This is actually a photo from last week’s CSA harvest, but this week’s harvest is much the same, with some blushed leaf lettuce, lacinato kale, and the sweetest, most beautiful green onions as well.  The weather this last week, too, has been much the same–cloudy, cool, and wet.  But there was last Saturday, a bright, warm day where the sun more than said hello.  And this weekend looks to be even warmer.  In fact, right now, the whole of the extended forecast has a sunny image to accompany it, even though the temperatures will stay a little below average.  We are so ready for sun!

In the meantime, many things are gestating quite well.  We have beautiful cabbages, broccolis, and kohlrabis that have thrived this spring.  And some of the crops we have covered with recycled plastic this year are growing faster than our “normal”.  We have buds forming on our summer squash already!  We are doing constant battle with the bugs.  We have so many more slugs this spring; they love the cool, wet weather.  We have lost a lot of unharvestable lettuce and kale, and they continue to eat a small percentage of each cucumber planting we make.  The farmer has taken to placing an exorbitant amount of seeds out, and they get most of them.  But we just keep replanting these and other crops, like the beans whose earlier plantings have been so stunted by the wet conditions.  Still, even one really sunny day like last Saturday blesses us with a bit of green returning to the yellowed bean leaves and we find dead slugs all over the paths as they try to find a retreat from the heat.  Its a balance for sure, everything, between the positive and negative.

One of the biggest positives for us is that our fruit trees are loving all this water.  We will have to irrigate our newest plantings so much less this first year and they will be so far ahead next year because of this great start.  And our newest little human sprout is doing well too, almost 2/3′s of the way grown with a very comfortable mama.  Even though I prefer the sun on my skin, I can’t help but feel grateful not to be hot…yet.  Soon enough, all the flowers will be blooming and we will all be back outside all the time, with our summer vegetables and our picnics and barbecues.  When we returned home from The Market last Saturday, the sun had opened some of our cheery, summer flowers, the poor buds of which have just been sitting there, waiting.  All of our waiting is almost over, and small surprises and delights, just around the corner.

Yesterday morning, we were so thrilled to be greeted by the sun.  After such a long and rainy harvest day on Wednesday, we had high hopes for a dry and warm market.  Unfortunately, by the time we were setting up for the day, a coolness and cloud cover had returned, and although we stayed dry for most of the day, we did get rain for the last few hours at market.  The weather is on everyone’s minds, it seems.  We are all tired of the colder than average temperatures and the rain that we all hope is done for the season by now.  It is certainly on our minds, and has set before us new challenges, like it seems to every season in one way or another.

All spring we play a game with the rain, waiting for dry ground to work and plant in.  We had felt pretty good about keeping up with planting this year in the spring rush, and pushed really hard in May until we were pretty much forced to put planting on hold around May 19th because of rainy weather that has only let up enough for us to plant on one or two days since then.  Thankfully we had put in some of everything by then (except our eggplants, which with these low temperatures may just be better off in the greenhouse anyways).  We had planned on putting the rest of the summer and successive plantings in our lower field.  This field is low and very wet, with standing water from December through April.  It was already taking longer than we had hoped to dry out.  Some parts had, and we worked those up and have peppers and winter squash and a few other things planted there.  Other parts were still too wet.  Now, with all the rain, it is all wet again; we worry about it being too wet for the peppers and we did lose some winter squash plantings that just rotted.

Nevertheless, the sun is shining today and we have ideas for working around the weather as much as we can.  We are looking at our main field, seeing that there is space opening up, things that are already coming out of the ground.  Maybe we will just plant the eggplant up there, as well as in and around crops we will see coming out of the ground soon enough.  Our main field has a gentle slope, which doesn’t work well in terms of keeping nutrients evenly distributed, but does work great for drying out more quickly than other spaces.  With wind and sun and the increased amount of plant growth at this time of year, we are able to sometimes work in the soil after just one day without rain.  We are not panicking.  At this point, we have learned pretty well that the weather is far beyond our control.  We plan the best we can and then adjust along the way as each year we have a different set of weather events that throw us curve balls.  We are getting to be more experienced batters, we feel pretty confident about hitting most of these balls far enough to round the bases, even when we can’t always hit home runs.

