For some Labor Day weekend is the last hooray of Summer. Understandably so for most here at SLG, it’s not so easy to let go. Maybe that’s part of why we practice season extension. Are we chasing the endless Summer? Seeing as Summer is the time for 8 day work weeks and 12 hour shifts, you may think not. After all warm season holidays come and go but with both farm properties and animals to boot, days off are mostly subjects for crytozoologist. Then again when you come into this time of year, with all the bounty of Summer, balanced by the earlier sunsets and fall like overnight temps, we find ourselves in quite a sweet spot. After all the first few weeks of September wouldn’t be such a bad place to be stuck however, time and light have plans of their own. But don’t forget summer really does extend a few more weeks until the equinox and with this weeks predicted temps it’s gonna feel like it.
Now don’t get us wrong we do love summer, it comes with abundance but also comes with challenges mainly due to heat and humidity. Besides the obvious challenges of working in the heat, planting and transplanting in the heat are quite problematic. Here at SLG we are heavily reliant on a transplant based system for much of our production. Carrots, radish and Asian greens for salad are about the only things we exclusively direct seed. With everything else being either a mix of the two or exclusively transplanted. In the heat of the summer this translates into two things, transplanting in the evening and the use of shade cloth. Simple enough however, after 3 or 4 it’s only J and J on the farm of which there are two locations. With thousands of transplants going in monthly that is a bit of a labor bottleneck. Enter the paper pot transplanter, a genius transplanting human powered machine that sort of looks like a big orange scooter. It comes with a learning curve and is far from perfect but it allows us to put down hundreds of perfectly spaced transplants in a short time when we’re short on help and before the sun goes down. After that its shade cloth and watering, easy right?
Now it wouldn’t be Labor Day in our opinion without a shout out to our farm crew, Sam, Zoe, Ben, & Lindsay, who’s holding it down. They may not be doing a lot of transplanting in the heat of summer but they are doing just about everything else and weather permitting will be the transplanting machine that will have us well positioned going into the Fall and Winter. It’s not just on the farm but at the markets we are blessed with excellent help. In addition to their on farm work Sam and Ben have been essential fill ins in both New Haven and Madison. Not to mention Sam’s solo taking on of the Durham Farmer’s market has been key and may just have something to do with the excellent season we’ve had there. If you go to the New Haven market you know what we mean when we say Emily and David are quite the duo. We really appreciate all of are farm and market crew, we couldn’t do it with out them.
There are a few more people who though they might not be working on the farm are pretty darn important and well we couldn’t do it without them either. Yup its all of you the good food people. We are truly blessed to be so strongly supported by you all. Knowing that we are bringing happiness and health through food to you and all of yours is such and honor. We may not be at a Labor day celebration with you but the food we grow is and that’s really special. Besides the veg has better taste and are much better conversationalist than Joel.
This weeks Recipe & Nutrition Inspiration by EmPower is a twist on a summer staple for us, tomato sandwich. Take it to the next level by making your own mayo! SLG Tomato Sandwich with Homemade Mayonnaise . Let us know what recipes you’ve tried, or if there is any produce you are hoping we feature!
Have a great week.