Another Weekend on the Farm

It started with potatoes
Potato harvest at the farm has looked the same for about 20 years. It takes 2 of us. One of us crawls on our knees and other other pulls hoses, wields the fork, and slides the harvest boxes along. And I'd like to say right now, that it is not true that I am a hose stabber....it's just that I am a lot shorter than Leo and therefore I am the one who crawls and puts the potatoes in the box. A couple of hundred pounds later, the field was cleared and Leo prepared the beds for the next crop. Gee that sounds easy. Really, he has to clear the debris, rake and haul it away to the compost pile, roll up the irrigation and then till.

To the right, German Butterballs. They are not great keepers, they green really easily, so when you get them, use them up. I have a thing with green potatoes. I won't eat them, and try never to give them to you either. To keep the potatoes from getting green, I try not to expose them to light. From the field, the potatoes go to the dark barn. they are transferred from boxes, to the scale, to the bag and into big coolers. From the harvest, I sort out all the tiny weenie taters and we use those for seed potatoes. All the greenies we also use as seed potatoes. From the best potatoes I weigh out 1 and 1/2 pounds of potatoes per CSA box. We go through 22-25 pounds of potatoes a week. Of course, I'm not through weighing and bagging. Thankfully, Zack and Casey have promised to help me when they come back to visit in August.


Bread Next
Then I moved on to making bread and Leo went out to do the squash bug stomp. To the left Grinsini and bread rising. To the right, bread and Grisini for you.After the squash bug stomp, we harvested Delicata Squash and pulled the vines. In their place we put in those experimental tomatoes that Dr. Carolyn Male sent us. These are very rare heirloom tomatoes. I have never in my life planted a tomato in July, I'm anxious for these little fellers. It seems very late to me, but I hope at least to get a few tomatoes to be able to send her back seed.

Leo rounded up one of these spare roosters and we traded him for chicken food from the local feed store. He was a beautiful specimen. And you'll never guess after all that hullaballou, look what Leo found...the first egg from the Cuckoo Marans. So, we had to get the nest boxes cleaned and reinstalled in the coop. It's been a busy weekend.