Bright Lights

Full sun the whole day through. Temperature climbed out of the mid 60Fs and hung in the 70Fs.

Swung down into the greenhouse this morning to chat with the boss. Everyone is pushing hard to be ready for tomorrow-- first day of CSA. Our system is pretty basic, families or individuals buy whole or partial shares-- then pick up produce once a week from June to late October. There are some progressive farms in the surrounding towns who try all sorts of different arrangements-- CSA members pay no money, but work once a week for food/ CSA members pay no money then work for some food then the rest is donated to a big food bank/ etc. I asked the boss about these arrangements and he made a good point-- why would he want people unfamiliar with farming or the plants being grown to run amok in the fields every week of the season? How much would he be able to really grow? The summer help needs a couple solid weeks of work to get up to speed, people working an hour here and there would never catch on. The boss definitely prefers a more controlled, skilled approach-- which is expensive, but usually produces a larger high quality yield.

Anyway, after chatting around for a few minutes I ran up to the second raspberry field to join NYU (he got an early start today). He'd already lowered all the crossbeams-- so we double checked over the rows and started stringing the wire. The going was quick-- between running the spool and tying off to the crossbeams we managed at a continuous walking pace. It took only an hour and a half to string each side of the rows. The canes in this field have grown wildly, so lifting the raspberries and tightening the lines took much longer than planned. The boss and foreman rolled by in their tractors to admire our handiwork. The boss was in good spirits-- I've decided that he's at his best in the mornings, things only sour when the high school help begins to arrive.

Earlier this spring we extracted an ancient raspberry field from the ever encroaching wood's edge (right next to the hillside field we were stringing). During a brief water break, the boss explained his plan to bring the reclaimed soil back to use: the brush and trees really tangled up and lowered the dirt quality, so the first move is to harrow under what little remains of the old raspberries-- mix them into the soil and let 'em rot. After mingling in some compost and ashes the boss plans to plant a few rounds of sweet corn to re-establish the area-- then back in with the berries.

We finished the raspberries with a half hour till lunch, so we walked up hill and I showed NYU the developing peaches. Back at the farm store, we checked on Viking's gardening and joked around.


After lunch the picking bonanza began. NYU and I dragged ten bushel crates down to the lower fields and started to cut a round of the Bright Lights Swiss Chard. These plants will continuously throw out more leaves and stems if you're careful-- trim off the withered useless leaves dragging in the soil, then only pick the larger standing stem/leaves around the edges (leave the small developing leaves at the plant's center). We planted a lot of chard this year, four rows in a bed going the field's length-- it took us three hours to fill the crates. (The 2 rows I picked were too small in places-- making a full bunch a much more difficult and lengthy process.)

The boss hauled off our chard catch and returned with more bushel crates. NYU and I finished up picking the remaining row length of broccoli rabe-- packed three crates till near bursting. Throughout the afternoon families came into the fields by the van-load for Pick-Your-Own strawberries. It's good business, but I'm not used to seeing mothers and little kids in the fields-- out of shame, I walked off into the woods to take my rare smoke/water breaks (I really don't like having a cigarette in front of kids).

 After the rabe, we towered our pickings in the shade and joined the foreman at the far edges of the field. He had many more bushel crates with him. One of our several beds of beets was doing terrible-- planted first, early spring molds killed off more than half the crop and slowed the development of the rest. Rather than consign them to compost, the boss decided to cut and bunch up the beet greens for the CSA. NYU and I sifted through the weeds and bunched the underdeveloped plants till closing. The foreman, Bah and Old Rudolpho worked in the next row over, cutting an entire bed's worth of Bok Choi.

Sometime after closing, we hitched a ride with the foreman in the tractor as he brought all the filled crates back to the farm store. We hosed off the greens, beets and a portion of the bok choi, then put 'em all in the cooler to chill.

Bought a dozen eggs, lettuce and some garlic from Viking-- chatted around with her husband who came by to visit. Then back to home.

Tomorrow the real festivities begin, Onward CSA!