My grandmother found a "what's available when" guide to fresh fruits and vegetables from the 1970s, and it is a series of graphs by crop showing the balance between domestic and imported goods to meet demand. The seasonality of many crops is the same even today, from beans and beets to squash and sweet potatoes. I was thrilled to see we're pushing the limits of stored veggies, but this time of year is the hardest for us.
While over the decades seasonality has definite patterns, each farm can push the seasons in their own ways. I've been watching my colleagues closely with plastic hoop houses, just heated by the sun they're able to get a head start on the season. Last fall we gave a tour to fellow farmers of our storage rooms for winter, where we're able to keep all those carrots fresh and sweet till June! It feels like we're off to a slow start this year, but over the next month you'll see that list of what's available from our fields gradually growing. There will be more and more choices to swap items in your bag as the diversity of what's available starts to increase. The thrill of seasonality exists because not everything is available all the time. Let's celebrate what's here! This week we've got great lettuce mix, beets, garlic scapes, romaine heads and carrots to go around and check your list for which other treats we're getting into your bag ;)
I couldn't resist sharing this awesome photo of our pack line last week - we were a little intimidated by our first big pack of the summer. We've got an amazing team of volunteers who have been coming to the rescue in the afternoons here at the farm over the past month. This season we planned to run with five full time crew members, but one was a month and a half delayed and we finally have a flight for our last staffer to join us from Mexico. She won't be able to be in the fields till July 20th, when we usually all start full time May 1st. So in the meantime, the rest of us have all been pulling long hours and boy do those afternoon volunteers make a difference. Many thanks to Jen, Irene, Andreane, Eric, Diane, Becky, Melissa, Paulette, Stephanie, Michelle, and Megan. They're up for a challenge from shovelling mulch to hand weeding, packing veggies, hoeing, we even got Irene rocking on the water wheel transplanter! If you're not afraid of hard work and have an afternoon free to share let me know and you'll get to learn all about what we do here to keep you well fed.