So it goes in farming, as it always has.  The children and I are reading the Little House on the Prairie books, and everything in them…the weather and the pests…seems magnified in a land that is just being tamed.  We have it pretty good these days.  We have learned to work mostly to our advantage with the natural world.  We can’t get too upset when such a magnificent force is our main contender and we still manage so well.  Besides, we are vegetable lovers over here, and we aim to make you all such folks alongside us.  We love spring food, and fall and winter food,  just as much as summer food (or more, to be honest).  We choose not to invest in hoophouses and too much row cover, because right now the materials needed for all these season extenders are plastic, and we can hardly bear to throw the plastic we do use, recycled from our friend’s nursery greenhouses whenever they replace their hoophouses with new plastic, into the trash.  We are content, although it is a business challenge, to work with growing what we can when we can, weather permitting.  All of the foods that we grow are so delicious, it really doesn’t matter when and where and how much each year.  It is always an adventure that we are happy with by the end of the season;  always too much of one thing we can’t imagine eating it again, always a craving for more of something that didn’t work well and thus a drive to make that crop work the following year.  For our farm members and market customers, we always work hard with the controls we have to make things better, and then work extra hard around what nature hands us for the year to make it the best we can.  It is always deliciously satisfying and nourishing for all of us, while keeping us all connected to the cycles and whimsies of nature.

Time was all I needed;  but having a community supported farm such as ours requires us to keep up with the giving of the fair share of our personal self that is part of the package, the part that continues to foster a connection between land, farmer, and eater and makes what we offer that much more meaningful and sustaining.   It was hard, but thankfully it meant that at least almost every week of the season I had a CSA newsletter to upload to the blog, to keep things from completely coming to a halt here.

The beauty of the rising sun is the promise of a new day.  It often feels like anything can happen when the earth sings itself awake each day.  And no matter if the day proves a wash or we stumbled and tripped on our path halfway through, come night, we sleep, and wake each day to that promise.  This is the same feeling that spring brings, only magnified by the presence of not just the promise of good things to come for us, but the bursting forth of new life from the ground, in hatching eggs, and baby goats and lambs.  There is so much solace in this, and so much energy.

So here on the farm, our family has moved right along with the seasons and jumped fully into spring, letting the sun fall on our skin again here and there in between the rain.  We are outside and in the dirt often; some of us to dance, others to get dirty, and the farmer and I, to work.  And as the body remembers the feeling of hard work again and we slowly harvest what is left of the dying winter garden while at the same time bringing it all back to life for another season, it all feelslike the beginning of the day.  Brand new, exciting and exhilirating, full of hope and the unshakable sense that anything can happen and it is all going to be good.

August is here, and all of a sudden the steady pace we have held to since spring’s crazy planting rush has picked up tempo again. We are in the thick of fall’s planting, which is a rush just like in spring, but feels even more like a race since we aren’t working our way towards warmer, faster growing weather where late plantings often play catch up, but rather towards the cooling down, the slowing down. Unlike most crops in the spring line-up, which are often going to be planted in succession anyways or want to be planted when its nice and warm so there is no hurry anyways, we have pretty clear deadlines on most of our last plantings of the year if we hope for adequate growth and sufficient yields to make it through the fall, winter, and early spring. So, there is a lot of clearing house right now, prepping beds, and general angst about whether it will all get done because we also happen to be in the thick of summer’s glorious but unrelenting fecundity. We felt like all we could do last week was harvest and water, demands of the heat and its boost in productivity all of a sudden in the fields. The weeds enjoyed a week of undisturbed growth as well while we were busy, but the farmer and our wonderful farm help managed to make pretty good mileage against those yesterday. Really, the fields at this point are the tidiest we have ever been able to manage, so that will be a boon as we push through this month, perhaps our busiest of the year.

