Fall Farm Update: Reflections on the 2019 Growing Season

By Farmer Richard

Harvest crews working to gather harvest before the storms hit

Recently we came up on the one year anniversary of the 2018 fall floods.  While we are thankful we have not experienced another major weather event like that in this growing season, the weather patterns of 2019 have made this season another extremely challenging year to be farming.  We started out with a cold and wet spring which made planting seeds and transplanting plants from the greenhouse very challenging!  We are all avid weather map and forecast watchers and our crew is 110% with us.  We made good planning decisions and when a hint of dry weather looked imminent, we pulled out all the stops to prepare ground, plant and transplant.  On those days, we worked until it was too dark to see and if the forecasted rain missed us we continued the next morning.  We pushed the limits, we transplanted in the rain, we harvested in the rain.  We had to take some time off when the storms were severe.  When we did get some fast, heavy rains, the extensive repair work we did to creek bottoms and berms last fall proved to be effective and mostly held and protected fields!

Black Futsu Pumpkin plants starting to
flower earlier this season

Despite the challenges, we did manage to plant all our crops fairly timely, even when it was wet and cold.   In late May and early June the weather shifted to the other end of the spectrum and became extremely hot and humid!  The heat loving plants took off and made up for lost time!  Unfortunately, so did the weeds.  We had to play our cards right to make weed control a priority when it was dry enough and pushed the limits at times to complete some critical cultivation.  Hot and wet weather also brings its own problems with disease, poor pollination and even nutrient problems.  In early summer we were seeing some disease and fertility problems in some of our crops.  We collected leaves from some of the affected plants and sent them off to a laboratory for a sap analysis (kind of like a blood test for plants) to diagnose the problems.  With results in hand, we set out to correct some nutrient and microbial deficiencies likely caused by the excess water.  We applied copious amounts of beneficial organisms, soluble nutrients and trace minerals that the plants needed and saw some dramatic responses in our pepper, eggplant and squash crops.  We also had several weeks of growth during that hot period where plants that should have been setting fruit were not doing so (tomatoes, melons, squash and watermelons), which resulted in low yields.  Despite our best efforts, only one of our five sweet corn plantings was the quality we had hoped for.  Sadly, the cold wet conditions followed by the hot and wet weather not only took a toll on our crops, but our native pollinators as well.  We rely on their services and were concerned that many of our native pollinator creatures were very late to show up.  Thankfully the populations seem to have recovered.  While we all would’ve liked to have seen more tomatoes and sweet corn in the box, we have been able to include most items we had planned for in the CSA boxes.  So, while you may have been just minimally affected by our crop deficits, our bottom line has taken a hit with some of our crops that we plan to have in quantities that allow us to supply CSA boxes and then have extra to sell to wholesale buyers.  The good news is, we did have some better weather in August and our fall crops actually look quite nice!  Time and again, Mother Nature continues to provide for us, even when she’s at times a bit cantankerous.

Farmer Richard inspecting cover crop

As we head into fall, we’re happy to report our cover crop plantings have been timely and some fields have well-established cover crops that we’ll reap the benefits of next year.  Some of our fall crops are coming in ahead of schedule, including celeriac, carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, turnips and winter storage radishes.  We’ve already started harvesting many of our root crops and will continue doing so until they’re all in.  The sweet potatoes look promising, but need a couple more weeks of growth.  Fall greens, such as escarole, look very nice, but the recent 80°F weather has them coming in earlier than we had hoped for.  Sadly, we did lose 50% of our spinach stand last week when we had 4.5 inch or rain, but we have more plantings coming and they look promising.  In the midst of vegetable farming, we’ve also managed to get sufficient hay put away for our animals despite forecasts of hay shortages in the rest of the farming community.  If Mother Nature will afford us just get a couple of dry weeks to get our roots harvested and plant garlic, sunchokes and horseradish for next year, we would be most grateful.

Despite the challenges of this season, we are proud of the CSA boxes we have delivered this year.  The boxes have been plentiful, colorful and delicious.  If you’ve been pleased with your shares this year, we’d appreciate your help in spreading the good word about our CSA to your friends, family members, work associates, etc. We’re hopeful that our membership numbers will grow for the 2020 season, but we need your help to make that happen!  Yes, we’re already laying out plans for next year!

