Picking peas; Trellising tomatoes

10 Jun Picking peas; Trellising tomatoes

This week’s share sees the addition of beautiful pick-your-own sugar snap peas. The vines are loving all the steady rain and cool nights. The peas are prolific and sweet. This is the variety of pea where you eat both the pea and pod- no shelling required. I love them sauteed in a little butter with spring onions- just until tender and bright green.

6/10/14, share #2

Each year brings us new faces to the farm crew, and over the past 9 seasons we’ve had probably 50 or more employees pass through here in some capacity. There’s something special about this years group. The season is in full swing and we are hitting our stride. It truly feels like a team effort. Maybe we are becoming better managers, but this group also brings a level of enthusiasm, respect and commitment that really shines. Each and every one of them is doing amazing work on the farm, every day, for long hours. Hard, dirty, tiring, and rewarding work.

Tomatoes are being trellised, hundreds and thousands both in the greenhouse and in the field. The sweet potatoes, winter squash and second planting of watermelons and cantaloupes went into the ground over the past two weeks.

Trellising heirloom tomatoes in the greenhouse; planting sweet potato slips.

The weeds are officially growing, and fast, so we move en masse through sections of crops, weeding by hand around the vegetables, and using the cultivating tractor to weed the aisles. All the while we harvest, 5 out of 7 mornings a week, and fit in the field work in the afternoons. It’s a juggling act, but one we do out of a shared love for growing good food. And there is nothing more rewarding then seeing your smiling faces, your baskets loaded with fresh veggies headed for your kitchens and your stomachs.

Post and photos by Tricia Borneman, Blooming Glen farmer and co-owner.