Hello Fellow Farmaholics!
Welcome to the 8th great week of the CSA. We’ve been in full-fledged harvest mode these past few days. It’s super interesting to witness the transition of tasks as the season progresses. Tasks like seeding new crops, transplanting in seedlings, and weeding all take the back burner as we race to keep up with the abundance of veggies that have ripened.
An exciting addition to this weeks bag is our sweet corn, which we harvested out at the Throckmorton Agriculture Center. I’ve never really enjoyed corn before, and since I’m from a place without many cornfields, it never quite haunted the narrative in the same way it seems to in Indiana. Though I was skeptical of eating raw corn, I can say wholeheartedly that I understand it now. All week, Musaka and I have been running off to the cooler to steal an ear or two when we have a break between tasks. The sweet corn has a fresh and almost milky taste when you bite into it. We don’t want any of you to miss out on it, since we can’t guarantee a strong harvest next week, we encourage all biweekly participants to come to pick up this week for some sweet corn. The corn is still sugary but its quickly turning them to starches and doubt they will last until next Friday. There will be more sweet corn but we are unsure of timing but hopefully more in a couple/few weeks.
Given that manual labor leaves one with plenty of thinking time, sometimes I like to personify the crops as I’m harvesting them. I would say zucchini is a trickster who gets joy out of growing comically large fruits. We harvest zucchini about three times a week, and yet somehow still end up with several goliath-sized fruits. Zucchini leaves are also covered in something called trichomes, which are tiny spiky hairs. These tiny hairs do not leave a tiny feeling though, and they cut up and leave itchy the hands of whoever harvests them. It’s a natural defense mechanism from pests, but unfortunately it defends against us too. I think the zucchini watches us struggle very gleefully.
A normal Zucchini vs. one that got a couple of extra days of growth.
We’ve also been harvesting a lot of tomatoes. This year, Chris is trying out two new varieties, Yellow Mimis and Citrines. They’ve both been hits in terms of production, which he says is pretty rare, and is part of the reason this year’s CSA is receiving more cherry tomatoes than any CSA in the past.
A lot of time has gone to our root crops as well, as we’ve processed more onions, forked out the stubborn carrots, and harvested oodles and oodles of beets. During the heavy storms this week, we couldn’t be outside. We hunkered down in the building and cut the tops off onions for hours while the rain raged outside. With some chill music and this rhythmic task, we had a nice vibe.
The later carrot harvest proved to be the opposite of relaxing. We have a rich dark soil on this farm that happens to have an extremely high clay content. That’s important for holding both water and essential elements, but it makes pulling out a deeper root crop like carrots a nightmare. These carrots are capital S “Stuck”. If you try to pull them by their greens, you’ll snap off the top or break the carrot in half. Thus, you need to use a pitchfork, get it deep enough, tear out the chunk of earth that contains carrots, and then shake that chunk to get rid of the dirt and reveal the bounty. It’s tedious, and quite tiring. It was during that task that Muska and I discussed our newfound understanding of why family farms tried to have as many kids as possible. With work like that, it’s no wonder people wanted more laborers.
Luckily, such a struggle was not had during the beet harvest, due to their much shallower root system. We managed to find this absolute monster of a beet, which Slade is holding.
We thought it would be funny to leave it on Chris’ desk without saying anything, which is what we did. It’s not a very sophisticated prank, but we denied involvement when he later asked about it.
This huge beet find prompted a discussion of record veggie sizes. Though we aren’t close to any meaningful record, we still find ourselves shocked by a particularly large vegetable on a near daily basis. Here are some of the large finds, that have totally not been taken from a perspective that emphasizes size:
While it’s tough on the farm with just 3 full timers, we look forward to Thursdays and Fridays, which is when the lovely Emma Decker joins us. My biggest complaint about her would be that she doesn’t work more often, as she’s a wonderful person to have around, and also this week’s student spotlight:
Hi! My name is Emma and I am an incoming senior in Sustainable Food and Farming Systems here at Purdue. This summer has been a real roller coaster, but the farm has made it so fun! Even the most mundane tasks were filled with laughter among my amazing coworkers. This summer I got a small break from West Lafayette by hitting the mountains in Washington, my favorite being Mount Rainier! Overall, the thing I love most is getting to help make healthy and local eating possible for all our members!