End Of August Already?!

Jeff with son Henry aka Tomato Monster.
Jeff has to actually stop him from eating tomatoes!

My last post was about my amazement that it was the end of July....and now a month later and it's the end of August!  Again, I seriously can not believe how quickly time has passed.  The heat has returned this week which actually has felt nice, tomorrow supposed to be reaching 91 degrees.  I feel like this summer has been unusually cool, but as my boss says, each year for the past decade the weather has been unusual.  We have lucked out in not having to work in too many super hot, sweltering days.  Some crops have enjoyed the cooler weather, such as lettuce which does not grow well in the heat.  While other crops have taken longer to mature, such as okra which thrives in the intense heat of summer.  I thrive in the Autumn air but I just feel like the end of summer is coming too soon.  I saw pumpkin beer in the grocery store the other day.  Even though it's my favorite beer and I look forward to it every year, I can not bring myself to buy a 6 pack (or case...) until at least September, if not October.  It just doesn't feel right.  Like so many other things in our society and world, we are on the fast track to go out with the old and in with the new.  Even though the days, weeks, and months have been flying by, farming is allowing me to see, feel, and witness the passing of the seasons so in a way, time is irrelevant.  With only three more months left of the farming season (and 87 days until our wedding!), I am challenging myself to slow down a bit, enjoy the passing of the clouds, watch a bird fly by, and be in the present moment.  And hopefully I'll find the time to write another post before the end of another month!

This is a parasitized hornworm!  The hornworm is bad for tomatoes because they chew right through them.  So we released specialized wasps to lay their eggs in the hornworm which will then hatch, eventually eating the hornworm alive.  Gross and awesome at the same time!

Truck bed full of weeds and a tired, happy crew!

Garlic hung in the farm shop to dry.

Jeff writes a newsletter about once a month.  This one is hot off the press and everyone is just so intrigued but his amazing wordsmanship.  That's a great new word, I'll tell him to incorporate it into his September newletter.

The excitement!

Astonishing!

I actually made it to not one, but TWO, Wednesday night beach concerts at Sandy Hook!  I grew up going to the beach concert every Wednesday and now it's fun to be there with my nieces.

Oh cherry tomatoes, how I love thee.

Cantaloupe!  If you ate one of our cantaloupe, you would never bother wasting your money purchasing one at a grocery store.  I wish I could give you a taste through the computer, but that hasn't been invented yet.

Fellow apprentice Nicole and workshare Kristin taking the garlic down from the rafters.

Oh, just a farmer doing farmer things in a farmer way.

Farmer fashion.

Taylor showing off our amazing pepper crop!

End of July Already?!

2014 is flying by!  It's already August!  Where does the time go?  Farming is interesting because the days seem longer but go by in a blink of an eye.  I know it doesn't make sense but that's how it feels.  My alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m., we start farming at 7:00 a.m., lunch at noon, and then we are done around 5:15 p.m.  Twelve hours gone.  The days fade together as the week moves forward and before I know it, Sunday arrives and I get to sleep in!  (Sleep in meaning hopefully I don't open my eyes until 6:00 a.m.!)  Often after work, I have little energy left for anything else.  My boss works even longer days than us apprentices and has two young kids.  I really do not know how he does it (besides a lot of coffee and jumping up & down to energize himself!).  My intention was to write a new blog post each week focused on how my week was, a bit nutrition info about the crops that we are harvesting, and a recipe or two.  Well, that hasn't happened obviously but maybe in the winter I can sit down and write more eloquently about my experience this year!

I am in shock that I have been a full time farmer now for five months.  We have four more to go and I'm looking forward to seeing how the summer fades into autumn, what new crops we harvest, what new challenges lay ahead, and what knew lessons will be learned.  And as if I'm not busy enough as it is with this whole farming thing, Matthew & I have decided to get married this year!

November 22, 2014

Why wait?  So on top of my busy farming schedule, now I have a busy wedding planning schedule.  People are asking me "Did you choose your colors?  What's the countdown?  How is dress shopping going?"  OK, so the answer is, "I don't know" to all of those.  I've never planned a wedding before and was unaware of needing to do all of those things.  Well, at least I downloaded a countdown app on my computer.  114 days until we say "I Do!" which means 113 days to get a lot of stuff done!  Here's to keeping busy with farming, being in love, and planning one of the greatest days of our lives together.  

Caught in the rain and sopping wet!

I didn't know sopping was an actual word, I thought it was just slang, but google defines it as 

"saturated with liquid, wet through."  Yup, I chose the correct word to describe this picture!

You know what they say "You ain't a farmer until you've been caught in the rain."

Oh, that isn't a saying?  Well now it is!

Garlic harvest!  Amongst the millions of weeds, there is 

garlic in there and we are going to get every last one!

Team Garlic 2014

Pizza lunch break!

Loading the wagon with our garlic bounty!

Farmer Jeff gives two thumbs up for garlic (his other thumb was busy steering the tractor!)

When it comes to eating, I think there can never be too much garlic!  

Thankfully, Matthew feels the same!

