Monthly Archives: September 2010

It seems like it was just yesterday that I was writing “I can’t believe it is already September!” Now, I can’t believe it is already the end of September! It is amazing how fast the season seems to have gone by. And at the same time, when I think back on those 10+ hour days of digging beds we were putting in back in April, it seems like a lifetime ago.

It has been such a beautiful month. What cool, clear mornings and gorgeous golden afternoons. It seems like practically every day has been a perfect fall one – that sun-warmed, cool-edged spicy smell in the air, sharp sunrises and misty mornings, wonderful wet grey wind, blue rainy afternoons, and the first red and yellow and gold leaves starting to turn.

It’s been a full and quiet month on the farm. Everything that’s going in the ground (except garlic) is in – we’ve planted hundreds of feet of fall arugula, spinach, bok choy, radishes, mustard, broccoli rabe, and baby lettuce. We’re praying that the tiny bok choy and spinach will size up a bit by November, but this late in the season, we’ll take whatever we can get without too much complaint. The oats and vetch we planted back in the beginning of the month are looking great. Our fall beets are enormous, the broccoli is starting to make crowns, and we have cauliflower that is the size of my head (literally). The best thing about September was that we finished making beds. All told we made well over 100 of them, and we started way back in April. It’s quite an accomplishment!

Gorgeous savory cabbage.

We planted this chard in April! It went through a rough period in August, but it has bounced back!

Beautiful broccoli rabe.

There’s none of the summer urgency in our work now, nothing that needs to be done right this instant. Everything can wait. We spend our time harvesting, putting up food, making zine pages, clearing beds, laying burlap. We’re entering the season of destruction, which, I have to say, is one of my favorite thigns to do on the farm. Taking down tomato stakes and tearing down the rotten tomato plants, taking out bean trellises, tearing out dead squash and cuke plants, taking apart the deer fence…there’s something satisfying about the act of taking apart your hard work, giving it back to the earth, preparing for the season of rest.

Harvesting the last of the basil.

Our pantry is getting full, and I’m getting ready to settle into the late fall and winter. We’ve got 20 or so pints of different kinds of salsa, 40 quarts of whole tomatoes, 35 quarts of sauce, 12 half gallons of dried tomatoes, plum jam, pear butter, around 50 quarts of pickles (kosher dills, bread and butter zucchini, green tomato, beets, carrots), red pepper relish, apple-onion chutney, poached pears and peach butter, dried peaches…and then there’s the freezer, filling up with tomato soup, corn soup, peppers, beans, pesto, corn stock, spicy winter squash soup, blueberries…

As the season comes to its close, I’m feeling more grateful than ever for all the help and support we’ve had. From friends and family and farm family, from the amazing community of farmers we’re surrounded by, from fantastic volunteers…we could not have done it without you, and we’ve had a blast sharing the dirt, heat, bounty, fun, and hardships of the farm with you.

Happy fall!

Laura

is here, although it hasn’t felt like it the past two days. I’m definitely ready for it. I’m ready for the shift that takes place on a farm in the fall. Everything slows down, the days take on a different rhythm, there’s less urgency in the air. Our afternoons are filled with cleaning garlic and onions, harvesting tomatoes and squash, and putting up the summer’s bounty. Yesterday, around 6pm when it was finally cool enough to work again, we harvested our bed of popcorn in the clear golden light. It was a gorgeous moment, the stalks snapping as we broke off the corncobs, the blue sky hanging over us, the smell of dirt, our muscles moving easily down the row.

We’ve started cover cropping. This week we scattered oats and vetch over almost half of our main field. We’re hoping for rain tonight to water the seeds in, and to see their green sprouts poking up over the weekend. The oats and vetch will enrich our land by fixing nitrogen (vetch), adding lots of organic matter to the soil, and smothering weeds in the fall and winter. As the fall continues, we’ll keep cover cropping each bed as we finish harvesting it. We’ll spread clover in the pathways, which will come back next year and act as mulch. In the places we’re we’re going to be harvesting until late October and into November, we’ll spread winter rye, the most cold tolerant cover crop there is. I’ve seeded it almost up to Thanksgiving, and it’s still come up.

We’ve also been spending a whole lot of time putting up food for the winter. One of the great joys of running a farm is being able to simply walk out into the field and harvest 50 pounds of tomatoes, a bin of peppers, an enormous armload of basil. Not only is the farm feeding us and the 28 families who are part of our CSA, but it is already providing for the future, as well. So far we’ve put up: 25 jars of whole tomatoes, 25 jars of sauce, 8 half gallons of dried tomatoes, 15 or so quarts of frozen tomato soup, bags of frozen red peppers, grated zucchini, and pesto, dilly beans, kosher dills, red pepper relish, zucchini bread and butter pickles, green tomato pickles, corn and zucchini salsa, hot tomato salsa, peach butter. We’re not nearly done.

I’m ready for September. Crisp mornings and clear, cold afternoons. Pie season. Shortening days and glowing light and time to breathe again – the long, deep breath a farmer takes to slide into winter.

Laura