New Leaf Organics
One Farming Mama
Hi There
In my renewed efforts to be a better documentarian, I am attempting to bring my camera to the farm once a week or so. I don’t know whether my memory is getting worse or seasons are just starting to blend together in my mind, but either way, I need some back up to jog the season memory come Fall. So, as promised, I have sent along a couple photos of our fun cultivator. The person in the back controls these really fast moving mechanical weeding fingers that constantly circle over your plants and weed like crazy. You definitely have to be on your game when you are controlling the fingers cause it only takes one sneeze to start killing plants. You move the fingers in and out to get in between all the plants in the row. It is really fun and quite entertaining to watch. We are still not sure whether it is punishment or reward to be stuck on the back of that thing for a couple hours. When you are done though, the plants sure look nice.
As predicted we’ve begun our assault on the onslaught of weeds that arrived from this perfect combination of weather we’ve been having. It is now a given that we will be weeding everyday and the only real fun is choosing where to start on the farm. Most people who come to work here (or probably any farm) enjoy the harvest as the glory part of the job. For me though, it is the weeding. When you are done with a bed and look back at the results, happy, weed-free (if only for a few days) crops, there is not much sweeter to me as a farmer. My crew pretends from time to time to share my enthusiasm for the task. The shiny new hoes we just ordered definitely help. And so onward we go.
The berries are still going strong this week and by next week we should have some new (less green) crops to share. The garlic crop looks great for this year and we are attempting to snap all the garlic scapes this week and put them in the cooler. The scapes are a by-product for us and we need to take them off in order to let the garlic begin to really size up before it is ready for harvest. The scapes can be used as you would garlic, sauteed, minced, in stews, etc. I am including a recipe for garlic scape pesto that I highly recommend. Toss with pasta, spread on bread, include in sandwiches……..
Also, please feel free to bring back any berry baskets, etc that we can reuse at the farm.
See you tomorrow,Jill and crew
Garlic Scape Pesto
Ingredients
Directions
