A cherry, a spoon, some salad and sweet carrots

Ori is here from Washington State. Daniela is here from Guatemala. Kelvin is here from Kenya.

Ori arrived on a Tuesday, and then the next day we picked up Daniela and Kelvin at the airport. After making several round trips on the Terminal 1 speedway, we were off to face a veggie season. 4 strangers, 2 cities, one farm.

I asked if there was anything anyone needed to do or see in the city before we drove off past the suburbs.

Daniela chimed in, “My friend told me about a spoon and a cherry.”

How not? What better way to be introduced to the Twin Cities than a stop off at the Cherry Spoon?! What better way to start a season?

Cherry Spoon? Check!

It’s been 2 weeks and some change now. Since then we have been immersed in farm work, getting succession plantings in between hail storms, cleaning and prepping the harvest shed when the weather doesn’t allow field work, and erasing some of the remaining 2021 foibles (to make room for 2022’s, of course). Onions are in the ground, 3 successions of greens, 2 successions of carrots (though I think the first got too pummeled by those intense storms to make many carrots), summer beds are prepped for tomatoes, squash and peppers, MANY cover crops have been sown, and one porcupine has been chased out of the barn.

Each of the 3 on the crew have taken to the tractor work like ducks to water with perfectionism that I envy. “You don’t have to go straight for this task” I might say…and they all go damn near perfect straight anyway.

So, here we go 2022! We are 2 hail storms in and I can only assume that is the only the beginning of what Momma Nature has in store for us. Bring it. We are here for the battering as much as the pleasant sunny days. We’ll duke it out, all in the name of salads and sweet carrots. One more week and we’ll be at market…and it’s all go from there.