Wednesday, September 14, 2011

The FROST

So tonight is the first frost of the season. It came quite early, Sept. 14. Average for this region is beginning of October! A visitor this summer said to us 'may the frost come late enough so that you may reap the benefits of your labor, but soon enough so that you do not work yourselves too hard.' Well, I believe it's come a bit too soon!
We harvested in a frenzy today, picking all the crops that will not survive a light frost such as celery, eggplant, peppers, basil, cucumbers, tomatoes, melons and squash. The rest of the crops should be able to tolerate tonights frost. The tomatoes...now, they're another story! We decided to make a quick run up to Jordan's Seeds to get some Floating Row Cover to put over the remaining green tomatoes. This will give us an extra 5 degrees of protection, hopefully enough for tonight. The green tomatoes should have a good chance of ripening with the sun predicted for next week.
In other news, last Thursday we had over 30 Carleton Footbal volunteers! You should have seen the field before and after-they made a HUGE dent in the weeds. You may ask, why weed now? The answer is because we do not want the weed seed in the soil for next season. Pigweed, the most prevalent weed at the farm, can stay viable for 20 years! Also worth noting is we delivered our first batch of fresh produce to the public schools as part of the Farm to School federal program. We are excited to be able to deliver fresh, healthy produce to Northfields kids.
We recognize it has been too long since our last post. This is because we have been very busy out at the farm building the root cellar, harvesting the summers bounty, and continuing working on the greenhouse. We are sorry for keeping you in the dark!
Below are some recent pictures of life at the farm:

Melons for St. Olaf



The watermelon cracked in the field, we just had to eat it

Harvesting carrots

I'm not sure if the goats like the hat or Abby better

Black cherry tomatoes
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