I
used to listen to the podcast "Another Round" with co-hosts Heben
Nigatu and Tracy Clayton. I think they stopped making new episodes, but if you
haven't heard the archives, they might feel dated but they are still
entertaining.
At
the end of each episode, as the "outro" music starts to play, Tracy
says "Heben, we made it" and Heben always says "We made it:
hey!"
That's
kind of how I feel this week as we finally have the
last seeds and plants in the ground after a challenging and sometimes harrowing
September.
We
started out this 2018 season with a bang: it snowed on the first day of spring!
I remember looking out at the greenhouse covered in snow and totally packed to
the gills with seedlings that needed to go out that very week.
Not
a single month this year have we had "normal" weather. August seemed
unseasonably cool. We took advantage and got a head start on the fall planting.
The September rains we get during hurricane season did finally make their way
far enough inland to not only give the farm a good soaking but dumped enough
rain for us to save some for later. Besides walking in the puddles in the mud
in my chacos (a type of outdoor sandals), I'm not sure what else we were
supposed to do. Finding dry days to re-seed, looking for dry windows to get the
remaining transplants in the ground: that became our sole focus this September.
Achieve
success we did, and in no small part it was due to the tenacity of the crew and
all the folks who helped including my mentor and a partner farmer to boot.
That's what you call all hands on deck.
Thanks
of course to the CSA members who let me send endless recipes for the red
mustard greens and the green mustard greens (pretending they are different
vegetables) when secretly I know you really wanted to know what happened to the
spinach we planted four times (they drowned the first three times.)
Despite
weather ups and downs: our team is incredibly strong and the soil is alive. For
every challenge we faced this season, we made it through because of the
cumulative effort that's brought us to this, our seventh year during which
we expanded our growing space to reach the maximum footprint and also peak
production.
We have so much to celebrate this season and I hope you will join us for
another epic fall festival at Three Part Harmony Farm.
We've been so focused on re-seeding and re-planting that we haven't gotten out
a lot of details about what will happen at the fall festival this year. Of
course there will be garlic planting, games, potluck, music, and art! Stay
tuned and check out updates on instagram. Tyler our
photographer has already been posting highlights from previous years
to get us all in the mood for a party.
See
you there?
