Summer's Come and Gone

A rainy and wet harvest morning last week

Summer has come and gone, and autumn is marching on towards winter. This Saturday will be the last farmers' market of the season that we will attend. It is also the last outdoor market before things move back inside to the Division Street School for the winter season.

This time of year is always a little bittersweet - relieved that we made it through another season and can finally take a breather, but also little sad to see the season go and to contemplate the coming of winter.

Despite a few real cold nights and some very rainy weather recently, we will still have a respectable array of produce for the last market. We have an abundance of fingerling potatoes, both the red French Fingerling and the yellow Russian Banana type. We will continue the sale on them we started  a few weeks ago - buy one quart at regular price and get a second quart at half price. This is a good time to stock up; potatoes can store for months if you have a cool dark place to keep them. Storing in the refrigerator is fine as well.

We also have a lot of green bell peppers available at a special discounted price. These are great to eat fresh, but are also easy to freeze and use in the winter to cook with. Just wash them and cut into strips or dice, and pack into zip-lock bags to freeze. There is no need to blanch or cook before freezing.

Spinach abundance

We continue to have a wide assortment of salad and cooking greens. Spinach has done real well this fall, so we will have plenty of that. Unfortunately, the lettuce has suffered from all the rain in October, so that will be in short supply. We will also be harvesting the last of the chard, kale, broccoli raab, escarole, and boc choi. There are even a few tomatoes that we picked before the big freeze, so still plenty of produce to make it worthwhile to come to market.

Still lots of baby greens for mesclun

Last planting of lettuce in the field tunnel

 Overall, we have had a great season and really can find little to complain about this year. The weather was definitely quirky - hot in March, too wet in April and May, hot and dry in July and August, and wet again in September and October. I guess that all balances out in the end. Quirky is the new normal, so I'll try to get used to it.

We had an outstanding farm crew this year. Everyone was a returning employee from previous years, so things ran pretty smoothly. We thank them all for their hard work and dedication through the rain, heat and cold. We literally could not do this without them. This was the year's line-up:

Martin, our resident artist and political analyst, completed his fifth season with us. He is off to Japan for the winter, so we wish him the best of luck and hopes he returns by spring.

Maureen, our official 'bag lady' (but don't call her that), also completes her fifth season helping at the farm and the market. She expects to spend much of the winter in Florida.

Desiree, our official snake charmer and chard expert, was back for her second year. She will spend the winter selling chocolate and diamonds, but swears she would rather be selling vegetables.

Maura, the fastest bean picker in the east - I can't even begin to figure out how long she has been with us. I do know that during that time she has had two great kids and has spent most of her non-farm time as a mother and nurses aid.

And Sue, familiar to most our customers as one half of Effie's Bakery, was a total Godsend at the market, doing a superb job as the main checkout person and helping set up and breakdown the stand..

And finally, a big thank you to all our fabulous customers for your dedication and support throughout this whole season. You are the best.

Lots to clean up in the tomato field

A lush cover crop of oats and peas sets our thoughts on next spring

I'll spend the next few weeks cleaning up the farm and trying to get to all those neglected projects that have been put off all summer. Our plans for the winter are vague, but I'm sure they will include travels to some place warm.

We'll keep you posted...