Rain, glorious rain. This week has been a wet one, punctuated by wonderfully clear and sunny autumn days. Our plants love the drenching after a relative dry spell, and although we haven’t been able to work the fields as we would’ve liked, we are certainly happy that the plants are happy.
Our distributions this week have been some of the most colorful we’ve had all season. The bright white of the bok choi and eggplants was matched in intensity by the bright orange of carrots, and balanced by the dark purple beets and other eggplants and burnt reds of some of the lettuces. The greens were brilliant, and the red, orange, and purple peppers really popped. This week’s take has been bountiful and we’ve enjoyed your delight over the overflowing abundance. One sharer even said the stand looked like a magazine spread!
On Saturday, despite the mist and rain, we had two large groups come out to help with our potato and popcorn harvest! We had a good time threading through the corn stalks and ripping off the colorful ears. A group of teens from the Friends Religious Society in Framingham came over and helped us shuck the corncobs, revealing the yellow, burnt orange, and purple kernels. After a short drying period in the greenhouse, they’ll be ready to pop! Another large potato harvest put us just over the halfway mark for this season’s potatoes (lots more to pull!), and this time the harvest yielded purple potatoes! Purple seems to be a fall season harvest color. It complements the orange of the sweet potatoes we hauled from the final sweet potato bed this week as well. Again, after another curing period, which allows any bruises to heal and sugar-creating enzymes to do their work, they’ll also be ready for the stand. Thank you to Boston Cares and the Quakers for your help this weekend!
We only have a few more weeks of pickups before the season comes to a close, and we start looking forward to the winter shares. We’ll be looking for hands to help with several projects and would love to see your smiling faces as fall turns us all toward a restful winter.
Hope the earthy colors and subdued weather of autumn are helping everyone relax. Thanks to all for their great attitudes and encouraging words!
Seth (the guy whose beard is a farm unto itself)