Yesterday, on Friday, and just a few days late, we seeded our weekly greens plantings (we seed 7, 120’ beds every week until my September birthday), we planted our second succession of peas, set up irrigation on winter chicken pasture (in preparation for a cover crop seeding), moved 40 bags of oyster shells when I couldn’t quite get our neighbor’s forklift down on our roadway of wood chips, transplanted four beds of brassicas and other crops, affixed row cover, move some new, farm built planting benches to our nursery, finally fixed the track on on of our tunnels (so it’s so so much easier to open) and did many other things. And finally, as our workday was about to close, we wrote two (large for us) checks to our crew that are patiently learning our systems, tools and methods.

Managing farm crew, and fostering the next generation is difficult, but seems so important for both a production farm and this time of a global pandemic. We tried to explained the gravity of the complexity of all this in our morning meeting - the importance of getting everything done on time, the relationship we have with you, the promises we make, and the all that we hope to have this season. You are counting on us jus as much as we count on you. It’s a reciprocity and we are doing everything we can.

One of the things about being a year round farm is the surprises that come from a long season. When Taylor and I prepared one of our final beds of spinach last August, and then fine tuned the planting in September, we had no idea that it would yield such amazing flavorful spinach — literally 8 months in the ground. We harvested just about the last of it this week, and early this spring, green garlic — tons of it - sprouted between some of the rows, a re-birth of a previous crop. Both crops, planted in the same space but apart in time, are delicious and a bit of a wonder. So yesterday, we spent the last hour or so harvesting and field bunching that garlic, after we cut the slow growing, flavorful spinach.

We are grateful for everyone coming out to market, helping keep our farm and crew safe, and especially all of our farm members. We made spinach and green garlic pizzas this week, along with more salads than we can count. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow — or whenever you come.

For those who are at risk, or don’t want the market experience, Laura, our wonderful farm volunteer will be at the farm on Saturday (while we are at market), keeping things sanitary. I think she’s read all of our newsletters and she’ll no doubt have some stories about us if you want to visit or if you just want to grab eggs, anything else from the store, or wander the farm.

We’ll see you soon, and be safe.

Our Week In Photos