As usual, I’m nearly asleep. This was a good week, particularly because two WWOOFers have joined us. (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms is a network that connects people who want to volunteer on a farm in exchange for room and board and learning with farms who need them.) They are great people, and we’ve been able to get so much done with them. Last week, we worked until 8 most days. The worst day was when I spent the entire day with spring mix. We harvested about 40 pounds in the morning, and it took me until 6pm to wash, dry and package it, only to realize that by then it was all beginning to wilt. We had to throw it all out. For whatever reason, that particular bed of spring mix was bruising more than usual. Spring mix needs to get cool fairly quickly after it’s harvested, but because there was so much to process and I was the only one who could work on it (usually two people process it), I couldn’t get it through quickly enough. We made up for it the next day. We came up with a new method too, involving taking a cooler of ice water out with us to pour on the harvested spring mix. The other problem is that we are now harvesting from our field 8 miles down the road, rather than right next to the washing shed and walk-in cooler. We’re figuring it out, though. Such a finicky crop.
Kale remains to be the best crop. It is so satisfyingly snappy and easy to harvest; grows easily; keeps producing through the season; super healthy; and so tasty! The bunches even look like green bouquets. I am pro-kale.
Turnips are also satisfying to harvest. They make that nice soft tearing noise of the little roots pulling up, they have this mildly spicy smell and they come out so smoothly.
turnips in the morning
Turnip mountain!
This afternoon we went to one of our distant fields and planted sweet potatoes. The dirt in this field is the most beautiful dirt I’ve have the pleasure to meet. The tilled soil feels incredibly pillowy. I would take a bath in that dirt, it feels so nice. We nearly killed a bunch of other potato plants in a bucket of water while we waited for a day without rain to plant them, and we took them to this field a couple of weeks ago with little hope that they would survive. They’re still alive and I think they’ll do all right. I think most anything could survive in that soil.
There is an attractive stream beyond those trees, and the other side is preserved forest.
Evening in downtown Sylva
I went to a rehearsal for a string chamber ensemble tonight in Sylva. They are mostly members of the community orchestra that want to do some playing during the summer months. There were about 12 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and 2 basses. It felt really good to be back with my buddy the bass.
A brief jaunt to a Blue Ridge Parkway overlook
speckintheflux 