What’s happening at Full Belly Farm, as June and the official beginning of Summer approach? A morning’s walk around the farm reveal a patchwork of activities, just like the patchwork of fields — all getting sewn together to form the season’s quilt. Young tomatoes, corn and melons in clean fields, as yet untouched by the onslaught of daily harvests. A crew pounding stakes into the ground, preparing to trellis the growing tomatoes. Netted fence that has been put up around the orchards to protect the ripening fruit from hungry deer. Onions in burlap bags sitting in the beds, curing. Trucks, forklifts, backhoes and tractors, all at work on various projects. We’re expecting some hot weather in the next few weeks, so the pace is likely to kick into even higher gear very soon.
Yesenia Gaxiola Vega, Wendy Arita Paz, and Maria Machado Castro harvesting garlic.
Catalina Munoz Soto and Rossy Romo Lopez cleaning garlic.
Once the garlic has started to dry down, we undercut it with a tractor blade, making it easier to pull out of the ground by hand. It cures in the field for a short time and then is brought to a shady spot to clean.
The peach crop looks wonderful this year. Our fruit crew is excited to make full use of every peach. Some of the peaches will be dried in the sun, some will become peach jam, and the majority will go into the CSA boxes, or to market.
Procoro Palacio-Josefa sorting peaches below.
Inigo Encarnacion Victoriano and Jose Gomez Imperial preparing for the cement truck (above).
We are extending the slab in our packing shed, giving us a little more precious room. Pretty much everything that is harvested on all 350-acres of Full Belly Farm, goes through the packing shed to be cleaned, sorted, cooled and packed — or some combination of those activities — so the packing shed is often one of the busiest places on the farm.
Weekend events at Full Belly often take place in the beautiful walnut orchard where the spacing of the majestic trees provides a spectacular canopy. This Saturday we hosted a wedding that was especially meaningful to all of us who live on the farm: Rye Muller (born and raised at the farm, son of owners Dru Rivers and Paul Muller) married Becca von Trapp (who works with the animals) in a no-holds-barred, 4-day celebration. Above are a few of the tables and chairs, lined up and ready for the evening.
Rye and Becca – Photo by Broken Banjo Photography
