WEEK 20: Harvest evolution and season celebrations

Again this week harvest took up most of our time, but the harvest is changing as we go. The tomatoes, decrepit and laying rotting on the ground (failed trellising disaster area) are slowing but still producing bushels, with the red roman stripes now dominating. The new timelines of bean and zucchini are finally producing sale-worthy fruit (in charmingly clean beds). Leek and parsnip and sweet potato and sunchoke (a sunflower relative, native to these parts, that produces delicious, water chestnutty/potato-like tubers) prove it's fall, and prove delicious in fall soups and roasts!

We hosted the CRAFT interns at Manorun last week, and it was reaffirming to see through their eyes how great our farm is and how beautiful the space is. It was heartening to see so many young people inspired and motivated and cooperative during our work-bee. A farmer panel on weeds and weather gave us some varied perspectives and ideas, and our pizza party potluck was delish.

Aside from harvesting and hosting, we managed to get some planting done (the hoophouse greens and turnips for a winter share), as well as some thinning and cultivating in the many carrot and beet beds planted a few weeks ago. We've applied a dose of boron, a micronutrient in which our soil is apparently deficient, to the beets. We put more good stuff away for the winter, making blueberry jam and roasting red peppers for the freezer. And we studied our planting maps and recorded rough yield impressions, reconsidering varieties (and other factors like location, soil and weather conditions, weed and pest pressure) for next year's planting.

As I write, away in New Jersey for a family event, my fellow interns are preparing to enjoy a traditional end-of-season gourmet thank you meal that Chris and Denise have hired chef Ken Lefebour to create in gratitude for our hard work and contributions to Manorun. Ken will be back next week for an even more elaborate farm dinner, tickets still available to the public. Check out
http://www.manorun.com/pdf/farm_dinner_2010.pdf for more information.

It's the countdown to the end, and while there's work to be done before we kick up our feet, we are all thinking back over the summer's work and play, and ahead to our varied winter plans... No doubt blog posts ahead will get more philosophical and big-picture...

WEEK 18: Harvest to weeding ratio improves

A farming friend of mine once told me that you could measure the success of your farm by determining if you spend more time harvesting than weeding- if so, you're on your game. I'm not sure if that has been the case for us every week here at Manorun, but this past week it surely was. The weeds have backed off in the cooler weather, and our little half-crew spent the better part of the week getting the crops in for market and members. And it was bountiful! The tomatoes are gorgeous, our heirlooms catching the eyes of savvy foodies all week: the brandywines, red roman stripes, orange hearts, "Dundurn yellows" (Chris swiped the seeds from a tomato at the Dundurn Castle last year)... and many more I've forgotten already. The greens are great, the radish is back, the carrots (gnarly lovers and wrestlers) are actually quite large, and the sweet corn is ever so sweet (candy belly aches in the field if you eat too much of it!). The list goes on...

Friday we were treated to a tour of Dave and Keira's place, friends of Chris, who have a couple hives and allowed us to help do some honey extraction, in exchange for some information, some taste testing, and even some of the goldstuff to take home.

I'm curious to see what kind of a new harvest routine, if any, we will settle into- we are always in flux, it seems, and nothing ever stays the same. I guess that's the beauty of life, on display at it's finest here in the growing of things.

WEEK 17: Coasting into Fall

Another breezy week of harvesting and processing (another 50 litres of tomato sauce; pickled beans; pickled peppers and strawberry jam on my own focus time) ended with a field trip to a beautiful organic sheep farm, Black Crow, which showed us the happy, pastured, unstressed alternative to the conventional sheep at Black Walnut. A bit of work digging up their potatoes and garlic in the rain, a good hearty lunch, and we were off to shake down some apples from the Sargeant's trees for cider.

The week to come brings big changes- the daughters gone to school, Meghan gone to her sugar testing job in Niagara, the chickens gone to slaughter, and a fall intern, Jen, joining us for the final stretch.

"When you kill a beast, say to him in your heart:

By the same power that slays you, I am too slain, and I too shall be consumed.

For the law that delivers you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.

Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven."

Kahlil Gibran