 Garlic! Garlic! Garlic!

We are the garlic champions of the world!

Head of cabbage

Canning pickles!  I brought home a 5 gallon bucket full of pickling cucumbers which 

weighs 20 pounds and we made 22 quarts of pickles!  We thankfully bought this outdoor 

burner to connect to a propane tank so that we can do our canning outside when it is nice out!  

Plus that canning pot weights a lot of with water & 7 quart jars full of cucumbers so this burner 

is able to withstand the heat needed and the weight.

Our set up.

 End product.  Yummy yummy yummy!

When Things Go Wrong, Take A Picture

Jeff says when things go wrong, you should take a picture to distract yourself from the frustration and hope to find humor in it later.  Last week, our only work truck was in the shop so Jeff was using his personal truck on the farm.  We had a trailer loaded with crops hitched to his red pick-up truck on our way out to a field when....Jeff ran over a brick which resulted in a flat tire.  It was a hot afternoon, we needed to get those seedlings planted, and there we were with  only three working tires.  So, despite our frustration and sense of urgency, I took out my camera and snapped this shot.  I'm not sure it helped and I'm still not finding the humor in the picture.  But it is a practice of dealing with the hand you are dealt.  Taylor drove by on his tractor, which thankfully we can hitch the trailer to, and off we went to plant.  Working on a farm, many things go wrong.  A field gets overtaken by weeds, seeds do not germinate, a deer munches its way along a lettuce bed, a tire goes flat, insects invade a field, farming must go on.  When I was climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, our guide kept saying to us "attitude, not altitude."  And that applies to farming as well.  Not so much altitude considering central NJ is essentially at sea level, but attitude goes a long way whether climbing a mountain in Africa or weeding a bed of strawberries with weeds so high you have to search for the strawberry plant.  When the tire went flat, Jeff was not happy about it, but his attitude of accepting the situation and figuring out a solution kept us all going.  We have had several days of working in 90+ degrees, and again, attitude is important.  Do we complain that we are so hot or embrace the heat and appreciate it's warmth?  Thankfully, all of us on the farm are embracers.  Is that a word?  We embrace the situation for what it is and continue working.  I was fortunate enough to have lived outside for the better part of five years and during that time, I endured heat, cold, wind, rain, lava flows, hurricanes, etc.  And each display of Mother Nature's power was a lesson in making the best of any situation.  I carry that with me on the farm each day and am grateful for whatever may come.                      

This to-go food container is full Pediobius foveolatus, 

a tiny parasitic wasp that will help control one of the insect pest which eats our beans.

Dr. Mayer from the State of New Jersey Department of Agriculture released thousands of these parasites in our bean field to help reduce the population of the Mexican bean beetle.  The female parasitic wasp will lay her eggs inside of the Mexican bean beetle larva.  The eggs will hatch and eat their way out of the larva, killing it.  Creepy and cool at the same time!  The two picture below show you the Mexican bean beetle larva with the damage it causes to the bean foliage and a Mexican bean beetle adult.  Their cousin, the ladybug, is a beneficial insect which eats garden pests.

I really do not like killing any living creature but working on the farm, it is something I have had to overcome.  As Jeff says, which is more humane?  Killing individuals with our fingers or spraying a whole field with pesticides killing all of the insects and poisoning the earth?

Happy piggies!  They are getting so big!

We increased the pig pasture.  You can see where the fence stopped them from rooting.  

Now they have more room to roam and root!

Farmer Jeff with our first carrots of the year!

Throwing buckets in the squash field that we will use to harvest  about 800 pounds of zukes and cukes!

Beautiful carrot display.  Carrot greens make an amazing pesto.  Try this recipe for a ridiculous grilled cheese with roasted carrots and carrot pesto.  I do not eat cheese so replaced it with a veggie burger and it was out of this world!

We keep our veggies safe by not using harmful chemicals on them 

and also buckling up, because it's the law!

About 10% of our food is sold wholesale to an amazing organization called Zone 7 whose mission is to "strengthen the local and regional food chain by enabling restaurants, grocers, and institutions to but from and support small and medium-sized sustainable farms.  Zone 7's role is the act as a direct link between farmers and chefs" creating a "new and dependable outlet for farmers and offer a consistent and reliable source of locally grown products to chefs and grocers."

Check out their website and find out where to eat local.

Mid 90's!  Yikes!

Another amazing organization we have the privilege of working with is "Farmers Against Hunger."  They travel throughout the state to pick up farms extra produce 

and drop it off to food banks.  How great is that?!

Planting lettuce in 90 degree heat and yet we are still smiling!

Row-ga: Doing yoga in the rows between crops.  It's the newest trend.  

Ok, well maybe not but it just might catch on one day!

'merica.  Farming on the 4th of July.

We have a lot of zukes and cukes.  Holy moly. 

 Try this recipe to make vegan zucchini "crab" cakes.  They are delicious!

Yes!

