Countdown to the rainy season

(CSA Newsletter: Summer Week 12)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

(* indicates items included in this week’s Linfield student organized mini-CSA. We began this small program for several students who requested it last spring before they left for summer. Since they live on campus, the participating students receive just a portion of our CSA items each week. We’re excited to have college students eating our healthy veggies to fuel their actively learning brains! Thanks for joining us, Linfield Wildcats!)

When do we know it’s turning towards fall around the farm?

Is it when we see the first ‘v’ of geese flying south? When the ash trees in our slough become tinged with yellow? When we finish trimming the onions and bring them under shelter for winter? When we watch another quarter-inch of rain fall on the fields on a quiet Sunday afternoon? When we begin seeing our farmer friends more frequently off their farms? When we make highly prioritized lists of ‘things to do before November 1!’? When we pause to consider the quantity of firewood in our woodpile? When we realize we need to buy new wool socks to replace worn out ones that have sufficed until now?

This last week brought all these events and more to our life on the farm. In which case, I guess it’s official: fall approaches.

Although the lure of fall appeals to both of us greatly (reading by the fire! baking bread! no more weeding!), we have much to do ‘before the rain falls.’ In fact, we use that phrase so frequently these days as we plan that we’re reminded of our year spent in the mountains, where fall’s urgent activity was timed for completion ‘before the snow flies.’ In the mountains, the arrival of snow meant a literal blanketing of all activity: children’s toys left out would be missing until spring, mobility would be limited to vehicles with chains or tracks, and any exterior work would be put off for months.

In theory, the season’s transition here is less dramatic than a place that received an average annual 260” of snow … but in our experience (and the experience of every Oregon farmer or landowner), once that rain starts seriously falling on November 1, you better be sure you have all your equipment under cover, everything planted, and seeds sown — because that’s it for the year of field work. Mud takes over and anything left out will eventually rot.

So, with that knowledge clearly at the forefront of our minds, we are scrambling to plant, sow, cover, and store. It’s a bit of a struggle again this year, since we’re still establishing infrastructure on the farm. We can’t just harvest the onions and put them away — we have to figure how and where we will store them. It’s an added delay that this week resulted in some of our carefully dried and trimmed onions getting rained on. (Oops.)

We do have enough room for everything (we think!), but we have to be creative and flexible. Unfortunately, nothing will be stored in ideal condition this year — vegetables or equipment — but hopefully our solutions will be mostly adequate to avoid rotting onions or rusting tractor implements. We’ll see …

To cover every foreseeable complication with the fall and winter CSA shares, we’re packing the fields with veggies. At the rate we’re planting and sowing, the fields will be at least half full going into the rainy season. Of course winter takes its toll, and not all of that will get to be harvested. But by planting as much as possible, we’ll increase our opportunities to harvest this winter. We’re transplanting cabbages, broccoli, kale, chard, collard greens, chicories, lettuces, green onions, and more. And sowing all sorts of things: arugula, mustards, radishes, turnips, beet greens, lettuces, spinach, mizuna, tatsoi, fava beans, and more. Already, many of the early fall broccoli and cabbage plantings are knee high and thriving. So, even though we feel the pressure of the rainy season’s approach, we’re certainly not behind. We just still have lots to do.

And I imagine you do as well, perhaps you don’t have to find a place to store your tractor but you might have gutters to clean or a roof to patch. And one thing that may still be on your list as well: have you signed up yet for the 2008 winter CSA season? We know that not everyone will be adventurous to join us for this renegade cold-weather local food experience, and that’s fine. But if you are interested, please get in touch with us soon so that we know how many open spots we have for folks on the waiting list.

In the meantime, here on the farm we’ll continue our half-dazed race to fall — our days filled with the grand (completing the onion harvest) and the mundane (trying to find sweaters we packed away in May). And through it all, we’ll be thinking of you: our community of eaters, the inspiration for everything we do out here.

As always, enjoy this week’s vegetables.

Your farmers,

Katie & Casey Kulla
Oakhill Organics