Our First Fall

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables.

We are so happy to be on the farm for our first autumn. It is as rewarding for the summers work as it is promising for the season to come.

It’s hard to recap what all came about this summer. We struggled in the spring to get the fields tilled due to rain and went into the earth with our sprouts at the end of May, very late. We weeded and pepper-sprayed and weeded again and everything grew mightily. Mid to end of July, we were rewarded with tomatillos and cucumbers, summer squash and zucchini. Not mention plum gorgeous sunflowers! It would take a few more weeks before the green tomatoes began to turn red and black beauty eggplants came into their own. We had stunning harvest and, because we did very little rotational planting, more than we could ever use for a period of about eight weeks. Thank heavens for the farmers markets and The Gleaners, our local food shelf.

The goal this summer was basically to learn: what will grow, what varmint we’ll attract, how are the orchard trees, etc, etc. And I said a dozen times, if I said once, we’ll be lucky to get a single tomato and one apple! Well, what we did, and still do, harvest makes us some super lucky gals!

The season is winding down now, our first two nights of frost, this past week. This first year, it is hard to see the field turn from color, abundance and beauty, to the dark shade of decay. It is, however, part of the process and I look forward to putting the field “to bed”. I swore I would not but could not help myself and we are hoop-housing our side house beds, so we’ll have produce all winter. So much for winter as a rest! That’s ok, what else would we do besides get ourselves into trouble.

During all of this farm learning and mayhem, the barn commercial kitchen was a step closer to completion each day through the untiring hard work and dogged determination of Chef Bess. That has required the internal rebuild, electrical, plumbing, septic, propane, hood/vent system, sheetrock, painting and comm grade kitchen walls, floor polishing, all followed by appliances and fixtures. As of now, the ansel system guy and the oven guy will be here tomorrow to set up the fire suppression system and then…we call to schedule an inspection. I don’t think either of us can believe we are finally at this point!

And so as we relish this autumn, we are looking forward to “small gardening” in our hoop houses, putting the field farm and the orchard “to bed” and firing up the ovens of Dancing Poly Catering. We are ready for holiday parties and truly can’t wait to cook for you!