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Agrarian Harvest

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Produce

Farmers’ Market Selling & Spunk

Last week I posted that we were enjoying our Indian summer, well, after posting I did some research and figured out that we actually are not having an Indian summer. An Indian summer is unseasonably warm weather in the fall after a good hard frost. Since we have not had a frost or even a cold spell yet, we are not experiencing an Indian summer. We are a just fortunate to still have warm weather, no frost, and produce still growing and producing.

Thanks to this wonderful weather we still have lots of produce and are still able to participate in our local farmers’ market. This is good in some ways and bad in others. We are happy to still be providing our local community with organic, fresh produce and happy to be eating it ourselves. But we are getting tired and worn out; slowing down just like the produce. We have lost our enthusiasm and spunk for all the harvesting and preparing for the market, but we are still at it.

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Most people don’t realize how much work it takes to sell at a farmers market, unless you have actually participated in one. And how much determination it takes to keep at it the whole season, May through October. It takes most, if not all day, the day before market to harvest, package and prepare all supplies and products. We are usually up into the wee hours of the night getting ready; especially in the middle of the summer when there is a lot to harvest and get ready. Some weeks we don’t make it to bed until 2 am and then we’re up at 5 am to finish the last minute harvesting and load all that produce. This takes some critical thinking. We load all our boxes/crates/coolers of produce/product, tables, canopy, signs and the family into an excursion. There have been several weeks I don’t know how we have gotten everything in the excursion. When we unload at market, we look like a little car of clowns. You know the cartoon image of clowns that just keep piling out of a little tiny car. Well, that’s us at farmers’ market, people, boxes, coolers just keep coming out of the excursion. We get looks of how did you get all of that in there? We have hopes of having a trailer to haul it all in next year.

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Once everything is unloaded, then there is the set up. We set up the canopy and tables. Next come the organizing of several boxes/crates; making the display cute and inviting. There is the rush of getting all this done before the early bird shoppers arrive and before the vendor meeting starts. Then market starts. If we are lucky it is busy and the time goes by fast. But on some days it is slow and time drags by. It may be a very cool day and we bounce around trying to keep warm, it may be a very hot and there is not enough shade for the produce and people or our worst market day was cold and pouring rain. Whatever the day holds, we stand there and sell for four hours of market.

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At the end of market, it is time to take it all down. We like to stay open until all the customers have left the market. Then we start to load all the produce/product that we have left. Lastly, we fold up the tables and canopy. There are usually empty boxes that we break down, so the loading to come home is easier, but can still be tricky to get it all to fit back in the excursion.  We drive home and it is time to unload again. This is probably the hardest part because we are all tired and hungry. Once unloaded, we head for the house and collapse in the living room for a family movie and time to rest.

For most of September and October, I haven’t had the energy to keep up with all my domestic duties and go to market on Saturdays. So I have bowed out of the farmers’ market routine. I’m thankful for the Other Half taking on the Saturday market work and sells on his own. I ran out of spunk several weeks ago for the pre-dawn loading, chilly morning air while setting up for market and the energy to do rest of the market. Instead, I have  put my energy into canning, drying and preserving produce for winter. Another wonderful aspect of farm life; being able to eat your own produce all winter long!

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Miracles and Good News

We have been enjoying the warm Indian summer days of October. And are thankful for them since we were unable to get the sweet potatoes dug this week. So you have stay in suspense until next week to learn how the harvest of the sweet potatoes goes. Instead of dealing with sweet potatoes, we had ourselves a pipe trailer accident to deal with. We were moving gated pipe from our Jerome property to our farm in Buhl. When we were a few miles from home the tongue of the loaded pipe trailer broke. The tongue of the trailer remained hitched to the vehicle. The trailer veered to the left on its own and went crashing through a fence on the opposite side of the road stopping in a ditch missing a tree by mere millimeters. Although it was scary to see and feel in the moment, we were quite blessed. It was actually sickening to feel the trailer violently pulling from side to side behind us. Then seconds later to see the loaded pipe trailer (in the mirror) fly to the left behind us with a grinding of metal on pavement . . . .  metal clashing against metal . . . . and lots of dust flying. As the passenger, I had been reading a book about seeing miracles in everyday life, activities and circumstances. It sure didn’t feel like I had just lived through a miracle, it shook me up a bit to see our trailer driving off by itself. But it truly was a miracle. There wasn’t a car coming in the opposite directions, it barely missed a tree when it went through the fence, missed hitting the power pole, it went to the left and not the right where it would of hit a house, nobody was hurt, there was no damage to our vehicle, there was only the broken tongue and flat tire on the trailer, very few pieces of pipe were damaged, the owner of the property was understanding and didn’t want the fence repaired. Aaahh, I can sign a breath of relief. It took awhile and few trips to load the pipe to another trailer, haul it home, fix the pipe trailer and get it home. What we thought was a simple task turned into a time consuming project, but it is done now. 

