Where has July gone?

Uh oh. I'm in the doghouse now. I have only ONE blog entry for July? And it's the third week in? My oh my. Well, I'll tell you what's kept me busy lately. Preparation for grad school and for moving back to Colorado. In all of my spare time in July, I was interviewing and emailing with placements in Denver to set up my grad school internship. I am heading to the University of Denver's Graduate School of Social Work this fall to get my Master's in Social Work (MSW). And things are slowly coming together.

After many emails, interviews, and broken conversations from my computer in my shed, I have decided to accept an internship with Metro CareRing! Their mission statement is this: "Metro CareRing works with families and individuals to meet basic needs and help advocate for solutions to hunger and poverty. We assist people through times of crisis and provide resources for self-reliance," (http://metrocarering.org/). I am excited because it will bring together my commitment to social justice, my passion for sustainability, and my developing interest in food and farming. They are in the last stages of purchasing the land next to their building (18,000 square feet) in order to develop an urban farm. If all goes well, the land should be officially theirs by September, which is when I start. Amazing timing! I'm smiling towards the gods for that one! Now I am in the process of writing my own job description, which again, has taken me away from blogging. For those of you in the Denver area, mark 10.10.10 on your calendars now! We have a big Hunger Relief Day planned, which will also be kicking off the Urban Farm initiative. I'd like you to be there.

So what has changed on the farm since last I wrote? Everything! One thing that seems to have brought a sparkle to both Rachel and Eric's eyes is that we have, in their words, "Finally shifted to a vegetable farm!" In April, May, and June, you remember all of my entries about greenhouse work and plants. As you can see in this picture, we were loading plants in and out of the market vans every week in order to help folks around the city get their own gardens growing. Well, we have officially stopped bringing plants and are now bringing ponies and bushels of fruit and veggies! Eric said that he really likes that shift in the farming season.

I've already talked about the summer squash (zucchini, yellow zucchini, yellow squash, patty pan and mid-east) that we are picking every day but Sundays, but I am long overdue to mention...cucumbers! Or "cukes" as we often called them at Holden Village. We have four types of cucumbers: Burpless, Picklers, Asian, and Slicers. The Burpless and Asian cukes have thinner skin and do not store as long. The Slicers are good for storing a little longer and tend to have fewer pests, and you guessed it, the Picklers are good for pickling! You can eat any of them fresh in salads, though. I think the favorite among us is the Asian cucumber. I'll have to get some pictures of them to prove it (this picture is of a pickler), but they are beautiful! Curvy and spikey and crinkly all at once. And sweet and delicious, too! I tend to be the pickler picker, so you can call me Peter. That's what's in this picture to the left.

We have a very scientific way of deciding when the cukes are ready to pick. Basically, with my size hands, if my thumb and middle finger stretch around any part of it and baaaaaaaarely touch, that means it's ready. If my thumb and middle finger touch each other easily, then it is too early. If they can't reach around the whole thing and touch each other, then I messed up and waited too long! When we were taught about harvesting cukes, we were told a number of times that the length of it doesn't matter. Cucumbers can be wildly varying in length, so really, we are only to pay attention to the circumference.

And by golly, the melons have come in! We have two types of musk melons (NOT Cantelopes, I've been informed, because Cantelopes only grow in Africa! I have not confirmed this information): Halona and Ambrosia. And a few types of Watermelons - red and orange! Watermelons are Eric's favorite thing on the farm to grow and they are hard to determine ripeness, so we haven't learned (and maybe won't?) how/when to harvest those. How do we determine when to harvest the musk melons? They tell us! They change from green to yellow, their webbing increases, and when we tug the vine, it pops right off. I have had quite a few of the "seconds" melons already. I can't tell you how good those taste at four in the afternoon on a humid 98 degree day after picking two fields of squash! (These pictures are from a day way before we were taught to harvest melons - and therefore not allowed to harvest melons. Rachel, Miranda, and I are hidden in the pepper field savoring this early harvest thanks to Rachel's stealthy work. See her knocking on the melon to see if it's ready? See me confirming that it was indeed ready? Don't tell boss!)

And as soon as the melons came in, so did the tomatoes! They're HERE! At last! We just learned to harvest them yesterday afternoon and I had toast with pesto and slices of heirloom tomatos tonight for dinner. Most of the tomatoes are still green, but we did have enough from yesterday's first group harvest to give a pound to each CSA member this morning! For the past two weeks we've brought a few handfuls at a time to market as they began to ripen. We have hybrids, heirlooms, and cherry tomatoes. As I mentioned in past posts, our first tomato planting went through two frosts and bad soil...so Eric continues to say that we are lucky that we are getting anything from that field. They were delayed, though, and are coming in at the same time that our second planting is coming in. In fact, I think the very first ripe tomato that Miranda spotted and harvested a few weeks ago was from the second planting.

And eggs. I think the girls have hit their stride with laying. Today we had 161, and the last few times I've gathered we have had between 159 and 163. That's two baskets worth! Being in the 90th percentile is really good (remember we have 175 total). I think those girls are happy roaming about our fields. Oh, but we saw a small fox this week. Yikes. He was just inside our deer fence. I spotted him and pointed him out to folks, thinking how cute he was. Miranda grounded that thought quickly by pointing out why he was probably lurking around: the chickens! Since starting this farm work I have heard story after story of folks' entire flock being wiped out in one night because of a predator. We all held our breath the night after we saw him. So far so good.

One of the questions I ask my friends who come to visit the farm is if they know what's growing in this field. It's not a great picture, but do YOU know? Here's another picture on the right. Does that help? Well, I have to start by admitting that I wouldn't have known the answer myself before this season. Many folks guess dill. Or fennel. And for those of you that know (mom and dad!)...forgive those of us who grew up as city folk! It's the asparagus field! They are grown ups now! They're taller than me! Although it has been months since we harvested asparagus, we are still spending time in that field...weeding. Remember when I said I li-li-liked weeding? The asparagus field is, well, causing me to reconsider that statement. It's overwhelming, and that's putting it lightly!

Speaking of dill, we have been harvesting dill for a few weeks now. Here are a few shots of the first day that Eric taught us how to harvest it (it was early in the morning! Is Andrew sleeping?):


And basil, too. We bunch both dill and basil in the field with rubber bands. Then we put them in a bushel to go to market or to be doled out to the CSA boxes.I've made a list of several things I need to report back, but time is escaping me now. I am getting up in six hours to do another portion of the Appalachian Trail. Do you think I can do 20 miles in one day off? Wish me luck!