Author: Angela Smith

August is a funny time on the farm. It’s the month when my favorite veggies – the ones I’ve been waiting for since winter – are finally ripe and ready to harvest, and it’s also the month where I start to get a little tired of deciding what to do with all of the produce that is coming out of the field. Besides planting enough veggies for you, I plant enough for our family, both to eat fresh and to preserve for later on the year. A lot of work goes into planning and growing all of that food, and so I find myself feeling obligated to use it all up. Thus, the kitchen counters and refrigerators are crowded with pickling crocks, canning jars, and lots of produce needing to be processed. Looking at it all can make me feel a bit overwhelmed from time to time.

This week’s newsletter is going to be short and sweet. The kids and I took off to my home state of Michigan early this past Thursday morning and just returned last night, so not much work got done in the field last week. Erik held down the fort for me while I was away (thankfully!), harvesting when he could in between the rain that fell off and on for much of the weekend. It was starting to get dry out there, so the rain is also much appreciated. This week I will be busy cleaning up the field, pulling out some crops that are starting to wane, weeding, and otherwise getting it back into shape.

I can’t believe I just typed “August” in the heading up there. This summer is certainly flying by for us. We are already halfway through our CSA season! It seems like just yesterday I was giving you a single bunch of asparagus for your share and now your boxes are so full that we can barely get them closed. Simon always helps me pack your boxes, and he figures out the math, too – how many pounds of each veggie everyone should get based on our off-season planning and what we were actually able to pull out of the field that morning. Last week we were both amazed by the bounty the farm provided. As Jericho Sanchez, a dairy farmer in New Mexico, once said, “It feels good at the end of the day to know that you have created a product that other people are going to enjoy.” (Of course, we humans only did part of that work, but still…)

There comes a time each summer when the work on a farmstead shifts from planting to harvesting and preserving and that is usually around the end of July. There are still plenty of things to do in the field, but rather than harvesting just once or twice a week, some crops require near daily picking now and some become so plentiful that even the most ardent of veggie lovers can’t possibly eat them all at once. This means turning those crops into things that we can eat later in the year and more time in the kitchen making jams and pickles and freezing breads and veggies that I’ll add to soups and other dishes when the snow is on the ground. If you find yourself with more veggies than you can use or just want to have some saved for winter, too, make sure you refer to the A to Z Storage Guide I shared with you at the beginning of the season.

Friends, I am grateful that today is newsletter writing day. I was just out in the field for a couple of hours this morning and thank goodness I wrapped up all my field work before the temperatures really started soaring. Erik likes to remind me that I used to adore hot, sunny, ninety-degree days back when we were first married. Of course, this was when I worked inside at a computer most of the time and so those sorts of days were a nice change of pace. Now, I am thrilled when we have a cloudy day, and my preferred temperature is probably between sixty and seventy degrees. How things change!