But even this August rush isn’t all there is to come. Its bramble time, blackberries in the mornings. Sunflowers and zinnias, tomatoes too. Dark purple fingers picking bright orange and red and yellow, the colors of the height of summertime. As much work as there is to be done in what seems to short a time, being able to do this work, to be out so fully in this time of year, to notice every bit of it and to love it for its beauty as well as its hectic routine, it is all worth it, for a zillion reasons. The greatest of which, aside from our own personal pleasure in living this life, is sharing the bounty of these fields and this labor with all of you.

I am sure that at this moment, we all have one thing taking up residence in our minds, filling in all the spaces between our many other thoughts, unavoidably resurfacing in the front again and again. And what could so ubiquitously bring us together in such grand collective consciousness besides the weather: it is hot! Not just hot, I guess, but HOT…at least hotter than we are used to; and really, hot for most everyone, except for those folks in the desert areas, where HOT, from my recollection, could be closer to 120 degrees than 100. That is the kind of heat that makes you sure your dog is going to die as you travel through. But still, heat is heat, and although I am not worried too much about the animals here, we do have to give them extra attention during these high temperatures. Salt nibbles out of hand for the goats, fresh mud baths for the pigs…the dog, with her furry coat, just digs into the cool ground and lays under the porch.

We, too, are pretty bothered and hot, feeling yet again the affects of poor insulation in an old manufactured home and not a lick of shade to protect the house on the south and west. The icing on the cake of this less than ideal scenario is that the west wall of the house is all windows, of course, so that the house dwellers can enjoy the wonderful view. Add to the pot a scant amount of opening window space and none of them set up for providing cross ventilation, and you have a recipe for an oven of a home. Still, as much as we curse poor house designs, we are never really ones to dwell on the back side of the hill. We aren’t really even all that bothered, just hot.
So, in this vein, I have been stewing a list of all the really great things about this heat, some jewels for us all to remember as we work and play and try to get some sleep in these next few really hot days, and the only somewhat less hot days to come. It is summer after all, and like any other season, it’ll come and go sooner than later. Every minute we have the opportunity to gain a memory to hold onto as things change, constantly change, and move forward, faster than I ever could have imagined as a child.

Top on our list of happy thoughts are that the plants love, love, love this heat. Granted, they were regularly well watered to this point, so that isn’t a consideration or worry for us or them. Instead, they have a lushness, a green, and a vibrancy this week that is just different. Not that they didn’t look beautiful before, and not that plants don’t thrive under our normally less than extreme summer temperatures, but I have a comparison point. After moving here from the hot summers of the Midwest, I haven’t really seen this kind of summertime boom in our garden. Really, it has more to do with the night temperatures than the day, and having this little heat wave, with nights barely dropping below 70 degrees…ooh la la! Plants primarily grow at night, using up the daytime to feed themselves via photosynthesizing. The summer plants love for the heat to remain through the night, and grow they are. This is something we will all benefit from! And although we won’t see it in this week’s harvest, we have harvested the first red tomato, a beautiful striped roma, and surprise of all surprises (for us anyways, since eggplant usually are the last summer crop to ripen for us) a single, gorgeous eggplant. The banana peppers, almost ripe!
Another thing we are thankful for…getting to take the afternoons off! What else can we do really? It is unbearable to continue field work, and unbearable to stay in our home (per the reasons mentioned above). And so we head out with drinking water and sun hats and find a place to get wet! And because it so very hot, we don’t even have to get into the water in that slow and cautious gingerly manner, we can run and jump right in! And when we do, the water, even in the creeks, is warm or cool, not freezing cold! It feels so good, better than any regular mid-temperature summer swimming could. And if
you are young enough or can get away at night, we actually have fit weather for night swimming! To swim on a hot summer’s night with the stars overhead…..lovely!
And as we hope to experience ourselves today, the heat we have here hasn’t left the Oregon coast cool and windy, but nice and warm, warm enough to let that cold ocean water scent your skin with its sweet saltiness even if you’re an adult. The smell of summer’s flowers lingers in this hot air, and maybe if you have a little child she will go out into the tomato patch and when you pick her up, she will smell just like tomatoes so you will squeezer her tight, the smell of a summer garden! And you will crave vegetables even more than you normally do! At least that is us, with scant an appetite
by dinnertime because of this heat, fresh vegetables are the perfect food. Cucumbers, zucchini or white Lebanese squash, cabbages, and steamed beets or blanched green beans all make simple and elegant vegetable salads with not much more than a nice vinegar and a quality olive oil, some fresh herbs, sweet cipollini onions or tasty scallions, and some local walnuts or hazelnuts or delicious artisan cheese for a little bit of protein. And after the 100 degree days simmer down to the mid-90′s, we are back to perfect outdoor grill dining, and nothing tastes like summer more than grilled vegetables!
So, dwell with us, in these joys of summer, heat and all. As I know I write about again and again, our lives are tied to the seasons with such intricately weaved strands that intersect with every little aspect of our lives here on the farm. I was always one for the seasons, they were so distinct where I grew up. By letting ourselves fully submerge into what makes each one unique, by creating and maintaining associations and memories, activities and foods for each one, it makes there coming and going all the more dear, and provides us with the beautifully complimentary pull of sweet and bittersweet,
loving and longing, for each in its own way, to accompany us through the days.

