While we are only 1/3 of the way through the CSA season, we are now halfway through the growing season. The onion seeds we planted in mid-February in the greenhouse are now full grown onions (not as big as we had hoped, and not as plentiful, but still delicious) and we will be wrestling them out of the weeds this week. The tomatoes that we put in the ground in late April are just starting to turn color, finally.
The season unfolds, it rolls, it does not pause. We have already forgotten about the sea of lettuce and kale and radishes that first brightened up the fields in early spring, before the trees had leaves. We will dig the last spring carrots this week. We are in the final bed of leeks for 2022. All the fennel and cabbage are out of the field and in the cooler.
But there is no time to look back. The first green beans are almost here. The potatoes are ready for us to dig by machine, instead of by hand (we dig by hand to protect the delicate skins, but now the plants are dead and the potatoes are getting their thicker skins). And soon there will be baskets of tomatoes stacking up in the warm cooler, getting ready to dominate us for the next eight weeks or so.
When you eat with the seasons, you learn about the cycles of what is coming next. Veteran CSA members know that when they see a little trickle of tomatoes, an avalanche is coming soon. And last year everyone learned what it is like when the sweet potato crop goes beyond our wildest expectations (Frank G. told me he still can't look at a sweet potato after that--but he still has two months left to get over that trauma).
There are many milestones in a season, and this is a vague one, only relevant to the people who have seen it all so many times before. But the start of beans and tomatoes is a big moment, and I think of it as the halfway point. There ought to be a blessing for that.
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