Yowza what a storm we had Wednesday! It came at us fast, hit fast, and thankfully left fast. But the cleanup from it was anything but fast. We spent all morning Thursday righting the blown down field heirloom tomatoes. Fortunately we had plenty of experience having had to stand the cherries back up twice now (they actually stayed up thanks to the double extra reinforcements after the last storm), but it still took all morning this time because we had to first remove the bird netting that was keeping the crows at bay. It didn’t help that the tomato plants got so big that they started growing through the netting and were all tangled up in it.
It was quite the effort but we got them standing again, and fortunately they survived the frost scare that night. I would have been doubly-pissed if the frost took them after all that! Regardless, with them standing up again I was able to pick a bazillion tomatoes off of them. I swear off just one plant I picked 6 of those big Gold Medal tomatoes, which all weighed at least a pound each. I’m not sure why mid-October is the height of tomato season up here on the hill, but I’m not complaining!
We also had some damage on the animal front. Both coops got picked up by the wind and thrown 30 feet or so. The coops survived, but they came down on a few chickens. We now have 4 gimpy chickens that I’ll probably have to re-home because of broken toes and legs that were stuck under the coop. Honestly I can’t believe all survived!
Other than that, we just have a few trees down here and there. The farmers market didn’t fare as well. A few vendors lost tents in the last half hour of the last day of the market 🙁 I saw the storm moving in from the top of the hill and alerted everyone I could to get off the common, but it was moving way too fast and not everyone got packed up in time. If it had hit just 30 minutes later, everyone would have already been packing up. But at least there weren’t any injuries.
This week it seems was one step forward, two steps back – the planned compost spreading and greens planting in the tunnel keep getting pushed back till “tomorrow”, though we did finally plant some kale in the tunnel on Friday. It’s certainly later than I would have liked, but fingers crossed we’ll be picking kale from the comfort of the cool, windless tunnel instead of the frigid outdoors with that wicked biting northwest wind around Thanksgiving time!
Veggie Ordering and Pickup Procedures: Put your veggie orders in online before 8pm Sunday. The website is a little buggy so if you don’t see a wide variety of items or you see items out of stock, try refreshing your browser. Also confirm on checkout that you have the correct number of each item in your cart. The two pickup windows are working well, so we’ll keep it going. Choose your pickup window while checking out online: 1230-2pm and 4-5pm Monday on the farm at 64 Potter Hill Rd in Grafton. Pickups are in the long white garage on the left across from the beat up tan and red barn at the crest of the hill.