Meet this week’s vegetables
Yes, there are lots of bees in the fields right now. Especially in the flowers, of course. I’ve seen up to six different kinds of pollinators in a sunflower at once: big bumblebees, small native bees, others I don’t even recognize. Working in the flowers becomes a constant test of my nerves, with bees buzzing on every side and sometimes falling out of blossoms into the crooks of my arms. So far I have yet to be stung, so they are welcome company on a farm full of blossoming summer fruits.
But we have been busy bees lately too. The last week brought us many delightful visits from old friends and family members. The upside was sharing our new life with loved ones. The downside was that we took perhaps a few too many extra mornings or afternoons off from the farming work. We kept up with harvesting and the necessary field work, but on Friday, after the visits and week’s harvests were over, we looked at our list and realized that we had much work left to do before fall really sets in.
So, this weekend we worked long (but enjoyable) hours preparing for autumn’s approach. (We even worked Sunday for only the second time this summer!) We harvested a bed of potatoes (russets and yukons) as well as onions in order to prepare open bed space for more of our winter garden: cabbages, kale, collard greens, turnips, kohlrabi, broccoli and more. After this weekend, we now have thirteen beds planted to our ‘official’ winter garden. And we still have more to transplant in the next few weeks (lettuces, green onions, chicories, beets).
Looking out at all the new plantings is very exciting for us. We know they still have a rocky journey, surviving the heat of August and September and the rains and frosts of October and November. We can’t expect perfect yield, but even half would be quite an abundant fall harvest.
And, as I mentioned already, we’re beginning to store up the items that have been growing all summer, like onions, potatoes, and winter squash. Boxes and bags are beginning to pile up in our storage room, full of some of our favorite vegetables (cippollini onions, Yukon gold potatoes). It’s hard to resist bringing home a handful of potatoes to roast for dinner, but then we look out at the beautiful red tomatoes hanging heavy and ripe on the vine, and we know now is the time to savor these flavors. The storage items can, and will, wait.
But, we are excited anyway. Can you tell that fall is our favorite season?
Other points of good news
Market has been going fabulously lately. We posted on the blog recently about some small disappointments we had a few weeks back, but we are happy to report that this last week we again broke our sales record and almost completely sold out of our tomatoes (something we hadn’t been able to do the week before). We gave out samples, and the taste test won people over. I must say, at this point, since we’re still new to our own vegetables, we are constantly impressed by our tomatoes too. We hoped they would be good (and worked hard to make it so), but still, we have been a bit surprised by how much even we enjoy them.
The value of summer
Also, I wanted to share the good financial news of summer with those of you who pinch pennies and watch your pocket book carefully. Some of you might wonder how exactly this Community Supported Agriculture thing is working out on your end—how does the upfront commitment compare dollar to dollar with purchasing foods from Oakhill Organics at market?
We calculate out the market value of each week’s share so that we can try to give out a consistent financial value (and make sure that farmer and eater are each getting a good deal). We aim for at least $17 per week, since that’s what you paid. In the spring, we hovered right around that most weeks, which was good. But now that it’s August, the value of each share (as I’m sure you’ve experienced) has certainly gone up. The average value for the last four weeks was $23.75. If you think of things in these terms, that’s a pretty return on your investment in a first-year farm (what some would consider a relatively high risk investment). And, it’s looking like the value should stay high through the late summer and fall.
… Ah, we know we should be living more in the moment and appreciating today’s farming experience, but we keep finding ourselves looking ahead. Every story I start to tell here wants to turn into a reflection on next season and next year.
I suppose some of that is because we are reflecting a lot, as I’m sure you’ve noticed in the newsletter and on the blog. With the new land constantly on our mind, as well as the approach of fall, we can’t help but make lists, read through seed catalogs at our coffee break, and talk all the time about our ‘big plans’ for the future (and we have lots of time to talk while weeding, transplanting, washing, etc.).
As always, thanks for joining us on this journey towards that vision. I know we’ve said this before, but whether we’re planning for next year or stopping to appreciate this summer, the biggest joy we keep coming back to is the very real community forming through this small act of growing and eating vegetables. Working with you in the fields will certainly be some of our favorite memories of this summer, and knowing that our vision includes this extended network of people charges everything with so much energy and enthusiasm. We really cannot imagine farming any other way.
So, again, always, thank you. And, enjoy the vegetables!
Your farmers,
Katie & Casey Kulla
Oakhill Organics
