Big Harvest Time

Sweet potatoes growing well on aggressively hilled beds. They've been weeded once with a workshift and cultivated twice with a tractor. Soon their vines should smother competitors, but not Abigail.

It's the time of year when we focus slightly more on the harvesting of crops that went into the ground months ago, were nurtured, cared for, protected, cultivated, weeded, and watered and now come out of the ground and fields to fill up the barn, the cooler, eventually your fridge and tummy. The garlic harvest symbolically commences the beginning of summer and fall bounty, but it really begins with the epic summer squash and cucumber yields that practically come all at once over a relatively short period of time, even though there are three plantings spaced a month apart. Soon these crops will deteriorate due to bug and disease pressure, so love them now!

Up next will be the great carrot harvest which will begin whenever the ground dries out enough after last week's rainfall, hopefully this week with the aid of heat. Following carrots will be watermelon, then onions, potatoes, winter squash, sweet potatoes, etc.

Sometime during the next couple of months tomatoes will hopefully peak in the upper single digits per member per week for some weeks and should be in the harvest for a few months. Look for gnarly and beautiful and richly flavored heirloom tomatoes from our high tunnel and red round traditional tomatoes grown in the field (which taste great too)!