The tomatoes all look so gorgeous this year, the main planting all done in a new section this year, the lowest part of our main field. The bottom of any slope is always the most fertile, and in our case, the wettest. Our tomatoes had a minor set back this spring after we lost the greenhouse and their tops were touched with frost, but we babied them back to really good looking starts, albeit smaller ones than last year. After planting them in this low spot, we have not had to water them once and they are thriving, a great experience we are having with using our seasonally wet spaces for dry land farming certain crops.
Still, our large slicing tomato varieties have a lot of maturing to do, although the cherry varieties will be ready soon. All of our summertime crops come a little later than many of the other farms we spend time with each week at market. One obvious reason for this is our choice not to use large forms of season extension to help these heat loving plants ripen sooner. This is something we will probably keep to, although we have expanded our use of row covers for pest protection this year, and are probably going to utilize this next year to warm certain crops in their early growth, something that will help with quicker maturation.

I have been looking through our records, though, and I think that another reason why we don’t have summer crops right out the door of the main season is because we have chosen to not place our main emphasis on these crops. Having switched to growing vegetables for year-round harvest, we have removed all the weight that is often placed on summer and fall crops. Our planting schedule is almost continual from mid-February through September, and when we look at our whole year, we have more harvests in the “off” season than we do for these “main” season crops. With a goal more than twice as many weeks of harvest for the CSA as for market season, we have to keep our to do list balanced in the early parts of the year, needing to concentrate on fast growing cool weather crops in the spring while we also get the fields and the seedlings ready for our summer plantings. We always know that when our summer crops mature, we will have more than we can sell.

We are on the door of that kind of vegetable madness that summer brings, and for us, it seems to be right on time. And although we are just about to jump into almost daily summer harvesting, we are also at the start of our fall planting schedule. Just yesterday, we started over 2000 flats of seed for transplanting in a month, the beginning of food we will all eat from for the fall, winter, and early spring. These plantings bear so much significance in this light, the cooler months a time we more instinctively feel the need to make sure we have plenty of food growing, a time of less surety. And that is the funny fate of the year-round farmer, to not fully be fully present in the wild abandon of summer, with vegetables growing like weeds, so fast and furious; because it is during this time of the year, during the thick of it all, that we are readying the soil and seed for the slow and steady pace of the rest of the year.

