As a grower letting go can be a very difficult thing but learning to let go and accepting it must happen is key. It’s in the nature of the business that we over do our plantings more or less as a redundancy for when things inevitably go wrong. That means extra trays of transplants that may not have a home and thinning a beautiful stand of seedlings knowing that if we don’t they will smother each other, not growing to their full potential. In a similar light there are always things around that we intend to plant that just won’t fit into the season, be it for time or space in the ground. There’s weeding and cleaning the far corners of the farm, organizing the shop and of course a list of fun little projects that we’ve had in mind. Soon those too fall victim to the ever growing need to weed, mow and harvest. I guess it would be fair to call late July the time of farm triage. When you’re heart and hands are so intimately linked with the farm and all the life it brings forth the idea of ranking things by importance seems impossible. The truth is that with August fast approaching growers must shift their focus and planning to Fall. Yes their is plenty of summer left, but the time as a farmer for summer dreaming has passed. It is with a deep sigh, heavy hearts and occasionally a tear that we make the decisions that must be made. Sorry melons, we might be too late for you this year, oh hi there tray of lettuce there’s something we need to talk about. Letting go is always tough, but that’s the way it should be be when you live and dream with a big heart.
One thing you won’t have to let go of this week is you’re desire for a delicious tomato or three. The tomato waterfall appears to be imminent, a joyful time of year with a bounty and workload all it’s own. The heat and sun of the past few weeks have been doing a lot of good for things like the tomatoes and flowers. While presenting challenges for things like transplanting, direct seeding, growing greens in general and not to mention just working outside. Big shout out to all those helping us out this year and braving the heat of July. We were out in nearly full force this past Tuesday for the Great Garlic Harvest. Blessed by an unexpected rainy Monday nearly all the garlic pulled easily from the soft wet earth. Usually we have to fork up each bulb individually, so we of course took advantage wrapping up the 2022 GGH. In other farm news you may remember from a few weeks back the tale of Kanga and curved horn. Well we are happy to say that our decision to bring in the pros was the right one. They removed one horn and trimmed another, giving us instructions on how to keep them trimmed as they grow back. We’ll have to do this for Kanga and her cousin Betty once or twice a year. That should keep them safe and without a horn in the the eye. Remember Wednesday order deadline has been moved from 8am to 6am Wednesday morning to accommodate earlier harvest start times.
Have a great week