These past few weeks have been characterized by a contradiction: the quickest and easiest way to get absolutely covered in wet sloppy mud is to move the soaker hoses from bed to bed every three hours, an activity that has been necessitated by an astonishing dry spell and requires wrapping the dirty hoses around your body as you walk the rows to avoid crushing plants. Keeping everything watered has felt like a full time job, but the plants have stoically and happily continued to grow, flower, fruit.
Less than two weeks ago we finally moved to Darling Farm, and, although much of our life is still packed away in boxes, we are so happy to wake up every morning in this ancient, creaky, crooked, beautiful carriage house. Mid week we realized with surprise (yes, we should have known this day would come!) that we had lots of veggies waiting to be harvested, so we happily flew into action. We made a few restaurant sales, got our zoning variance, set up our farmstand, and harvested. Spicy salad greens, salad turnips, french breakfast radishes, zucchini, kale, and chard are all officially for sale.
We had our first farm dinner with a few friends this past week, for which we harvested and cooked a full meal’s worth of veggies, baked fresh bread and lavender cake, and grilled. It was an important reminder about why we’re growing all this food in the first place - not only to build a healthy world, but to eat it in the company of people we love.
We had an invaluable team of helpers this weekend - friends, friends of friends, and parents. Not only did we check almost everything off of our lengthy and urgent list of small tasks (seeding more greens, pruning tomatoes, planting lots of seedlings for second successions, making more kale beds, weeding) but we also built a greenhouse. We pretty much made up the construction method, using cheap electrical conduit and a pipe bender for the frame, PVC footings, and plastic we're borrowing from a friend. $12 of the $40 we spent on materials was for binder clips from Staples, used to attach the plastic to the frame.
And then a perfect end to a productive weekend, after almost three weeks of powder dry soil and constant water worry, it rained. We got exactly what we needed most.
