Solstice, Salads, and Sleep

Every year at this time it is hard to sleep! There is so much daylight, so much work to do, and so many balls to juggle. David and I feel that managing this farm like juggling 5 balls while riding a bike. After spring planting is done around the Solstice, it is so much easier. Solstice always brings the Full Circle Festival to nearby Avondale. The first festival happened on our farm. That is when David and I (Jen) found a connection. Abundant Acres donated salad mix for the musicians this year and got a couple of tickets in return.

It is amazing what vegetables can bring… we trade vegetables for festival tickets, rawthentic chocolate, bread from La Vendéene, mushrooms, cheese, haddock, Ghanan goat curry from Mary, bar soap, sushi, and terrific greeting cards from Helen Painter. We also donate vegetables to people who need them and this brings even greater rewards.

On the farm we are loving the garlic scapes, and I can’t get enough salad, spinach, and dandelion greens. Soon I will turn green. The crew is settling in to their work and farm life. Farm lunches together are truly nourishing. Every week there is something new to learn, like backing up trailers, hilling potatoes, avoiding pests, or setting up and fixing irrigation. It has been a good week.

Happy little barefoot girl placed by the Barefoot Blooms bouquets.

Perfect weather for harvest: overcast

A new way to propagate and plant sweet potatoes. Hope it works for a commercial crop

Hyla found a red eft in her field, a juvenile newt. A great sign of ecosystem health.

Marisa hoeing beans.

Nadege smelling peonies from the garden. She used to live on the farm, and now, is married, expecting a baby, and moving into a farm down the road with her husband Bruce! Congratulations!

Dad and neighbour Hilary planting trees by the new pond. Hilary and Marshall are planting trees at their place too.

A bee mimicking a scarab, in the genus Lichanthe, according to paulisporin (an instagram helper). “Not a friend or a foe, just a neat bug to share your farm with.”