At the beginning of the season, the to-do list goes on for months. Now that we are about four weeks from the end of the main season, our vegetable production list has shrunk to this:
1. Picking vegetables for CSA and markets
2. Washing vegetables
3. Sorting sweet potatoes for winter storage
4. Planting the winter tunnels
5. Finishing up the garlic planting and mulching
6. Taking down the rest of the tomato patches
7. Hoeing and weeding spinach
8. Cleaning up and storing all the supplies: the row covers, the sandbags, the hoops, the irrigation, the trellises...
That is a very short list! In between we go to the farmers markets and we pack all the CSA shares, but that is a little bit like breathing by now. With the longer nights, we are getting more rest and starting later in the day. It feels like we have shifted down a gear. We still have to keep chugging but we don't have to try to squeeze so many activities into each day.
But this is a vegetable-centric view of the list. There are people who work here who almost never touch a vegetable and their list never seems to shrink. They are building new structures and repairing tractors and keeping vehicles running and mowing the fence line.
We are also thinking about the purchases that would make next year better--at the top of our list is a no-till grain drill. Not something that brings joy to most non-farmers, but this would be a dream come true for some of us. It would eliminate the need for a whole round of tillage before we plant the fall cover crop. Better for the environment, better for our particular soil, better for our own time management. And we think we can finally afford it this year because the CSA grew to a size that created enough income to buy ourselves this piece of equipment!
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