Heirloom Harvest

We are in the last full week of August and have been harvesting like crazy. This week's tally includes heirloom tomatoes in addition to the determinate Taxi and Valley Girl varieties, green and yellow beans, corn, carrots, eggplants, and peppers! We got two new interns this week Austin and Kristen (yeah!), and lost five faves (sniff, so a sweet and bittersweet week to say the least. Good luck Lucia, Jessica, Jacob, Elena and Ian! Also a shout out to Alex and Colten, who returned to school for the fall a few weeks ago. We miss you! Here are the fotos of the week:

Aug 21

Midday siesta on the roof deck of the hippie bus during lunch Monday, prior to our second harvest of organic sweet corn in Matsuta 11. Feet from left to right belong to Chris, Ryan, Arlo and Ken.

 Aug 22

Joshua, squirreling away some ripe heirloom cherry tomatoes as we pruned and
wove tomatoes trough the trellising on Tuesday in Pie Four.

 Aug 23

Bundling carrots for CSA member shares on Wednesday. Ryan with Austin and Kristen, two of our newest interns in Black Two. Ken, Kyle and Emma in the background.

 Aug 24

Harvesting green beans in Black Two on Justin's birthday!

Aug 25 

Isaac and Katie with two beautiful heirloom tomatoes from our first harvest in Pie Four. We managed to pack over twenty boxes for wholesale this day when Isaac originally thought we'd get no more than two!

 Aug 26

Me with my girl, Lucia, at the Fort Collins Farmer's Market in Olde Town on Saturday.

Bonus Fotos:

Ian (Puppy!) on the tractor in Matsuta !! during corn harvesting.

 

Luke with a gorgeous box of heirloom tomatoes, fresh from the field!
 I packed that box... so proud!!

Couldn't resist one blast from the past... Elena, Lucia, and Jacob, three of the original crew on a smokey day last spring. Gangsta. 

Looking forward to another week with cooler temperatures, and more lovely veggie harvesting! THe sun has been shining, the days are getting shorter, and the abundance is overwhelming. It's a lovely time to be a farmer, and my favorite month, September, is just around the corner. Thank you to everyone who has been following the blog, sending the link, reposting the pics, and commenting. The blog surpassed five thousand hits last week. I am honored by your compliments and readership. Thank you. 

XO,

Val

Chillin'... in August?

Not too much to say this week, except, what an incredible week! We are predominantly harvesting now every week and I cannot get over pulling veggies out of the ground, ready to eat, that I put in the ground as a seed or a tiny plant last spring! I will let this week's pictures speak for themselves as the lovely harvesting and crazy cool August temperatures has put everybody in a good mood! Here are the fotos of the week:

Aug 13

Even weeding can be beautiful on the farm! Elena and  Jacob, with a weedy headdress,
Monday afternoon, weeding the parsnips in Fisher.

Aug 14

Nate, kissing a very unusual Nadia Eggplant in our Fisher Field during harvest on Tuesday.

Aug 15

Katie in a corn field in Matsuta 11, our first sweet corn harvest on Wednesday! There were so many ready ears, we harvested
twenty five macro bins for wholesale and CSA!! This picture is during a break when the crew waited in the field while the tractor went to switch out the full wagon.

Aug 16 

Justin, Emma, and Arlo in our first potato harvest of German Butterballs in our Bridges Two Field! Note the particularly lovely heart shape of the potato in Emma's hands, as well as the matching flannels of the guys!! It was basically fifty five degrees this Thursday! In August! What??

 Aug 17

Basically, the best Friday ever! This photo taken harvesting yellow wax beans in Black Two Field. Yeah, no one told me they were doing the funny bean poses... At least I have the feather and the nerd glasses! Elena, Ken, me and Victoria from left the right! 

In wrap up, the harvesting our crew focused on this week was Taxi tomatoes, green peppers, Nadia and Rosa Bianca eggplant, green beans, yellow beans, sweet corn, German Butterball new potatoes, jalapenos, and even some heirloom peppers and tomatoes! This isn't even counting the work of the other crews with ready chard, beets, eggplant, kale, cilantro and spinach! A lovely week to be outside. Harvest time is definitely busy, but slower in the lovely way of observing nature's progress and enjoying the abundant gifts of gorgeous, fresh, organic produce, that we have been working all year to see manifest.