As I reflect on the past few months, I realize we have learned a lot from this season!  As we’ve dealt with crop challenges due to fertility, etc, we have all became more aware of the very subtle differences in the many shades of green of our plants which will help us care for our plants better in the future.  We watched for blossoms, pollinators and fruit set as we learned to observe and listen to our plants more closely.  As we learn more about the value of our microbial communities in the soil, we have gained a new appreciation for the role they play in our environment and still have trouble fathoming the billions of micro-organisms that surround us!   We realize we are all part of a living organism.  There is a life force that emanates from the soil, the plants, the animals and people.  The many families that depend on our farm and the many that we provide nourishing food for are all a part of our farm and community.  I want to close with a quote from an interview with Michael Phillips, an organic orchardist growing in New Hampshire.  He wrote a book entitled Mycorrhizal Planet and was featured in an interview in a recent issue of Acres magazine.  He says “The plants and fungi have always sung what I think of as a soil redemption song—and they’ll continue to sing it—and that is what makes life possible on earth.  Our job is to emulate all these good teachings and to make it part of our agriculture, part of our communities, part of our innate understanding of what it is to be a caring human on this blessed planet.”

Fall "Crunch Time" is Here!

by Farmer Richard

Do you remember the three foot deep snowfall on October 29, 1993?  I do!  I remember harvesting carrots by hand in the melting slush of that snow, not fun!  We love the cool, sunny days of fall, harvesting roots to take us through late fall and early winter boxes and wholesale sales.  Planting garlic, horseradish and sunchokes for next year after first selecting our seed pieces.  Preparing fields for winter by chopping crop residue, composting and planting cover crops—have to get ready for a new year! We have a long “to do” list and time is quickly slipping away.  The reality we face is we need 2 to 3 weeks of dry weather to get everything finished! 

Austraian Peas already doing their job,
growing nitrogen fixing nodules!

Four weeks ago we were caught up, every available acre was composted and cover cropped, some 60 acres of very nice cover crops with the Austrian peas already producing impressive nitrogen fixing nodules on their roots.  They were planted into very dry soil, but came up nicely with the first rain.  But then it rained again, and again…  We’ve had 6.42 inches of rain in October alone.  We still have about 30 acres of fields that need to have cover crops planted and we have fields to clean up including removing plastic and tomato stakes from the tomato, eggplant, pepper and basil fields.  Last Saturday afternoon we started planting our garlic fields, but only got 2 beds planted before the end of the day…and then it rained another inch that evening!

Do you sense some urgency here?  Some nervous apprehension?  We do!  We can harvest greens and herbs in the rain or wet soil, but those crops are almost done.  The warm weather of September and October (still no frost) has sped up the maturity rate of all crops.  We did some late plantings of beets, red radishes, cilantro, baby bok choi, etc knowing they might be a gamble if it got cold earlier.  We’re harvesting those crops this week and many will be finished for the season by the end of the week.  We’re thankful to be able to continue these harvests this late in the month and we’ve saved huge amounts of time and the expense by not having to put covers over crops to protect them from frost!  We expect our first frost to be more of a freeze (lower than 25°F), but by the time we see that, all of the vulnerable crops will be out of the field.  Now that it’s getting colder, the soil isn’t drying out as fast as it does when it’s warmer.  With more rain in the forecast, we’re concerned we won’t see the two weeks of dry weather we need to wrap this season up. 

The harsh reality is winter is coming.  As I sit on the back porch writing, I can hear the coyotes howling on the hillsides.  I love it!  They too sense the coming winter!  But we still have that garlic field to finish planting, plus most of the burdock field, parsnips, carrots, radishes, turnips and rutabagas to harvest and almost 2 acres of sunchokes to both harvest and replant!  This fall is much different than last fall.  Despite the challenges we face this fall, we’re thankful to have such a plentiful harvest in contrast to the crop losses we had last fall.  When we had extra crew time last year, we gambled and planted extra sunchokes and horseradish, with hopes of having a really good harvest this fall to make up for some of last year’s losses!  Well, our strategy worked and these crops have done well and sales are good.  But we still have to harvest and replant so we can do it all over again next year! 

Rufino, Luis, Jose Antonio and Alejandro coming
to the packing shed with broccoli romanesco,
cauliflower and broccoli.

