That Rain, those Leeks

Reveries

Jun 9

Friday's deluge coupled with Saturday's gray and steady afternoon rainfall accumulated to 1" at the farm. A perfectly poetic way to punctuate our week's end (and if I may speak candidly, the most cathartic of the season thus far). And an eventful week it was - starting on Monday when many of our chef friends came to visit and do a walkabout through the active gardens. We had such a pleasant time sharing the space with you, chatting, fielding questions, cracking jokes, talking farm systems, etc - it was great to see you all, thanks for coming, let's do it again! The week then launched into CSA Week 1 distribution (!) and then that forty-eight-hour-furnace-bubble we were all stuck in Wednesday-Thursday. Ugh! That was a tough and humbling stretch, but good training for summer-life: adjusting the alarm, more precision and faster-hands on the morning harvest and pack-out, strategic row cover decisions, heightened radar on the propagation tunnel and our seedlings, farmer-hydration, etc.

After the furnace bubble burst, weary but not broken (farmers), the humidity hung heavy on our field work on Friday. Leeks. Our most tedious crop from seed to harvest, but a staple in our plan. This year, we doubled production and seeded 10,000 on March 18th. Leeks are very slow growing, and this is the latest we've ever planted them in the field. A mostly-deliberate decision after we hurried planting last spring, and much of the crop was swallowed by the tenacious grass. Anyway, on Friday morning we ferried the truck bed's worth of leek seedlings to our new plot, got to the freshly-made garden beds and separated the clumps-of-three into single-leeks, careful not to disturb their roots too much, and there, one-by-one, down long-long, long long long rows, we spirited the two-month old plants into measured holes - their new home in the garden...one...by...one...all day... ("Uhhh is this pretty much all we're gonna do today? Bunchafuckin'bullshit"). We dry planted this crop anticipating the storm, and I spoke of catharsis above, and indeed after an all-day, all-farmer planting, and in the wake of that heatwave, we got all the leeks in and were gifted with the storm. And what a storm it was! Hands in air like Andy Dufresne escaping Shawshank, or like Evey in V for Vendetta...that rain, those leeks...

Anyway, just wanted to also say thank you all for coming to see us through that hot stretch in both Dover and Exeter. We appreciate all you folk trudging through the elements to support us and the other amazing vendors at the markets. We hope you enjoyed our offerings! With all that heat followed by rain, the garden is bursting with new offerings and flavor!