Frozen Tundra

You know it's cold when you open the walk-in cooler and it feels balmy! It's been a chilly week here at the farm - down in the mid-twenties almost every morning. The frost has been so thick it almost looks like snow. The farm is looking fairly desolate and bleak. This has essentially brought the growing season to an abrupt end, although we are continuing to harvest a few crops. It always amazes me to see the resilience of some plants that are able to nearly freeze solid and yet totally recover after they thaw out. The greens and brassicas are particularly good at this. As long as the leaves are not frozen when they are harvested, they seem to look and taste fine.

We have two more weeks to go in our market season. Many of our crops are done, but we will still continue to have a reasonably full table at the farmer's market. We have a decent supply of lettuce and all the salad greens, plus lots of kale, stir-fry greens, radicchio, frisee, potatoes, radishes, and of course our regular offerings of sprouts. We will also have a limited supply of broccoli, turnips, broccoli raab, and tomatoes. So even though the crops have stopped growing, there is still plenty of great food on hand at the market.

Activities on the farm have shifted from growing to clean-up. In the past two weeks we have dismantled all the hoop houses that were covering the tomatoes and peppers. (The tomatoes are now slowly ripening in the basement). We have also pulled up all the landscape fabric that was covering the melon patch. This is a really dirty and smelly job, and the cold weather didn't make it any more fun. The crew made the best of things - dressing warmly and and taking breaks for batting practice with frozen half rotten melons.

There are lots of clean-up and maintenance projects to go: mowing down old crops and around all the surrounding fields, cleaning out greenhouse beds, and fixing all the stuff that has broke this year that we haven't had time to deal with. All I can say is - thank God for winter!