Markets, Asparagus, Mistakes, and Swimming Holes

What a week it has been! There were lots of things that I learned and that happened on the farm this week. Maybe I'll start with yesterday and work backwards. I forgot to take pictures, but yesterday was my first Farmers Market! I woke up at 4am (actually I woke up every half hour throughout the night because I was worried I was going to sleep through my alarm) in order to meet Eric down at the barn at 4:20am. It's only a 1-2 minute commute from my shed to the barn, but I had to grab some snacks and water and rain gear before heading over. We load the vans with plant starts for market the night before. In the morning, we pull the greens (yep, spinach and kale) from the cooler and hit the road. We were on our way at at the dark hour of 4:25 am. We left a few minutes early because (Eric is precise in his planning and) we needed to stop for gas along the way.

It was a slow market, said Eric. He said he was "bo-ored" in two syllables several times. The forecasters predicted rain the entire day and besides, there was a Dogwood Festival and Parade in Charlottesville. I had fun anyway. Getting off the farm, seeing customers excited to start their gardens and eat spinach from a local farmer, appreciating the camaraderie between other vendors/farmers and doing simple and fast math at 7am all contributed to a great day for me. And it didn't rain the entire day, just a bit here and there. No prob. Oh, and to top it all off, we ran around the corner to get a couple slices of pizza on the way out of town (this is Eric's weekly ritual). Yum.

Many other things happened this week. We learned to harvest asparagus! No, it's not difficult. What this really means (and why we were so anxious) is that we have more "official" permission to have some for oursleves. We get the seconds that won't sell as well at market. Fine with me! We have pretty big asparagus. I learned that it doesn't mean that these asparagus are older or less tender necessarily. The diameter of the asparagus has more to do with how much room they have in their row. Rachel said that the larger spears tend to be female and the skinny ones male. I took Rachel's advice and used a veggie peeler to peel off the skin of the bigger ones at the bottom, which left a lot of the tender, meaty part exposed to eat. Yum again!

I also watched Rachel and Eric navigate and negotiate a difficult situation together as a couple but also as business partners. Long story short, some of the seeds and seedlings were planted into bad soil this spring. This stunted their growth and caused their leaves to start turning yellow. In talking with the soil distributers, it was suggested to use a soil conditioner to help maintain the moisture. Unfortunately, the soil conditioner that was used ended up burning several plants leaves throughout the greenhouse. This felt like a hard blow for Rachel and Eric. This was several thousand dollars worth of plants not to mention several hours of work. This will affect their sales at their big plant sale on May 1st as well as delay planting on the farm and sales at market. We spent some time re-seeding some plants and re-spotting others. We also planted several rows of struggling squash and tomato plants into the ground this week to see if they would bounce back in the fields' good soil. Only time will tell how these plants will do and how this devastation will affect the bigger picture on the farm. So goes farm life, I suppose. Eric and Rachel have handled it well, knowing that the only direction to move from here is forward - with careful planning and a hopeful heart.





We got bees this week! No, we don't d0 much with them. Just sell the honey in the self-serve station at the barn. The beekeepers just ask to keep the bees on our land for the summer. When I went to take pictures of the kale going to seed, I noticed that several of the bees had already found the kale flowers a few fields over.




At the end of one day last week, Eric took us to a field in the middle of their land to show us tilling radishes. We all know by now that most of the fields are planted on a nice flat flood plain. That means that sometimes standing water gathers in the field, though. So last year Eric and Rachel planted tilling radishes. They do just what it sounds like, tilling into the ground and leave a hole once they are harvested or once they rot. Rachel and Eric were pretty happy with the results and will likely plant them again this year. This is picture that was left at the end of last season and was found again this year next to its hole.

We mulched a fair amount of fields with hay this week. I think this will be a regular blog topic, so be forewarned. So far I'm still laughing as we build our muscles trying to push those huge rolls of hay in pairs while Eric passes us while pushing one by himself. Sigh. Oh, and we all decided that we need to find some masks. Not only does that stuff end up all over our bodies, it gets in our throats and lungs, too. Ick!

Also, my relatively new, stainless steel water bottle transformed into a piece of wall art this week. A couple of us left our bottles at the end of the asparagus field, and the farm truck ran smack dab over them. That's what I get for leaving it in the "road" I guess!


Last but not least, Sonia came to visit this weekend! She hiked while I worked yesterday and then came to the farm for dinner. We has roasted asparagus, with a spinach and tempeh salad. And for dessert, chocolate banana bread that Eric and I bartered plants for at market! Today Sonia and I walked around the farm and then went in search of a swimming hole. We found one! It is on Cliff's farm on the Thornton River. We brought a picnic with us and reveled in the surprise sun and 70 degree weather. The forecasts told us all week that it was supposed to thunderstorm all day. Not a drop of rain did we see! Here's what we saw instead:
I'm off to do a tick check, boil some water for tea, read, and catch some shut-eye...