The melon summer!

I’m happy to say that I have been too busy harvesting spectacular amounts of beautiful food to write on this blog. The past few weeks have really illustrated in a BIG way how incredibly abundant our harvests have been and how amazing this season is for growing vegetables.  Watermelon, that sweet, delicious, beautiful thing is literally rolling out of the fields – we have all had a watermelon-induced stomachache (that’s what happens when you eat three per day) for the last three weeks.

I could say that the only thing to complain about recently is that things are growing TOO fast! We put in our fall brassica crop over the last few weeks (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, chinese cabbage etc.) and I swear if you had sat in the field and watched, you could have seen them growing.  The two kale plantings are pretty much ready to harvest and, though planted three weeks apart, look almost the same size! The chinese cabbage is starting to  head (only a month too soon!) and that whole section of garden looks like it wants to take flight or something, the plants are so huge they are bursting from the ground.

We’ve started to work in some of the summer-planted cover crops and have pretty much mapped out the garden for next year so that we can start to sow fall cover crops and apply compost.  The orchard section is carpeted in a lush rye cover and we’ve got onions curing and garlic cured and stored away.  Despite this past week’s heat, it does feel like fall is coming and we are starting to think about fall harvests and winter storage. The winter squash is taking after the watermelon in being huge and copious and we are excited for that most favourite of harvests – so colourful and leaving you so thankful for the richness and nourishment of that wonderful crop.

The farm is really looking beautiful also because of the huge, plump straw bales that are now sitting in the back fields where Warren Becker (our neighbour) had his oats and barley crop.  The hay that he under-seeded in these grains is coming up green underneath the bales and Jeff and I are eyeing these fields to determine where we will plant our lentil and bean test crops next year.

All in all, things are great, so here’s some photos.