and for what?

Ori, Kelvin and Daniela now have a month of farming under their belts, and one week of market. I think after one month I can say, I think they are going to make it. The first month might not be the most difficult, but it is the weirdest.

Before the markets start, this work can be a little…esoteric. That is to say, it remains very unclear, before actually showing up in the real with some veggies to sell, what we are really doing scratching around in the dirt out here. Some crops are ready but we don’t harvest anything from them, we just turn them back into the ground for worm food? We’ve planted succession after succession, with so many more to come, but they all just sit out there as babies (because it’s staying so unseasonable cool)? Are we just going to spend the whole summer driving tractors around in circles and scratching newly germinated weeds out of newly germinated carrots with cheap old kitchen knives just for the thrill of it…like all summer? We mow, we shape beds, we weed, we turn down cover crops, we plant more cover crops, we shovel endlessly, we move covers, we hoe. And for what?

In one strike, a weekend at the market gives us a for what.

I admit, even for myself, springtime before market is a little bit of a twilight zone. I appreciate the extra field days premarket season. It gives us a few extra days to actually get on top of things. But once we start heading to the city with our wares, setting up our vagabond pop up stores and selling leaves, things click.

It’s been unseasonable cool out there, feeling like autumn at times. But the sun is popping awake at about 5 and depending about 9, so it can’t possibly be. The crew has made it through the weird month, so I think they can handle anything that is to come. We’ll keep stretching at the dirt. It makes a little more sense now.