After a big post-market shift of mowing, and some solid weeding work from the whole tam, the North Garden is looking pretty good. If you are out on Tuesday, this is a good week to take a little walking tour.
Many of you who came on Tuesday last week saw our whole team hustling to get another caterpillar tunnel up before the predicted inch or so of rain. Spring on the fam is such a dance—constantly shifting priorities, surprise challenges, tasks that balloon from on hour to ten if put off for one more week. Despite some years of this work under our belt, it often feels like we are just still learning that dance, tripping over our own feet, taking the wrong cues.
But sometimes we get it, at least for a move or two. The crew were definitely apprehensive when we said that morning that we were going to set up a tunnel after lunch that day—after all, the first one they did took several days (including a bit of fabrication). I think they might even have doubted that it was possible, which made it all the more satisfying when we cinched down the last rope that night, after they had prepped the ground and charged confidently through many of the steps they learned just the week before. They we really a bit amazed at what they had managed, and we were proud of the whole team. It was an important step, both for making it possible to get those peppers and eggplant into the ground, and so we didn’t have to wait days for the soil to dry out again, before being able to work those beds.
Some of the dance is new, confusing, or still challenging. We have this great, detailed, and adaptable crop plan that we spend weeks of the winter developing, and yet so often in these spring weeks, we just can’t quite figure out how to get through all of the steps and tasks to actually execute the plan. The changes to market, to deal with you-know-what, from masks to the “place your order” table style, are still a bit cumbersome, and seem to make it even harder to get the time for catching up on farm tasks. We so want to find a farm schedule and routine that allows plenty of time for everything, including creative ideas and farm fun, but honestly we’re quite a ways from figuring that out yet. We appreciate your patience with our sometimes frazzled interactions; we’re working on being a little more patient with ourselves.
And despite the springtime challenges, we also are sometimes surprised by what we find: the chard, kale, and collards we uncovered this Sunday are beautiful, almost weed-free, and going to be delicious. The first leaves from those beds are in the famstore right now, and we should finally have plenty of chard for everyone at market! This week, for members, market, and farmstore, we’ve started harvesting some of the first exciting roots: baby carrots, beets, and salad turnips from tunnels that we seeded back in March. There’s also boc choi, baby romaine head lettuces, salad mix, some great arugula, asian greens (aka zesty salad), loads of radishes, and perhaps a few more surprises.
This is great week to walk around little bit if you com out on Tuesday during the hosted farmstore hours. Many of you might not even realized that what you see from the front near the farmstore is only a small portion of our growing space! Most of this year’s crops are to the north; if you pass the barn and walk back past the packshed, you’ll see the onions, garlic and some of the first field plantings of greens. Or take a right at the herb garden, continue past the cover crop, and visit the chickens back in their summer pasture (after a late Sunday night move).
Regardless of whether we see you today from 3:00-6:00 for the hosted time, at market on Saturday, or if we just wave in passing as you shop at the farmstore some other day this week, we so appreciate all of your support.
-Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm
Mini-romaine heads are a great crunchy addition to salads, or you can slice them lengthwise to make each a little salad of its own.