Earlier this week on Monday, we mudded out some more daikon radish and finished our first fall carrot field.  I only got stuck in the field one time while pulling out a load of carrots, but despite the mud the harvest went pretty well.  We also went through our last three broccoli fields to find the small heads that continue to grow off the sides of the plant.  The pieces aren’t big, but they are tasty!  The broccoli romanesco field looks great!  This crop will survive a frost as low as 20°F and will actually sweeten a bit with the frost so we aren’t in a big hurry to harvest them.  There are still Brussels sprouts coming too!  We’ve intentionally held off on harvesting them because we want them to have a few frosty nights to sweeten them up.  We plan to harvest cabbage before the weekend freeze-up when our temperatures are forecasted to be 27°F.  It can sometimes be colder in the valley, so we’ve already started preparing so we aren’t caught off guard.  Irrigation pumps, filter trailers, etc are all drained and put away for the winter.  Bins of firewood are in place and I am back on winter wood stove duty.  We have a beautiful fire burning in the fireplace as I write.   It sure helps to take the chill off on cold evenings. 

Some of our crew 'cracking' garlic to get ready to plant!

Or crew is anxious to return home to their families and they are waiting for our final decision as to when they can start booking plane tickets to go home.  While some crew members have asked and volunteered to stay late this year, others are anxious to make it home in time to be with their wives when the babies they’re expecting are born!  Others have fields of hay on their family’s farm waiting to be cut and baled.  There will be coffee and corn to harvest, and of course there are anxious kids counting down the days until their dad comes home.  It’s hard to predict when our workload will lessen, but we do our best to make estimates and work efficiently.  We are trying to make the most of our time, spending frosty mornings and rainy days cracking garlic for planting, cleaning garlic and onions, trimming root crops stored in the cooler, washing sweet potatoes, etc.  But the bottom line is that we need those dry, sunny days!  Wish us luck and lets hope Mother Nature offers us a brief reprieve with some nice weather!  

Fall is Here!

We started harvesting sunchokes earlier this week

This Friday marks the official transition from summer to fall and on Sunday, September 24^th, we’ll celebrate this year’s harvests with our annual Harvest Party shin-dig.  We’ve been talking about this seasonal transition now for several weeks as things have started to change in our fields.  This week however we are feeling it more than ever.  We’re harvesting purple top and sweet scarlet turnips, sunchokes, daikon radish, fall carrots and we will be packing Soup Mix before the week is finished!  The leaves are starting to change colors, hickory nuts are dropping to the ground, and we know it’s just a matter of time before we get our first chilly, frosty night.  We hope you are planning to attend the party this weekend so you can see our valley and fall crops for yourself!

Honeynut butternut squash curing in the greenhouse

A lot has been happening in our fields over the past few weeks, so we wanted to catch you up on our activities with a field report.  We said goodbye to watermelons, melons, zucchini and cucumbers over the past few weeks, but there were more crops entering the stage as these summer favorites dwindled.  We are nearly done with winter squash harvest.  We have harvested and cured most of our winter squash and will go back to harvest the last few loads remaining in the field before the end of the week.  We’re planning to start packing winter squash in your boxes possibly as early as next week.

Our first planting of tomatoes is nearly finished, but the second planting still looks pretty good and continues to produce.  We have been having pretty cool days and nights, so the tomatoes have been ripening slowly.  We’ll keep picking right up until the first frost.  We’ve also been hitting our pepper field pretty hard with harvests.  There isn’t a whole lot remaining at this point.  Our orange Ukraine plants are pretty much done.  They produced a lot for us, but there isn’t much remaining on them.  The Orange Italian Frying peppers are still producing and we’ll be able to pick for this week and next, but I’m not sure how much will remain beyond that.  We’re planning to deliver mini-sweet peppers in next week’s box, but these plants don’t have a lot of fruit remaining on them. 

Celeriac with green tops freshly washed!

This week’s featured vegetable, celeriac, comes to you with its green top still on.  This is another sign of the transition point in the season.  While we’re still harvesting them as green top, we’ve already started to mechanically harvest these roots for storage.  They’ll all need to be harvested within the next few weeks as they will not tolerate more than a touch of a frost.  This marks our transition in cooking as well.  Soon we’ll all be enjoying more root-focused soups, stews and braised dishes to warm us up on the cold days. 

