We asked for your help on Saturday to harvest hundreds of pounds of garlic– and wow did you all answer! We had plenty of enthusiastic harvesters on hand to make short work of an otherwise daunting task. Although garlic is one of the most predictable crops you can grow (takes 9 months almost to the day), harvesting just a bit too soon will cost you a significant amount of bulb size; too late and your cloves will burst apart and lose storage ability. Thanks to all for getting it done!
With this year’s garlic safely curing in our greenhouse, our work party split up and began knocking items off the laundry list and finishing up tasks from the past week. Recent plantings of fall brassicas, sweet potatoes, and beans all have seen a huge growth spurt with last week’s rain, each getting a clean weeding to move them on their way to a late season harvest. We also happily mulched everything in sight this week, knowing that we are saving ourselves hours of weeding in the future. The squash and cucumber harvesting continues to be an almost daily task, and I hope that no cookout occurs without at least one squash being thrown on the grill (first slice lengthwise, olive oil, salt, pepper).
Tomatoes are blushing! And not just because we are staring intently at them. Soon enough we will all be enjoying gazpacho, salsa, and maybe even a BLT? For the moment, though, the task remains to keep these vigorous growers trellised neatly—for their own good and ours.
You’ll notice that our other trellis-loving friends, the peas, are no longer present in body, but remain an important crop to us as the plants are incorporated into the soil, contributing precious nitrogen to next year’s garlic crop to be planted there in October. It all comes full circle! (“Sun-kissed peas” photo by Lynn Crevier.)
Thanks again to all for continuing to bring willing bodies and great attitudes to the farm.
Kenneth
