Arugula, Carrots, Cress, Escarole or radicchio, Garlic, Kale, Onions, Parsnips, Potatoes, Sage, Shallots, Turnips, Winter squash
This is the way the season ends
This is the way the season ends
This is the way the season ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
Me and Mike whimpering, that is.
Not that a bang would necessarily have provided a better ending to the season. I guess it would depend on what went off. Most of the time, though, when things around here end with a bang it is not so good.
Given the choice, I would have ended not with a bang or a whimper, but with a stretch of warm, dry weather. It would not even have had to be all that warm to satisfy me. Merely average temperatures would have sufficed. That and a little less snow.
On the other hand, this weather leaves little doubt in one’s mind (in mine, anyway) that the farming season has come to a close. On the few occasions in recent years when we have had really terrific fall weather it has been harder to call a halt to farming. The remaining crops in the field (and we always have things left out there in various states of development) all seem to have real potential. This is largely an illusion. By this point in the year, with short days and cold nights, most crops cannot do anything more than hang on. If they have not gotten big enough to pick by the end of October they probably won’t ever, no matter how delightful the weather. I am fully aware of this, but it still feels like one is giving up on the vegetables.
I don’t have to worry about that feeling bothering me this time. We may not have stripped the fields clean of every harvestable vegetable and there are rows of crops that just did not have time to grow. But many of them will not have survived this weather and those that have will feel disinclined to put much further effort into sticking around. In other words, there won’t be much left to give up on.
That does not mean I end this season without regrets. I doubt I will ever have a season good enough to leave me fully satisfied (or expectations modest enough that I could satisfy them). Certainly this was not that season. I never had the workers, weather or back to do nearly all I meant to accomplish. At some point it became clear that getting done what absolutely had to be done would be work enough. Planting cover crops, repairing greenhouses, beefing up deer fence, installing drain tile, building a potato hiller, redoing the hay mow floor; I don’t even remember all the tasks I had in mind that we never got to. And then there were the crops that disappointed, the carrots perhaps foremost among them, but rutabagas, broccoli, cabbage, eggplant, cucumbers and winter squash also certainly worthy (or do I mean unworthy?) of mention. Something always does poorly (hard to avoid when you grow this many crops), but the bizarrely cold June nights and relentless rain in July put extra strain on any number of crops. I don’t know that I have ever seen eggplants look as seriously aggrieved as ours did by the end of June and the carrots never got over the rain.
That said, I hardly think we need apologize for this season. If we were not brilliant we were at least good enough. We delivered a lot of vegetables over the course of the twenty weeks, including some very fine beans, piles of tomatoes, a steady supply of potatoes and enough garlic to keep flocks of vampires at bay. Not to mention the occasional kohlrabi (oops, I just mentioned it). Not being on the receiving end, I am unqualified to say how good it all looked coming out of the bag, but I think most of it looked fairly good going in, though I confess I may have exercised less that ideal oversight for much of July and early August. I hope we, unlike the carrots, did not disappoint.
Perhaps, though, despite everything you already got, you feel the need for a few more vegetables. Well, we happen to have a few crops for sale. In addition to the ones listed below, we may have some other, such as beets and kale. Let us know if you are interested in an unlisted crop (and in what quantity) and I will let you know if we can supply it. Please send orders via e-mail (Thomas@theallegedfarm.com) by November 20th for delivery on the 24th (or you can pick up your order from the farm). Orders of $75 or more get a 10% discount.
Onions $1.50/lb
Shallots $5.00/lb
Garlic $8.00/lb
Potatoes $1.50/lb
Parsnips $2.75/lb
Rutabagas* $2.00/lb
Carrots, mixed colors* $2.25/lb
Celeriac* $3.00/lb
*modest quantities available
In addition to the crops for sale, we also have a few out in the field that we would like to send to Community Action for distribution through their food pantry and various soup kitchens. If you would like to help pick these crops please let me know. You will be getting dirty for a good cause, and as thanks from me you will get a 5% discount on your storage crop order.
Speaking of thanks from me, I am as always grateful for your commitment to this unlikely enterprise. I trust that you have found your support for local sustainable agriculture as rewarding as we have and that you have eaten well. Thank you.