 Scarlet & Purple Top Turnips harvested last Saturday

There are some vegetables that make their appearance in the spring and then return in the fall.  Fall is a special time in many ways for some of these crops as the cool fall days and nights help to intensify the colors of vegetables and the flavors of some things mellow out and are sweeter.  We’re harvesting a beautiful crop of fall fennel right now and just started harvesting our fall crop of baby white turnips.  Next week we’ll be resuming baby spinach and salad mix harvest.  The color on these crops is always very impressive this time of year.  The green colors of spinach are more intense and the red lettuces are stunningly gorgeous! 

At the farmers’ market we’ve already been getting inquiries of “When will Brussels sprouts be ready?” Well, they are making sprouts and looking pretty good, but this is one of the brassica crops that benefits from a few frosty nights before harvesting.  All brassicas undergo changes in flavor in cold weather.  Their flavor becomes more sweet and well-balanced.  So the best estimate I can give you for when we’ll harvest them is after it frosts.  We also have our eye on the sweet potatoes and will be harvesting those before too long.  We’ll have to do a sample dig at the party this weekend to check the progress in growth and gauge just how much longer it will be before we’re ready to pull the trigger and do the big harvest! 

Jicama, sweet potatoes, squash and more coming soon!

Newly planted escarole and radicchio plants

Next week we’ll be delivering jicama in the boxes.  It’s in the process of being cured right now to set the tender skins.  This year’s crop looks pretty good!  We’re still learning how to grow jicama but I think we’re making progress!  We did harvest some that don’t look so pretty.  If you come to the party on Saturday, we’ll share those with you.  They don’t look good but they are still good to eat!  We also have a crop of tat soi slated for a late season harvest and we’re trying a new growing method for some late season chicories.  This week Scott, Simon and Jose Antonio finished planting escarole and radicchio transplants in our cold frame greenhouse.  We did a pretty good job of growing head lettuce in the cold frame greenhouse this spring and delivered it in the May boxes.  We’ve never grown escarole and radicchio in a greenhouse, but thought we’d give it a try and hopefully they’ll be ready for some of the last boxes of the season in November and December.  They are more cold hardy greens that can take cold weather and frosty nights and their flavor actually improves in cold weather.  In the field they can sometimes get damaged when the nights get really cold, so we’re hoping the more protected environment of the greenhouse will allow us to get the benefit of the cold weather but gain the protection from deep frosts.  Wish us luck!

In addition to harvesting crops,  we’ve also managed to stay on top of planting cover crops.  As we finish harvesting a field, we move right into preparing it for  winter and includes establishing a cover crop.  Did you read last week’s newsletter regarding the importance of regenerative farming methods related to mitigating climate change?  Well, we’re trying to do our part by getting cover crops on bare ground so they can capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil.  How cool is that?!  We’ve also finished putting up stored hay for our animals to eat this winter and we’ve returned to some of our woods management projects.  The high winds we had in July along with the rains took the tops off of a lot of our trees in the woods. We’ve been scouting the woods identifying where the damaged and downed trees are.  We’ll focus on salvaging what we can this fall.

Despite the challenges of the July weather event, we’re gearing up for a bountiful fall harvest and we’re hoping Mother Nature will be cooperative!  There are still a lot of delicious vegetables remaining to experience this season as we continue our journey in our seasonal eating adventure.  I’m already starting to look forward to some favorite winter dishes such as Turnip-apple quiche, sweet potato casserole and rutabaga mash!  We hope to see you at the party this weekend and hope you enjoy the last few months of vegetables!

Wrapping Up the Harvest

Jack enjoys the parsnip harvest

Hello Everyone!  This is Captain Jack (The Dog) reporting to you from the passenger’s seat of our mobile “Command Central”, aka Farmer Richard’s truck.  Dad and I have been doing a lot of driving over the past few weeks.   We seldom leave the valley, but we visit a lot of fields in the course of the day.  Fall is a very busy time of the year for us.  Many people think we’re winding down, but we actually still have a lot of work to do!  This has been a great fall for us in many ways.  Dad remembers having 3 feet of snow on October 31 back in 1989 or 1990.  Personally, I like snow and wouldn’t mind that, but the rest of the humans on the farm don’t seem as ready for the winter wonderland as I am.   We have harvested our horseradish, selected seed stock for next year and are almost done planting next year’s crop.  We dug and selected seed for next year’s sunchokes which are also all planted.  Of course, we have also planted our garlic and about half of it has already been mulched to keep it safe during the winter!

