Planting Pumpkins and Pulling Radishes

We are moving into the last few weeks of our planting schedule at Grant Farms, and this week was a fun mix of planting and harvesting. Monday we planted a  heirloom pumpkin called Porcelain Doll that will be pink in honor of October's breast cancer awareness (and Halloween of course!), and Tuesday was a day full of harvesting- first sugar snaps from our pea field, followed by radishes from a new field we have not worked at yet called Black Two. Wednesday was a mish- mash of activities as well, with replanting some peppers that weren't thriving at our Fisher Field, trellising our beautiful heirloom tomatoes in Pie Four, and harvesting twenty or so rows of awesome and huge soft neck garlic! Thursday was filled with more planting- peppers in Black Two, and replacing some tomatoes in our trellising, and Ian and I seeded rutabagas and turnips with the hand seeder on the east side of Fisher. Friday we worked back in our Greeley Field planting peppers and even broke early to get ice cream, a super treat for us and well needed as the temperature broke one hundred degrees in the field. Saturday was our working member day, and we had a ton of our awesome CSA supporters out to help us with the substantial task of hoeing thistle and weeds our of our rhubarb patch in Pie One. Here are the Fotos from the week:

June 18

Alex, Justin and Stephanie in Pie Three where we seeded the heirloom Porcelain Doll Pumpkins, with Luke in the background. Those are the seeds Alex is so excitedly holding up!

June 19

Me with an armload of radishes harvested for our CSA in Black Two. Isaac,
 Alex, and Justin in the background, also a pretty good shot of the smoke we have
been experiencing from the High Point Fire behind me. Thanks Alyssa, for
snapping the shot!

June 20

Ryan in our softneck garlic field. We harvested twenty rows, which doesn't sound like a lot, but took us all afternoon.

June 21

Ian soaking up the sun for a moment on this beautiful clear day as we seeded rutabagas and turnips with the hand seeder!

June 22

Rachel in our Greeley field planting peppers. We were using sticks to make quick work of digging the holes, and we thought hers looked like a little ram head! Yay planting wand!

June 23

Freshly weeded rhubarb patch, courtesy of some of our great CSA members! A super hot and hazy day fueled by the High Point fire.

Bonus Fotos:

Duckling field trip!!!

Our one hundred degree day in Greeley! Everyone looks like pro planters, down the line! A good image of our furrow irrigation field as well, where water is sent in between rows to the bottom of the field; one of the least efficient but most commonly used irrigation practices in the United States.

Softneck Garlic

a Red Bell Pepper plant

He's gonna hate me but I couldn't resist. Isaac caught in the act with a plate of apple fritters at intern dinner Saturday night!!

As always it was another great week, though super hot and smokey. Sweating and smelling like a campfire is probably not everyone's first choice, but farming just keeps getting better and better. I had a hard time choosing from all the pics of our different tasks this week, as you can see by the number of bonus fotos, and I still feel like adding more! It might have to happen...

XO,

Val


P.S. One quick note, for those of you trying to post comments but were unable to, I changed the settings so anyone should now be able to post a comment who would like to. Sorry for the earlier trouble.