It has also been a week full of canning. I finished canning plums and went onto apples. We have several apple trees, but they are small and not producing many apples yet. The kids eat all the apples off our trees as soon as they ripen. So this year, we were fortunate enough to get boxes of apples from a neighbor. The house has kept that sweet smell from canning the plums, but we now has a bit of cinnamon spice aroma mixed in. We have been canning cinnamon apples, applesauce, juicing apples and drying them along with baking apple crisp.

More good news; we got our pork back from the butcher. So we now have pork available by the cut: sausage, tenderloin, boneless loin, spare ribs, babyback ribs, pork chops, ham hocks, shoulder roast.

We are looking forward to the coming week and more miracles. Hoping to get a field of winter wheat planted and sweet potatoes dug.

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October Anticipations

October is one our favorite months of the year! The leaf colors are changing, there is brisk morning air, warm afternoons, and everything starts to slow down. October brings with it the anticipation and worry of the first frost. We are ready for life to slow down, but not ready to be done with all the fresh produce. But we have lots of produce canned and ready for winter. So if you are going to can produce to eat this winter, you had better hurry. It is too late to can green beans, but is a great time to can tomatoes, peppers, plums, make sauerkraut and blanch and freeze broccoli.

The beans have been thrashed. Most of the produce is still producing, although, the plants are looking tired and have slowed. But not the plum trees! The plums are ready to be picked and are abundant. The house smells like sweet, juicy sugar plums dancing in the air from all the canning, drying, jamming and juicing of the plums.

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This coming week brings the rush to get the “Experiment Sweet Potatoes Project” out of the ground before that first frost. Sweet potatoes don’t handle frost at all. If the vine is frosted, it goes straight down to the tuber or potato and ruins them. So one last push before we can really slow down for the season. We dug a few plants this week and if what we dug is any indicator of what is out there. Then it may be a good harvest. More on sweet potatoes next week!

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Produce Has Slowed, But Life Has Not

The days have cooled and are shorter. It’s been raining off and on most of the week which seems to slow us down. It’s now too cool to sleep with windows open at night, at least it is for us. The house is chilly in the mornings causing us to start our days a little slower. The kids like to start their day curled up in a blanket on the couch doing their reading lesson before breakfast. After breakfast, I busy myself with a baking project or canning to warm the house and take the chill off. It’s the start of another busy September day of harvesting, canning and homeschooling.

While the produce is slowing down getting ready to die off and be done for the year, our lives are still very busy in this season. There is the harvest of the red beans to be done. They have been cut and are waiting to be thrashed when the rain stops and they dry out. There is still the major harvest of the pumpkins, winter squash, daikon radishes, turnips and beets to be done. Most of the late season produce is slowing down except the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. They are still growing and producing strong. We are about done with picking beans for the season, the sweet corn, kohlrabi and cabbage are about gone, and the cucumbers, zuchinni, summer squash have slow their production significantly. The broccoli is about done for the season due to an aphid infestation.

September starts our fall juggling act as I like to call it. We are still harvesting and selling, there is more canning to be done, all the regular inside work and laundry needs to be kept up with along with all the yardwork. Then we add another year of homeschooling into the mix. The Other Half takes on most of the harvesting duties as of September. And I focus on getting the canning done and the family back into our fall and winter routine.

Although, September is busy it feels like life and tasks are slowing down. We are getting settled down for the year and getting ready for the cooler weather. It feels good to be settled! Although, I wish it would stay warm all year, but instead, we are forced to prepare for cooler temperatures and fall.

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