Mud and Merk and Me

The fall has been rainy and damp. There are slugs eating the turnips and radishes. I’ve purchased an expensive wash to waterproof our pants and have generously sprayed our clothing down with Scotchguard.

There is mud everywhere, all the time. I’ve worn my Hunter mud boots nearly everyday in the last two weeks which is most unfortunate since they have zero arch support. Washing root vegetables is quite the task these days as well- beets, carrots, diakon radishes… But none of these are quite nearly as bad as leeks and scallions which took me almost an hour to wash, clean, peel, de-root in preparation for market last week. People don’t want to see roots on their vegetables. Or dirt (Not to mention bugs or spots or holes.) This makes organic farming all that much more challenging.

Last week, while picking beautiful leaves of red chard the sunflowers looked pitifully down on me; their heads drooping in my direction without buoyancy or color or much life at all. Their dead brown centers were sort of depressing hanging above the vibrant shoots of green and red Swiss Chard. In the bed beside us: Beedy's Camden, Russian Red, Dinosaur and Crinkly Kale at their finest, as winter draws near and summers sunflowers die off. All within it’s time. Kale even tasting much sweeter after the first frost, which will be here sooner than I’d like to think.

 With threats of a freeze warning possibly this week we harvested all bell peppers that had sized up. (This happens to be around 1,000. We counted.) Most of them green. Row covers will be coming out again very soon as well. We will cover the bell peppers, hot peppers, beans and zucchini in an effort to make the most of the fruit that are on the plants. Eggplants have already bit the dust. And most everything else in the ground will survive for at least the four weeks remaining in the CSA delivery: broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, kale, chard, turnips, rutabagas, beets, celery root, fennel, radishes, arugula, mustard greens and mizuno. (Whew!) And then there are the plants in the four field houses- but we don’t have to discuss that now.

 We’ve been cleaning and bagging onions, shallots and garlic. Cleaning out the seed house, preparing an ever-growing pile of trash to take to the dump some day soon. We will also be planting garlic sometime soon as well. But first, we have to take each and every head of the 150lbs of garlic and break them up into cloves. This will be a nice rainy day activity that I’ll get to do in my not so distant future.

I’m counting down the days, and trying to not wish my future upon myself too quickly. Sometimes in the mud and cold that is hard. The sun has been shining some and last Friday, on our anniversary we did get to take a little motorcycle ride into town, for some ice cream of course. But as quickly as the 77 degree temps were here, Saturday after farmers market, it was in the 50’s, windy and rained steadily all evening.

Hundreds of geese fly overhead daily. It’s so amazing to see them in flight, so determined and headed so far away. I think I get distracted too easily, gazing upward, listening intently, but it is a beautiful thing.