But the season will move on, and we have to grow different greens and some not at all in the heat of summer, so we enjoy their sweetness and abundance now! Some of you have asked about what will be coming through the summer so that you can plan your own growing spaces, so this is one thing to consider. We don’t tend to harvest kale, arugula, or mustard and Asian greens in the summer, although you will have them through June, but we will continue to harvest chards and lamb’s quarters in the greens department. Traditionally, we have given out salad mix, which goes through minor transformations through the seasons, every week. We aren’t planning on doing this for 2009 even though our salad mixes have been called the best by many of you (thank you!). We do plan on giving out more heads of different, beautiful varieties of lettuce, and one or the other for each week is the goal. If you are a big salad eating family, please talk with us about adding a bag of salad mix to your regular share. By doing it just for those who have come to really want this every week, we can save some harvest time (our salad mix is very labor intensive). We are growing a lot and multiple varieties of these crops: beets, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, beans, winter squash, tomatoes, and peppers. We are growing the same delicious Italian zucchini we did last year along with a Lebanese variety, some heirloom crooknecks and patty pan summer squashes, and will have loads of these and straight slicing Marketmore cucumbers. The spring will bring radishes and snow and snap peas. We will have pickling cucumbers and canning tomatoes available for u-pick, half price for CSA members. You can also pick cherry tomatoes and a bouquet of cut flowers near the house at your veggie pick up on us, our way to show our appreciation for your support and to make the drive (on top of the veggies) worth the while!

We are going to try to grow small watermelons and muskmelons in a hot spot on the farm with a constant supply of safe greywater in an attempt to get a harvest at least for the family, perhaps to share with members if they would like, but not to sell. Melons like it hot, and they like a lot of water, and to this point we haven’t had any ripe ones in Oregon, but we know it is possible, so we are working on it! Our apple trees may produce this year, but whether it will exceed family needs and suitable for the CSA or only be enough for a market crop has yet to be seen. Our first planting will be three years old, our second, just two, some only one year old, so yields will still be small. That is it on the fruit front for now, our kids will likely eat all the strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries we get this year!

Our whole eggplant planting failed in the greenhouse this year, so we are purchasing just 50 organic eggplant starts from a Beaverton farm this year. Eggplant isn’t a heavy producer here in Oregon, so this will likely only translate to one or two weeks of eggplant harvests for the CSA. If you love eggplant, this would be a good one to put in your home garden. We also will not be growing any sweet corn for fresh eating. This could be the subject of a whole other newsletter since we have many things factoring into this decision. We grow only open-pollinated varieties, and this in and of itself makes fresh corn difficult. OP sweet corn is perfect for harvesting in about a one day window and then good for eating in about a one day window. This is hard for scheduled harvesting and weekly boxes. We also have a neighbor who grows genetically modified corn, so we have been unsure about growing open- pollinated corn for fear of cross-pollination. Now we have gotten variety and plant dates from our neighbor, selected a corn variety that will pollinate within the safe 3 week distance from the GM corn, but it will be for drying, and we will be using a lot of this for supplemental chicken and pig feed. However, we will also batch grind some for cornmeal and polenta for our family, and maybe for the winter CSA! We know that sweet corn is good, but it is also water intensive, space intensive, and poor on the nutritional scale, so this is where we are going with corn. We always buy or receive a few meals worth from other local farmers, and encourage you to enjoy this summer treat from Farmer’s Market or from you own garden! We are growing some Cannellini beans this year too, for fresh shelling and dry beans!

Of course, it is hard for us to know what this will translate to given our last two years…we have had problems with certain crops each year. Yet, there are a lot of things that make us feel more confident that all of these crops will be on our tables in abundance. We have learned so, so, so much in the last two years. So much of when we were just large scale home gardeners hasn’t translated, but we feel like we are learning a lot of what will make us great market gardeners. We now see that as we work to build and build healthy soil and bio-diversity to ultimately deal with pest pressure and plant health, we have to use things like row covers, trap crops, and nettle brew in the foliar sprayer pro-actively to fight pests, and that we have to add to the soil organic fertilizing amendments (compost, granular, and fish emulsion for the greenhouse and transplants). These are intermediate ways to help with the problems, not long term solutions nor our long term goals. Still, we love carrots just as much as all of you (who doesn’t!) and we want at least most of what we plant to be beautiful and harvestable. So this year, we feel like the crops we say and plan to have, we will, and that is a good place to be this year!