Being on the farm for the last 15 months I have come to learn the seasonal rhythm of the farm. After being here for over a year, when I see the change in seasons, I know what it means we are going to be doing. Summer is busy with lots of harvesting. As soon as we get to August, we start transplanting lots of fall crops. In the beginning of September we plant strawberries for next year and we continue to transplant and seed crops. Then as October begins, we plant garlic. Later this month will be getting flower transplants, bulbs and corms in the ground. At the same time as we are planting, there are lots of other crews working on harvesting and weeding. While summer is definitely the busiest time of the year there is so much to do the rest of the year and there is always so much going on: harvesting, weeding, and the never ending project list. It seems once one thing on the project list gets finished, we add at least two more things, ensuring we are never not busy.
The weather on the farm has shifted. Last week no days last week reached 90°, which was a nice signal of the season’s change. It is chilly when work starts in the morning, but as soon as the sun comes up, it warms right up and we have beautiful weather. The evenings have been so nice for taking a walk around the farm to see all the crops growing and getting close to harvest. Seeing the first block of broccoli starting to form heads and digging into the potato field to find delicious new potatoes. I come back from every walk with a handful of produce for dinner and an excitement for what is to come.
Everyone’s eyes are glued to their preferred weather website but instead of checking if it’ll be 100° or 110° we are now looking at how cold it will be. We will continue to harvest dwindling amounts of summer crops for the farmers market for as long as we can, but the first frost signals the complete end of the summer crop as it kills these plants. All eyes are also checking our personal preferred weather sources to see when there will be rain. We compare which website says what percent chance and debate which site we believe is more correct. On Sunday night we got a little bit of rain but it was just enough to stop the dust and clean off the vehicles.
One of my projects this year has been taking care of the intern garden. It is a lot of work, on top of the regular day’s tasks, so depending on the year, more or less gets done in the evening. This year I decided to grow some okra to sell at farmers markets. It has been an experience that has been very helpful in my farming journey, growing a crop from start to finish: getting the beds ready and then planting and taking care of the crops until finally harvesting for the markets. It has been fun to harvest three times a week with Elaine and another intern, Kosuke and rewarding to see people excited at the market to be able to get okra. I even had someone tell me it was their kid’s favorite vegetable. While the okra has been growing we also planted some sweet potatoes that we harvested and are now enjoying for lunches and dinners in the intern kitchen.
– Andrew Walker, Full Belly Farm Intern