Jack in the truck

“Global warming” has been a blessing and a challenge this year.  We’ve had a warm fall with temperatures in September (4°F) and October (3°F) and above normal averages.  We all enjoy being able to feel our fingers as we work, and in that way we’re grateful for the warmer temperatures.  The downside of the warmer days is that crops are coming in ahead of schedule.  Turnips, radishes, etc. are sizing up faster than normal resulting in some things getting too big.  We like to “store” crops in the field and harvest as late as possible, but that just isn’t an option with some of the plantings this year.  While larger roots are entirely edible and of good quality, buyers won’t accept them thus they remain in the field and are unsaleable.

We get pretty nervous this time of year.  In addition to the temperatures, Dad’s also keeping his eye on moisture.  Last week we had 2.3 inches of rain which put a stop to our mechanical harvest.  Thankfully the ground was pretty dry and the 2.3 inches of rain soaked easily into very dry soil.  We were back in the field Monday morning, despite the ground still being a little wet.  We couldn’t wait though…we’re in a race against time with rain forecasted for this Thursday!  That means we have 3 days to maximize the harvest before we might be forced out of the field again.  Our goal is 120 more bins of vegetables this week averaging 600# per bin.  That’s 36 tons of vegetables to harvest in 3 days!  Wait…there’s one other challenge that’s part of this picture.  We’re nearly out of cooler space and bins!  We trim & wash vegetables every day to empty bins and send them back to the fields to get reloaded.  Nonetheless, we’re getting pretty slim on storage space and while Dad’s fretting in the fields, Mom (Andrea) is fretting in the packing shed.  Mom is trained as a chef and was taught to face challenges in the kitchen with no option other than to find a solution.  Sometimes I hear her telling herself “Make it happen Chef.”  Somehow it will work out, but in the meantime there’s an intense game of “Cooler Tetris” going on!  Right now we have our fingers crossed that we’ll get as much harvested as we can before the rain starts again and we’re hoping we don’t get as much as last week.

Captain Jack supervises the celeriac harvest

In looking at the long range forecast (several times a day), we know that the temperatures are going to drop eventually.  Next week they’re forecasting temperatures in the twenties.  Temperatures this low could spell the end for many crops unless we have covers in place!  Double covers with hoops to hold the cover above the plants work well to about 20-25°F.  We have already had some touches of frost and have covers in place for our remaining greens, parsley, etc.  Unfortunately they are a management challenge as they need to be removed on warm and wet days or we risk mildew setting in on the plants.

So, as you can see we are doing a bit of a “song & dance” around weather as we race against time to get everything harvested and tucked away safely in storage before winter sets in.  HVF has long been ahead of the times in supporting and encouraging “seasonal eating” throughout the winter.  Root and storage crops are an important part of our winter diet and are intended to last in storage until spring.  This is the way the settlers ate in the 1800’s and for those who are committed to eating a local Midwestern diet year-round, these late season crops are essential.  According to Mom & Dad’s estimates, we have a lot of food available to our members and customers over the next several months.  In fact, we still have Extended Season Vegetable shares available for our January deliveries.  Our sign-ups for this share are the lowest they’ve been in years, which is a bit concerning for us.  We’re hoping you just forgot to sign up for this share and if that’s the case, please send your order in soon!  If we don’t see better participation for January deliveries we’re going to have to consider discontinuing these deliveries as the economics and realities of running a truck in January just don’t balance out with the value of product on the truck.


Well, it’s Wednesday morning and we have to get our crew plans pulled together for the day.  I have another big day of hauling vegetables with my Dad, Farmer Richard.  I better eat my breakfast and brush my hair so I’m ready to go at 8 am when the crew heads to the field.  I hope you enjoy the bounty of this week’s box!  Captain Jack “The Dog” signing off.

The Asa Lift & Its Operator

by Lisa Garvalia

Parsnips being harvested with the Asa-Lift

Living on a farm myself, I have a deep appreciation for the use of good, efficient equipment. One example is the round baler which has taken the place, on many farms, of the need for a square baler. The square baler requires someone to pull the tractor over the windrows, while the baler makes the squares, then the bales are thrown onto the wagon that is attached to the square baler. If the square baler does not have a “kicker” to throw the bales onto the wagon then someone has to manually pick the bales off the field and throw them into the wagon. There is usually someone on the wagon to stack the square bales up neatly in order to get a maximum load on the wagon. When the wagon is full, it is pulled back to the barn by another tractor and the bales are manually loaded on an elevator and dropped in the haymow. There is also someone in the haymow to stack the square bales neatly for maximum storage with less waste. I am tired just writing about the whole process.

