The days are long here at the farm. Starting the first week of June the sun rises and shines brightly into our mostly north facing bedroom window. If I haven’t made it up by 5am the light makes sure I won’t be asleep any later. For someone working swing shift this little bit of architectural orientation would be annoying but for a farmer its just about perfect.
The second week of June is the annual tipping point at this farm. The point of the season when all of the preparation and early planting that began back in the dark of winter hits the halfway mark and we begin spending more time harvesting crops than planting and caring for them. This week we will begin setting out our last big crop of the season, winter squash. Once this acre is in the ground we will have weekly rounds of greens like lettuce, chard, etc. to transplant through August but more than 10 of the 12 acres we will plant this year will be in, slowly coming to maturity week after week between here and October. This week we begin picking strawberries daily. It takes about 2 hours for the whole crew to work through all two thousand row feet of plants. Soon will come zuchinni and cucumbers which we will pick every other day and then there’s the greens that we spend most of the morning 2 days a week cutting and washing. The transplant/seeding list gets smaller and we struggle to find time for these tasks that used to take up our whole day in the spring.
I love the transitions of the farm season and of the many reasons I find to do this work it is probably the constant change with the calendar that I value most. Hopefully, you will appreciate this change too as you take home and prepare our harvest this season.
What’s in the share this week?
Strawberries
Scallions
Kale
Chard
Lettuce Mix
We had hoped to have radishes and salad turnips as well but the heat and rain of the past few weeks has made these crops unharvestable. Look for zucchini, kohlrabi, broccoli in your shares soon!
Maine fish with your produce.
Port Clyde Community Supported Fishery (CSF) delivers fresh Maine landed seafood to the farm each friday starting next week. If you love high quality fish this is a great deal and supports a group of fisherman in getting the most for thier catch. For more info or to sign up email Port Clyde at info@portclydefreshcatch.com or call (207) 372-1055.