May 23: It’s go time
We have come through May Long and the world is saying “it’s go time”. Everything is green and exploding from the spring rains and increasing sunshine. This week we have finally brought out some tomatoes and cucumbers to harden off and face the real world. Not to leave them entirely to their own devices, we did tuck them in under a frost blanket (to keep their little tomato-toes toasty) and will be getting them into the ground soon enough. Other updates: we planted beets, have kept on top of the weeds in the garlic beds and the restaurant orders have started to roll in! While it’s amazing to provide home cooks at the market with produce, it’s such a thrill to supply chefs in our town with ingredients and see what exciting ways they use them.
a note from Carlos
“As the restaurant orders come in, I am remembering what started my own journey with farming: being a chef myself, getting excited about the intrinsic flavour that good herbs and produce can bring to a dish.
In my kitchen, farming has made me even more focused on the ingredients and letting them shine. This past winter, I felt like I almost forgot what spinach tasted like, having to resort to big-box imported spinach to cook down and smother in dressing. Now, we have an abundance of field-fresh spinach and the most I do is wilt it and add some salt and pepper; it is an absolute pleasure to let the flavour stand on its own.
Other projects this week include getting our new fridge up and running, which led me to an interesting realization as I started to install weatherstripping on the fridge door. The field fridge has been about 90% done for a couple of months now, as I was putting off the last essential element. The only thing missing? Weather stripping. The only reason it was missing? I don’t know how to install weatherstripping. Granted, I have had a lot of other things to do but there’s also the nagging sense that not knowing how to do some thing leads one to automatically put it off….. maybe hoping it’ll go away? Or possibly even finish itself magically overnight?! Of course, none of that happened. Instead, I finally stopped thinking about how I don’t know how and have begun the task of learning to weatherstrip.
“Procrastination is a coping mechanism.”
If we haven’t said it in a while, if you are reading this, we really, really appreciate it. As a small farm business, it can be daunting to know how best to grow our customer base or how to strike the balance between business and community. We are so grateful for the great folks we have found ourselves amongst both at the market and on social media, and hope to be able to grow this online community, too. So if you’ve enjoyed any of our farm musings, maybe forward it to a friend? Tell them, “hey! here’s this scrappy little business that sells tasty greens and also sends a weekly little anecdote about life and farming!”. That would make our day. If you do share this with a friend (maybe get them to subscribe, too!) come tell us about it at the market and we’ll give you a little treat!
See you around,
the OKHP Crew