Exiled to Trellising...

Who ever could have imagined that tomatoes could be such work? Especially when it's a large portion of twenty acres that we're talking about!! I have to apologize up front this week for the selective nature of the pics, as a few other interns and myself have spent the majority of our time in our Pie Four field, tamping in end posts, securing brace posts (cowboy style, with baling twine, of course) pounding in pine stakes and spooling twine around them, and finally tightening and securing the twine to create trellising on a large scale! We finish a row by pulling our beautiful heirloom tomato plants up and out through our contraptions to grow and flourish and grow us some delicious fruit!! It's a task of seemingly endless toil, though actually really enjoyable! It is delightful at the end of the day to see our plants standing tall off the ground and know that it's our labors that have made it happen. We were also responsible for a large portion of our CSA's harvest this week, so those of you receiving radishes, green onions, and green beans this week, know that some of us might be holding your produce in our arms in this weeks pics! It was a lovely week, as always, though hot, with a little humidity thrown in for good measure! Here are the pics of the week:

July 16

Elena with an armload of green onions for our CSA shares! These onions
came from the northwest end of our Pie Four Pie! 

July 17

Amber waves of grain freshly cut with the combine in our Pie One Field! This is our hard red winter wheat crop being harvested. It will
go to mill in Denver and be turned into delicious artisan bread by Red Mountain Bakery and returned to us for our bread shares!
Gorgeous Colorado day!

July 18

Wednesday afternoon we got the opportunity to tour our fields with Isaac and talk about pests and organic control measures used to
protect our crops during the height of the season. Here we are in our sweet corn field (ready in three weeks!) discussing trap cropping,
row covering, early detection, and preventions. Clockwise from left: Rachel, Sarah, Isaac, Emma, Lucia, Alex, Chris, Ken, Stephanie, Alyssa, Justin, Ian and Tanea.

July 19

Steph, tightening the baling twine we are using to trellis our heirloom tomato
crop in Pie Four.

July 20

Alex and Stephanie stringing up the last trellis line of the day in Pie Four.
Our goal was to complete a 30 row section on Friday. With a crew of three that
afternoon, we managed about half that. Honestly, though, not too shabby!
We were beat by the end of the day.

Bonus Foto(s):

Justin, taking it easy at lunchtime after weed whacking his life away at
Pie Four. I'm still not clear if he brought this thing along with him, or
just found it... or if it is even a real hammock.

Emma, Lucia and Isaac in the sweet corn crop on Wednesday. I think Emma is getting an early taste...

Ken in the sweet corn. Beard is lookin' solid!

An example of what we are calling "Zombie Hands", a  result of handling the tomatoes and having their residue come off on your
hands for eight hours a day! I dare movie makeup to do better!

Finally, one of me!  At the end of the day on Wednesday, we went to check on
our potatoes! Here I am with the German Butterballs, still pretty tiny, but
delicious, even raw! Nate's behind me.

There you have it! The week in pics. We are at the height of weed season and pest season, so there will be a lot more maintenance in our future for now; hoeing, weeding, and of course continued trellising as our tomatoes strive to attain their full height! Thanks for following the blog, as always, and here's to a rain shower or two to cool things down!

XO,

Val