Well, we’ve made it. This is the final week of our summer share distributions, and by the time you read this, the farm probably will have received its first frost of the season. The first frost is a definitive marker for a farmer, because there’s no arguing with the zapped foliage of our summer crops and tender herbs. But, while the days of tomatoes and basil are fading into our memories (freezers), the frosty weather is the perfect backdrop for our fall favorites.
Looking into our fields, you’ll see they are far from empty. A spectrum of green hues represents those frost-hardy—and often frost-loving—crops that you will find on the stand for the final summer pick-ups and in the winter share. Storage crops will continue to flow into our root cellar, and some crops already rest safely in the comfort of one of our two new sheds. (That’s right: the second shed now stands triumphantly on the site of the old ‘Stinky Shed’ to house tools and supplies!)
The first frost also usually arrives around the time we plant our epic Stearns garlic, and on Saturday morning we did just that. Selecting our most robust and pristine specimens from this year’s crop, we split heads into cloves and planted some 9,000 of them to ride through the winter and resume growing in spring to provide next year’s crop of pungent bulbs.
Thank you to everyone for contributing to the success of our 2015 summer season, and, more importantly, for making it fun and rewarding with positive vibrations abounding. Believe me, this matters when you’re growing vegetables during one of the hottest and driest Augusts on record. Let’s all pat ourselves on the back. Didn’t that feel good?
See you in the fields,
Kenneth