XOXO,
Val

Farm Life's Bounty

It seems as though overnight everything has ripened and come ready to harvest. Carrots, eggplants, green and banana peppers, yellow taxi tomatoes, zucchini and summer squash, cucumbers, radishes, cilantro, green beans, onions, radishes- the list of ready vegetables seems endless. I gave a farm tour yesterday for some people interested in our farm, and Calvin, one of the many awesome employees that works with the CSA and who drove the bus for our tour, had an excellent point to add as things wrapped up. He talked about how our society has become disconnected from the source of our food, especially people of my generation and younger, who have the luxury of buying anything at the grocery store, at any time of the year, and that by connecting to a farm through a CSA membership, we are reforming our bond with the earth by eating locally produced foods with the seasons. He said how it used to be that people didn't just look forward to the summer because it got hot, but because of the amazing foods they could look forward to eating- having peaches and tomatoes fresh from the field, and eating the squash and root vegetable soups that come with fall. Working on this farm has definitely reformed my connection with the earth, and it is really a wonder and wonderful to see the beautiful food we've grown get harvested and sent out for others to enjoy. Here are the pics of the week:

Aug 6

Harvesting carrots on Monday, we found a giant that looks just like the one
tattooed on Katie's arm!

Aug 7

Jessica catching a cucumber on the wagon during harvest on Tuesday
in Matsuta 11 Field, with Justin and Abby.

Aug 8

Abby and Elena loading heirloom Taxi Tomatoes on the wagon in Pie Four. Chris, Ken, Victoria, Eric and Nate in the background.

Aug 9

Me with an armload of cucumbers in front of the pumpkin field during cucumber harvesting in Matsuta 11.

Aug 10

Victoria in our Fisher Field, during our first eggplant harvest!

Aug 11

Our gorgeous green bean field we harvested with the CSA working
members on Saturday in Black Two.

Bonus Foto:

Gorgeous Taxi Tomatoes and one bright red Valley Girl!

What a wonderful week. It truly is what we have been working all season for. Harvest is a busy, crazy, lovely time. Seeing the bins and boxes laden with beautiful vegetables streaming out of the field on our shoulders, or pulled on wagon behind tractors and trucks is a sight everyone should experience. I never expected to feel proud to see harvest time, but after a season full of planting, preparing and cultivation, that is exact what I am. 

XO,

Val 

Time to Harvest

Welcome to August! This week we have spent the majority of our time harvesting and it has been fantastic! We have several new crops ready to go, including green beans, zucchini, summer squash, carrots, and our first round of harvest for our heirloom Taxi and Striped German tomatoes, as well as banana peppers in Pie Four! Next to the carrots in Black Two the curly kale is giant and ready to go, cucumbers are coming to ripen and beets abound!! I am loving this time of year, we are literally beginning to reap the fruits of our labor! Find below the fotos of the week:

July 30

Abby placing a summer squash up on the harvester for processing. Note the awesome orange shag on the counter of the contraption; which is a large trailer hooked behind a wagon hooked behind the tractor for processing squash. We have been calling it the apparatus, or the man killer, as it is a huge metal thing with moving and folding parts and we are fairly fast and loose at setting it up and breaking it down for movement between the fields!

July 31

Heading out of Fisher field at the end of Tuesday, which we spent harvesting green beans, radishes, trellising tomatoes, and weeding parsnips. The front four from left are Megan, Abby, Ryan, and Jacob.

Aug 1

The Apparatus!! Richie driving the tractor, one on the wagon (not really visible) to receive boxes for wholesale and RPC's for CSA, six to eight on the trailer to process and box the squash, and the rest of us behind to harvest out of the field! So fun and awesome to work on such a weird machine!!

 

Aug 2

Sarah, with a bushel of freshly harvested carrots out of Black Two Field for our CSA.

Aug 3

Nate, with an RPC of bright yellow Taxi tomatoes! Our first harvest of our
heirlooms in Pie Four!!!

Bonus Fotos:

Luke coming out of the escape hatch on the bus for our squash launching war between bus and tractor crew on our way between fields!

Rachel and Ryan launching zucchini at the bus in Pie Four. Luke coming out the hatch
in the background! (note the folded up contraption for road travel)

Elena on the Apparatus with a Yellow Squash (and baby!!)

Taking cover under the wagon during a rain shower mid zucchini harvest Friday afternoon. Lucia, Alex, Jessica, and a very happy Emma! 

Same rain shower, Isaac and Nate are not as excited...

Finally... Back on the tractor! Harvesting zucchini in Pie Four! Yesss.

Earlier hours start tomorrow as we are now in the height of the season, when things will pick up pace to the max- who knew we would need to do even more things, even faster!? Pulling carrots and radishes up right out of the ground, slicing zucchini off the vine and finding that perfect golden tomato in the heart of the plant, packing them all up in boxes and shipping them off to feed people- all of it is so satisfying in such a real way. The work can sometimes be grueling, but the pay off is so great, I've never done anything more fun. And knowing it's all organic, and having planted so much ourselves, beginning the harvest season is just the cherry tomato on top of the whole Sunday!! 

XO,

Val