The Asa-Lift

Now that I have given you an example of the efficiency that certain farm equipment can bring, let me tell you a bit about the Asa-Lift, our single row root crop harvester. I had the pleasure of hearing about the workings of the Asa-Lift from the main operator, Rafael. One of the most important things that was stressed in my discussion is that the settings on the Asa-Lift must be precise in order for it to operate at its best.  That being said, there are a lot of things to pay attention to so the precision is there. The front of the Asa-Lift has a leaf row cutter that separates the leaves from one row to the next.

Leaf row cutter, plow & torpedo bars

 There is a plow that lifts the plants out of the ground and 2 torpedo shaped bars that rotate and pick up all of the leaves from the plant. A belt grabs the leaves and moves the plant upward out of the ground and toward the topping bar. The dirt is cleaned off the plants from below by rubber fingers, and metal topping bars cut the leaves off the plant. After the leaves are cut off, the produce then travels farther up the conveyer and drops into wood bins. The bins are waiting on a flat rack, or wagon, that is being pulled by another tractor alongside Rafael with the Asa-lift.

Rubber fingers to clean dirt

Asa-Lift harvesting with the 2nd tractor pulling flat rack

In total it takes two tractors, and 4-5 people to make this operation work. Both tractors must travel in synchrony to make this work. One or two people ride on the flat rack to “catch” the produce with the pad and one to pick out the leaves and culls. One person also walks behind the Asa-Lift to watch the operation and pick up any leftover roots from the field. Rafael has many different things to pay attention to when he is operating the Asa-Lift.
He has to make sure that everything is working correctly because if there is one setting even a few inches off, it can either do damage to the crop, plug up the conveyer, or the dirt may not all get cleaned off. Another thing that is always on his mind is the safety of everyone around the Asa-Lift when it is in operation. He likes to work with the same crew as they are familiar with how it should be running when it is working properly and also the things that should be watched for safety reasons. On the tractor with the Asa-Lift is a small square box of controls that is right at the fingertips of Rafael and it runs all of the different components of the Asa-Lift, from the PTO to the pumps to moving the conveyer. Rafael is very keen to listen when the machine is running as he can tell by the sounds if something needs to be adjusted or looked at.  Rafael has a very important job running the machine and he takes it very seriously. If one small thing is overlooked it can cause something big and unpleasant to happen.

Topping Bars

Rafael running the Asa-Lift

Now that I have given you a brief summary on how this machine works, let’s look at what kind of efficiency it brings to Harmony Valley Farm.  When it comes to purchasing tractors and equipment, farmers must take into consideration many different things to justify the expense. Besides looking at the cost, they also look at how the equipment may improve quality of life and time saved.


With the Asa-Lift they can harvest approximately 9 different root crops and they can fill up to 40 – 50 bins per day depending on the produce being harvested. Now if this were to be done manually, it would take 10 people 4 hours to fill 6-8 bins with produce. We still have many crops that involve lifting crates and hand harvest, but whenever possible we use pallet jacks, machinery, and forklifts to harvest and move heavy roots.

The Asa-Lift was purchased from Denmark because no machines are made in this country for small vegetable farms like ours.  Another important benefit of the Asa-Lift is that it can be used at any time, even if there has been a stretch of rain, where manual harvest would be affected. This should give you an idea of why the Asa-Lift is such an important piece of machinery. Besides the time factor, it also saves on back strain that could be caused by all of the manual work that would need to be done.

Bins of celeriac being harvested by the Asa-Lift.
Vicente is on the flat rack catching celeriac and
pulling off extra leaves. Each bin holds 600-800 pounds of roots!

There are many other pieces of equipment that are used on the farm, all of which help to make the job easier and more efficient. The time that is being saved along with the health of the workers is taken very seriously. My hope is that you have enjoyed reading about the awesome Asa-Lift, its operator Rafael, and understand our appreciation of its usefulness!

