Greetings, Beausol locavores:
Today I had the opportunity to work and sweat with a great group of about 30 young folks (and a few "old folks") at an event called the Crop Mob.They have a website: cropmob.org if you are interested in their story.This is an inspiring group of young people who are farming, working on farms, considering farming, or want to connect to the land. Most of them are new farmers just starting up or interns/apprentices at existing farms.
The Crop Mob, numbering as many as 50, descends upon a farm and performs probably a week's worth of work in about four hours... and then are fed for their efforts. The idea, in addition to helping
farmers - new and established - with big projects and for the participants to get exposure to some aspects of agriculture they might not ordinarily be permitted, is to build a community and work towards a better future for us all.
Today, we hand dug in some buckwheat cover crop on a half dozen beds, added compost and mulched them for some young start-up farmers at the Orange County Breeze Farm Incubator. They are now set to plant their fall crops much sooner than had they done it alone.Beausol Gardens will host the next Crop Mob at the end of September. Among other things, they will be helping us plant strawberries and garlic.
This week we planted much of our winter crops.... and some were up in four days with the help of about three-quarters inch of rain. As I write this it is raining again.... maybe the rest of the winter seeds will join them.
The pileated woodpeckers are getting frisky, I think. One morning a pair played tag around tree after tree while at least one other called from another part of the forest. The hummingbirds must be fattening
up for the trek south. We are seeing them with increasing frequency and they seem to be increasingly territorial about the flower beds. The chickadees are bolder at the bird feeder.
I found a baby box turtle in a flower bed today. The girls were typically, "Oh, it's so cute."
The peppers are SO happy! I hope you are as happy that they are happy as I am happy they are happy. We should have lots of peppers until frost. The eggplants seem to be sulking a bit as are the squash. The okra is becoming smug about being prolific. It is time to poke around under the sweet potato vines. I'll let you know what I find out next week. The cucumbers are starting to fail, despite all our efforts to keep them healthy.... another insult to them is the early arrival of what looks to be pickle worms. Drat! I am however, glad to have had what we did get from them this year.
Well it's late, I'm tired from working on TWO farms today, so I'll say good-bye for now. This week's shares should have lots of peppers (of course), eggplant, okra, tomatoes (mostly cherries), basil and other herbs. The bouquets should have combinations of zinnias, asters, gomphrena, ornamental grasses, celosia, golden rod, and maybe a couple of other late summer bloomers.
See you soon,
Harry
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