Picket

Hot and humid morning burned into a hot dry afternoon-- scattered showers cleared the heat just before close. Temperature dived from 89F into the upper 60Fs.

Newport was down watering the greenhouse, so I gathered up the knives and got 'em sharp. Today was the big push before CSA pick up days are back and the Thursday/Friday markets-- good thing we had full ranks. Stretch, Rhode Island, NYU, Newport and I packed the wagon full of cardboard boxes. We handed out knives and rubber bands, then climbed aboard for the boss to drive us up to the hilltop fields.

First were 3 beds of spinach and the remaining bok choi. The beds were overgrown with weeds, making the cutting and bunching much slower than it needed to be. The boss hung around and lended a hand-- the bok choi took 10 minutes flat. The foreman was planning to harrow under all of the greens field after lunch (except for the arugula), so all the spinach needed to be cut. We filled 12 cardboard boxes (25-40 bunches each). Note-- the beets up here are inching along, but swallowed over in weeds. The boss decided the heavy weeding required just isn't worth it-- so they'll be harrowed under and replanted from scratch. Finished a few minutes after noon, piled up the wagon and rode back to the store. Hosed down, set in the boxes in the cooler and off to lunch.


After lunch the picking super crew continued. We headed down to the lower fields and picked 9 cardboard boxes of swiss chard (15-25 bunches each). A lot was left to sit in the field as the demand has declined with all the new veggies coming out. The chard plants have finally bulked up-- solid roots and stalk. Just last week you still had to be careful when pulling leaves, so you didn't accidentally bring the entire plant out of the soil-- that's no longer a problem. Not much call for kale-- but we pulled 2 full boxes worth (35-40 bunches each). Only pulled the Dinosaur kale, as the Red Boar hasn't developed enough new leaves since last week's picking.

We refilled water and hustled up to the forest fields to meet the boss.  This is the first week of basil. We cut our way down nearly the entire long double row. Cutting basil is easy-- just be sure to leave enough of the plant behind to recover and regrow itself (that means leaving 6inches of stem and a good plenty of leaves for the photosynthesis). It's amazing sometimes how uniformly plants can grow. Despite the chaos of stems, branchings and leaves-- every basil plant forks off at the bottom the same way (main upward stem, then two off shoots: like a three pronged fork). I cut the main stem right above the 'prong' split. Fat heavy raindrops trickled down as we cut the last basil. We got 11 1/2 boxes (25-50 bunches per box).

We had several buckets in the wagon so we ran over and got on the squash. The summer squash was looking pretty good sized at 8-11inches long. The zucchini were monsters-- one or two were nearly the size of my forearm! We left a lot of the smaller squash to grow bigger-- but still filled up 3 buckets worth. Newport and I handled the zucchini-- over the winter I forgot about the fine razor hairs that cover its stems and leaves. They stab and catch into you while rummaging through for the zucchini-- we were scrapping our arms down with the knife blades trying to get all the stingers out. We finished up and the wagon was piled high. The day was getting late-- Stretch rode out with the boss to pick up Bah/Old Rudolpho crew's day worth of string bean pickings. The rest of us hiked down to the trellised tomatoes to join the foreman in readjusting the lines.

On the walk down Newport was up to no good. There is a mile wide gap between him and the rest of our crew. I like the summer boys, but they will leave in another month or so-- Newport and I are here to until the season's end. So I can't really choose sides-- but sometimes its damn hard to maintain my place as the man apart.

We spent the rest of the day wrapping the trellised tomatoes' new growths around the lines and plucked the 'sucker' stems. As the foreman explained-- sucker stems pop up where the main stem and branches meet, if they aren't picked they grow parallel to the main stem and can divert a lot of the plant's energy. Right now we have to encourage the main stem's upward growth, once it reaches the top guide wire we'll allow the outward growths. Closing came long before we finished the tomatoes (Stretch and the boss dealt with the remaining hosing/chilling of the afternoon's picking)-- we packed up and went homeward.

It's raining heavy now, we'll see what that means tomorrow.
CSA cometh.