Well, I am about three weeks behind with blogging but a lot has been going on.  First of all, now that we are in full swing with harvesting food for 375 families, our days are even busier!  Our mornings start promptly at 7:00 a.m. which means I usually wake up between 5:00-5:30 a.m. to get ready for our long day.  Jeff says "The harvest truck waits for no one!" which means our boots better be strapped, our bladders emptied, and our sunblock applied by 6:59 a.m. so that we can go-go-go until our hour lunch break around noon.  Then we start back up promptly at 1:00 p.m. until about 5:00-6:00 p.m. depending on how the day turns out.  We work about 55 hours Monday-Saturday with only Sunday off but that's what needs to happen to get everything done.  Our week begins with a check list of 100 things and we end our week with an even longer check list!  Farming is squishing 12 months of work into 8 1/2 months.  Four months in, I am feeling a bit fatigued but still loving being a farmer!  So, despite being hungry, tired, and dirty all the time, I am still happy!  A woman with a newborn said to me "Wow!  You sound like a new mom!"  Except, I probably get a bit more sleep.

Here are some fun pictures of the past three weeks:

Shoveling between the rows of carrots with my International 274 tractor 

to kill weeds and provide air flow to the growing plants.

Underneath view.

Beautiful foggy morning on the farm.

A crop that I had never heard of, this purple beauty is a kohlrabi.  A member of the cabbage family, there are endless ways to prepare and eat this softball sized vegetable.  From peeling it and eating it raw, to making coleslaw, to boiling & mashing like a potato, click here for even more recipes!  

Oh, and the leaves are edible too!  

Jeff slacking off and taking a nap in between two beds of crops.

Harvesting Chinese cabbage.

June is strawberry month!

Beautiful radishes!

You know what they say, when life hands you slugs that have 

crawled into your boots and left slime trails all over then....

Oh wait, is that not a saying? 

Monday, June 9th was my and Matthew's four year anniversary of being together.  

We couldn't celebrate that day so he took Friday the 13th off to celebrate/farm with me!  

Aren't we adorable in our matching Carhartt rain coveralls?

Well, little did I know, he had grander plans than just farming.  While Matt and I were washing the harvest at the farm shop, my boss Jeff came out of the woods saying that he had heard an owl out there while he was taking a leak.  My co-worker Taylor said he had seen an owl just two weeks prior but I never had the chance to go look for it.  So knowing that Matt and I are birders, Jeff told us to go out there to find the owl.  I protested, saying that we can work until lunch time since it was just twenty more minutes.  Jeff insisted so Matt & I went out into the woods searching.  After walking for a few minutes on the beautiful trails that navigate the border of the farm perimeter, I was about to tell Matt that we should head back to finish up washing the vegetables.  He disappeared around a corner, making me frustrated but needing to follow him.  Every minute of work on the farm counts so I was feeling anxious and guilty about not working!  I finally caught up to my bearded birder and he pointed to a tree saying "I think I saw something in that hole.  Check it out."  I lifted my binoculars and didn't see a thing and was about to turn around to head back.  Matt said "What does that sign say below the hole?"  Again, frustrated and feeling anxious about time, I tried handing him the binoculars so he could see but he insisted that I look.  Begrudgingly I lifted my binoculars to a sign that said "Will You Marry Me?"  It took me a few moments to realize that the sign was for me with the most important question of my life!  I took the binoculars away from my eyes to find Matthew on bended knee, unwrapping a leaf and holding up a ring that my Poppy had given my Nanny years ago.  "Kristin Theresa Ward," he said, "Will you marry me?"  To which I responded the only way possible "Of course!"  So if that is not the greatest proposal story, then I don't know what is!  So not only do I have the privilege of marrying the greatest guy eve I get to wear a ring that my Nanny had worn for years.  But I really can not wear a nice ring while farming, which Matt thought of, so he made me a wooden ring for everyday wearing!

Here are some fun pictures of us emerging from the woods to my awaiting co-workers:   

Compost confetti!

Celebratory hug from my boss Jeff who had known about Matt's plan and helped make it happen.

The beautiful sign made by Matt and his sister Kate.  Notice the long ladder behind us that Matt used to climb up the tree and the hammer he used to nail the sign into the tree.  The tree was dead so he didn't feel bad about putting a hole in it.

All smiles :o)

That weekend, we went camping at High Point State Park to celebrate our years together so far and our years to look forward to spending together in the future.  We are so lucky in love <3

To see more pictures of the engagement and our camping weekend, check out Matt's photo website under the album title "HockWard Engagement 2014."  

My youngest niece Aria visiting the farm with her adorable curly hair that she got from me!

Toad butt.  Moving him or her out of the way so I don't run it over with my tractor!

Happy as a pig in mud.

Sometimes when it's raining and the pig pasture is really muddy, you slip and fall in pig shit.  But Julie makes it look classy with a thumbs up and smile on her face!

Nothing a hose, washing machine, and shower can't fix!

  

Taylor and I singing at the Solstice Potluck.

There you have it folks!  Our veggies are growing, I'm engaged, and it's summer!  Let the fun and celebration continue!  Enjoy this wonderful weather and I'll try to keep up with blogging...but no promises.  I have a DIY wedding to plan!