October Madness…Time to Harvest!

by Farmer Richard and Farmer Andrea

Last Saturday we awoke to a chilly morning as we experienced our first frost of the season. With it came the sense of urgency we feel every fall as the reality of the changing seasons sets in. Richard made his annual fall harvest & “projects” list to outline the work that needs to be done over the next several weeks. We have a lot of crops to harvest and put into storage, fields need to be put to bed for the winter with compost, minerals and cover crops. Several crops need to be replanted for next year, equipment needs to be prepared for winter storage, the final boxes of the CSA season need to be planned AND plane tickets back to Mexico need to be booked for our seasonal field crew members who are anxiously awaiting their return to sunny, warm Mexico to spend the winter with their families. Whew!! There’s a lot to accomplish over the next several weeks! It’s an exciting time of the season with a lot of crucial tasks to complete. Here’s a little glimpse of some of the things we’ll be doing over the next several weeks.

The Asa-Lift is used to harvest root crops such as parsnips, carrots, celeriac,
turnips and winter radishes.

While we continue to do our weekly harvests of salad greens, fresh herbs, bunched greens, etc, we now add some of our major harvests to the “To-Do” list as well. All of our root crops need to be harvested and put into storage for the winter. We have several different methods for harvesting root crops. Some of them we do by hand, while others are harvested mechanically. Last year we invested in a new harvester called the Asa-Lift. This is a machine that is used to harvest root vegetables that have tops, including parsnips, carrots, celeriac, turnips and winter radishes. This requires a crew of 4 to operate, and when conditions are just right they can harvest tons of roots in a day! Celeriac is one of the more vulnerable crops that could be damaged by a hard frost, so it’s top on the list for harvest this week. Other crops including parsnips and turnips will survive a frost better, so they are further down on the priority list.

Burdock has a very deep root which adds to the
challenge of the harvest.

Burdock root is a major crop for our farm with a high value return per acre and it is an important crop that contributes to the overall sustainability of our farm. We are one of just a handful of farms in the country that produce burdock. We do not include this vegetable in CSA boxes as we realize it has a limited following, but nonetheless there are many people who rely on this crop for medicinal purposes or as part of a traditional diet (it is more commonly eaten in countries such as Japan). If you’ve ever attempted to dig burdock root out of your yard, you’ll quickly realize the roots have the potential to go very deep. We utilize two of our most powerful 4-wheel drive tractors connected by a chain with a lifter on the second tractor to cut deep into the ground and loosen the dirt so a crew of our strongest men can pull the roots out of the ground. This is a very tiring task, so they pace themselves by trading off and taking some time to rest their backs. While it’s a challenging harvest, it’s also a very rewarding one. Burdock can be stored for up to one year. It is one of the few crops we can sell year-round, which means work for our crew in the winter and winter income.

Sunchoke roots are brought to the surface where they
are picked up by hand.

Ok, what else is on the list? Sunchokes! This crop employs yet another means of harvest with a different digger that brings the roots to the surface of the ground where they are picked up by hand and put into bins. One of the important parts of this harvest is selecting nice seed pieces for next year’s crop which needs to be planted yet this fall. The same is true for horseradish. We’ll dig the horseradish and put it into the cooler, then on frosty mornings the harvest crew will sort the horseradish roots and select pieces that are best for planting next year’s crop.

Sweet potatoes on their way to the
greenhouse for curing.

While we’re in the midst of harvesting, we can’t forget about some of the other things we need to get done. By the end of this week, we hope to have our garlic field planted for next year’s crop. We’ve already saved the best bulbs of garlic from this year’s crop to be replanted. Each bulb will need to be cracked to separate the individual cloves. It will take the crew several days to crack all the garlic, plant it, cover it and then mulch the field to insulate it for the winter. It’s crucial to plant the garlic at just the right time in the fall so it can send down roots and become established before winter.

In the midst of all the hustle and bustle, we can’t forget to harvest the brussels sprouts and tat soi for your boxes in November! We’ll still be harvesting spinach, bok choi, and several other greens for a few weeks as well. In just one short week the sweet potatoes will be cured and we’ll spend mornings in the toasty warm greenhouse where they will be washed.

We take each day as it comes hoping for dry weather to dig roots and hoping that the hard freeze holds off until the end of the month. Our crew members are starting to count down the days until they return to their homes in Mexico where their families and children anxiously await their return. As we near the end of the month, our focus will shift to yet another season as we head into winter. Plans for next year’s crops are already underway as we keep looking forward. After a little time to rest and rejuvenate, we’ll be ready to dive into another growing season!