snap peas today. We cut the lettuce and collect them into a mesh laundry bag, filling it only about 1/2 way so the greens have plenty of room in there to move around. The warmer it is outside, the faster you have to move. (Today, heat was not a problem.) If it is hot, the lettuce will wilt pretty quickly, and there's no recovery from that. We bring the bags into the barn, and submerge 2-3 of them at a time into cold water in an old steel water trough. It's about 2' wide, 4' long and 3' deep. We swish the bags around to get the dirt off, then, spin the bags in an old washing machine. Seriously. It's like a giant salad spinner. And, it was free from a recycling center. The old owner got rid of it because it was leaking, but we just need the spin cycle to work! After spinning, the lettuce is dumped from the bags onto a towel-lined (very large!) table. There, we fluff it, and sort it, checking for weeds, or other things you wouldn't want to see in your salad. Then it's bagged and weighed. Today, we cut 10 laundry bags, which got us 18 bags at 12 oz each for the full-size shares, 51 bag at 6 oz each for the half-size shares, and 4 bags at 8 oz each for the people that order "extra salad" a la carte. There are 73 bags of salad greens in the walk-in cooler waiting to be put in their CSA boxes tomorrow morning!

Then, we moved onto the peas. She tried something new this year: She planted oats along with the peas. (Forgive me, there's a term for that kind of planting, but I've forgotten it. Overplanting, maybe?) Anyway, the oats grow faster than the peas, so by the time the peas are starting to reach for the sun, lo and behold, there is something right there for them to climb up...an oat plant! The oats seemed pretty thick to me, it was hard to walk through the "rows" of peas, but the peas were really clinging onto and climbing up the oats! They didn't seem to mind having someone else in their "bed" with them! And, with the oats kind of thick in there, there were virtually no weeds. It was just the oats and the pea plants. This bed was already planted when I got here, so I'm not sure about which was planted first, or if it was at the same time. Certainly saved a lot of trouble supporting the peas, or having them just laying on the ground.

We also counted out more of the garlic scapes we'd pulled last week. (4 each for the full shares, 2 each for the half shares.)

Tomorrow, we have to helpers coming. We'll need to harvest green onions (10 ea /5 ea), spinach (2 bunches/1 bunch) and bok choy (4 bunches/2 bunches). The members will also get radishes (2 bunches/1 bunch) but they came from a different farm. Someone she knows, and farms with the same philosophies that she does (low or no spraying of pesticides/herbicides, with an emphasis on maintaining and improving the quality of the soil whenever possible, etc.). There are also 21 members that will be getting a dozen eggs this week.

And, dang it, it's could rain all day tomorrow too! Oh well. Makes me appreciate a nice hot shower at the end of the day!!!