Wrappin er up

The weekend prior to Thanksgiving gave us an unusually cold spell that really put a damper on the end of our season. We recorded a low temprature of 9 degrees and had wind gusts as high as 50 mph. Not the most favorable conditions for surving if you're a broccoli plant. All of our beautiful salad greens perished as well as all of our remaining rootcrops. Fall sown fava beans... gone. Beautiful rainbow chard... toast. Interestingly many things did survive. Crops that were still quite small made it through OK. Chervil, cilantro, parsley, spinach, lettuce all made it with minimal damage. Most of the kale came through OK. some varieties proved to be more hardy than others. The most hardy being White Russian and Dwarf Siberian. The least hardy being Fizz, Lacinato and Red Russian. The're alive but will take some time to recover. Over-winter sprouting broccoli came through without a blemish and most of the cabbage looks OK.

So although it's a bummer, you have to remind yourself that these kind of things can and do happen. We had had a very mild fall and we mostly capitalized on that. It's a learning experience. The only thing I would have done over is simply to have harvested more before the storm hit. Oh well, Easier said than done. At this point it's "there's always next year"

We will be harvesting some kale today and we have a few hundred pounds of french fingerling potatoes in storage. Not too bad but there's always the feeling in the back of your mind that you could have done better. And that's exactly what I think about this time of year. What can we do next year to make it better? When your doing this you have to recognize and live up to your short comings and weakness. Not always the easiest thing to do but an exorcise well worth the time. We all like to think that just because we did it, it's great. So not true, unless you're a tunnel visioned narccisist. There's always room for improvement.

The only thing with this is to not beat yourself up so bad that you go into a state of depression. Which is hard anyway when you go from having a busy harvest/work schedule to being cooped up inside for a few days watching all of you hard work die in the wind. It's good to remind yourself of all of the things you done that did work. Look back on your success and all that you have to be thankful for (which is alot). Healthy, happy, in love and surronded by general awesomeness. It's all good baby.

Keep well friends,

Farmer John