Farm Share Week 20 - The End

Hi farm friends!

Well, we have come to week 20, the final week of our 2021 Farm Share!

In looking through pictures of the year to summarize our season, I found a lot of baby pictures. Having a new baby this season, along with a busy toddler, was a lot busier than I had anticipated, certainly busier than the season I was pregnant. But thanks to the help of my parents and our amazing crew, and Alex's ox-like capacity to keep on going, we made it and accomplished a lot! 

Our 2021 season began with chopping wood for our wood-heated prophouse (where we grow our seedlings). Soon, we were starting our seedlings and planting in our hoophouses and prepping the land. 

Sarah came back to join us, this time as our Greenhouse Manager. She seeded and seeded and watered and tended and with lots of love and attention to detail she grew so many beautiful transplants. Our Seedling Sale was a great success thanks to her. 

Lori and Brooklyn joined us and we began all our spring transplanting of onions, cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, winter squash, kohlrabi, bok choy, greens, lettuce, and more. 

Then June came around and our Farm Share began! Ever since then, we have been seeding, transplanting, and harvesting every week! We had our best greens and beets we have grown yet, almost successfully having them available every week of the 20 week season. And the most beautiful chard. A decent crop of cauliflower and broccoli, and some delicious mini spring cabbages. 

By July, the cucumbers and zucchinis were magnificently endless, Tristan was here and life was a bit of a blur until September. We harvested an excellent crop of garlic and a disappointing crop of onions. We opened up our farm store. We ate cherry tomatoes by the handful, tomato sandwiches for all meals, woke early and left the fields late, weeded when we had the chance and escaped to the beach when we could. 

With September's arrival, we said goodbye to Brooklyn and struggled with some of our fall crops (broccoli, cauliflower, spinach) failing to thrive. But we did have the best and most lasting crop of peppers and eggplants we have had yet. And we ate so much sweet, juicy watermelon straight from the field.  

October rushed up on us surprisingly fast, and Lark turned 1! We began to clean up the field and reflect, but we still had plenty to harvest. We finally harvested a good crop of carrots and began to harvest our fall cabbages. We decided to forgo planting in our hoophouses. This was a hard decision to make as we wanted to harvest greens all winter long. But instead, we planted a cover crop of oats and peas and tillage radish. The soil there needs to be rested and nourished for us to have better tomatoes next summer. The weather was unseasonably warm, allowing us to keep on harvesting peppers and eggplants and get in a late crop of beans. At the same time, we got some huge rainfall and high winds. The weather has us on edge - while we enjoy warmer temperatures, we know it is a sign of changing and erratic weather due to climate change. 

All this brings us to today. Our final pick up of the season. We are feeling grateful, and tired, and excited all at once. Grateful for you, our members, who share this wild journey with us, through the ups and the downs. Many of you have been with us for three seasons already; it's incredible to have you on our side and you keep us striving to do our very best. Tired for obvious reasons. And excited because we accomplished so much, and learned so much more - excited to grow even better next year. 

We wish you all a warm, cozy, and healthy winter. You can trust that we will be dreaming and scheming for another (even more) amazing season in 2022. 

Thank you.

Your Mulberry Moon Farm-ily

Kim and Alex,
Rosemary and Lark. 

p.s. While this is the end of the Farm Share, we'll still have veggies available into November. Keep an eye out for a weekly email - we'll be opening up ordering through Harvie weekly, so you can still pick up veggies each week at the farm til we run out.