Why my harvest camp is the best!

Though the title of this blog may seem a bit immodest I will attempt to justify the claim.

Firstly :(is that a word?) I have not 30 but 39 children signed up for harvest camp and added 3 campers who switched from the amazing general recreation camp here at Mountainside.  Unlike other camps most of the children are recipients of a scholarship or pay a nominal fee to attend.  Our parents have seen the value of what we are doing and have paid handsomely for their children to participate. Now if I can find a way to get scholarships for deserving kids for next year.

Secondly : I got Josh, or perhaps I have Josh, or I have Josh as an employee.  This is posted publicly and my Journalism teacher God rest her soul would haunt me with improper usage.  He really is amazing with food and with children.  Valinda, AJ, Sam and all the other counselors and JC's keep the kids engaged and moving.  Oh yeah (not proper English) and there is a ton of stuff to do and pick.

Thirdly : I mentioned Valinda but she gets a second prop (also not proper English) because she makes such wonderful food from that which the children just picked.  Those curly cue fries yesterday would beat the heck out of Thrashers at the beach.  The Salsa the day before would make any Mexican restaurant proud.

And the Kicker :  I have a pool within 100 feet of the greenhouse.  Yesterday felt like summer in DC. Low 90's, humid, little air movement, and the heat index close to 100 degrees.  As excited as the kids were to see the potatoes popping out to the ground they were good for 45 minutes tops.  Potato picking is fun and you are supposed to get really dirty.  However fumbling thru dusty mounds in searing heat was good for only one row of potatoes.  These campers started wilting in the sun like my petunias.  Solution,  a hop in the pool not once in the day but twice.  We split the campers into groups of cookers and pickers.  The first group went swimming minutes after picking and then they went a second time after cooking.  Wanna (not a real word) keep children excited about farming, give them a break and let them cool off.  All I could think of were kids learning about farming somewhere else that was equally hot.  With no pool, there would be far less enthusiasm and productivity sprinkled in with a little misery.  Even if you took the children to a local pool it would be a one shot deal and a lot of time lost.

Look, parents want their children to learn and have unique experiences in the summer months now a days. Playing with friends and making memories is no longer enough.  Of course "Harvest Camp" is appealing to them.  But they are working in an air conditioned office somewhere cool and comfortable and don't care if their kids are hot and miserable.  They are not out there sweating and dirty.  They do care about sunburn, but that is it. Our campers learn, eat extremely well, learn how to cook, make friends, get to swim and have fun all in the same day.

I challenge any other Harvest Camp to top that!!!!

Everything is coming in at once

Today Josh had me hook up the one plow blade on the back of my tractor and had me follow him the to potato field.  He told me to center the tractor right over a row and put the plow down, and drive.  Now this is actually my second year of farming and I am not a rookie anymore but I have never harvested potatoes before.  My question to Josh:  Won't the plow destroy the potatoes?  Answer: Rookie!  That is how you dig them up.  You could use this pitch fork thingy but that could destroy a lot more potatoes than the blade on  the back of a tractor and would take 10 times longer.

Because harvest camp is not until Monday we only did a sample digging on each of the 6 rows and evaluated the yield of each variety.  We have fingerlings, purple Peruvians, Yukon Gold, and a few others with the understanding that some varieties would out perform others.  The Purple Peruvians were the most disappointing, and the fingerlings are abundant.  We had three camper volunteers help pick thru each trough I dug with the intent to leave the bulk of the harvest for our Harvest campers next week.  It is easy to find volunteers and the three of them had so much fun.  Man are those kids going to be busy next week.

Cucumbers, peppers, sweet corn, potatoes, tomatoes, egg plant, onions are ripening as I write and we have to get everything out of the ground or off the vine as promptly as possible.  Valinda is at the ready to make the veggies delectable and of all the weeks to do harvest camp next week will be the best.

I am truly gratified that the farm and harvest camp is exceeding expectations but all I can think about is how to get underserved or impoverished children to benefit from this endeavor.  Next year I am going to work hard to find scholarships or grants to allow for 5 or more weeks of harvest camp with at least 2 of those weeks dedicated to deserving and disadvantaged children.  I will cut the overall tuition for those kids but I cannot afford to absorb the entire cost.  The way I am currently thinking is that $7500 per week would enable me to host 30 kids.  I provide the transportation, provide lunch and teach them that they never need to go hungry.

The farmers markets are going well but I think we will target Kensington, and Bethesda for next year.  Our farming associates at Linganore and Frederick farmers market tell us that is were the real profits are.

     

Apologies for no posts

Ok so much is going on and I haven't had a post in 4 weeks.  Not cool.  In fact we have concluded week 6 at camp and our last week of Harvest camp starts Monday.  35 campers are signed up and I won my bet with my son Joe that in at least 1 of the 3 weeks of Harvest camp we would enroll 30 campers. It is a bet he was happy to lose.

The corn is over 11 feet high.  I would like to say that I have never seen corn stalks this tall ever, but I have never lived so close to a corn field before.  Still I have never seen corn stalks this tall.  So much early summer rain and now abundant sunshine will truly make for a bumper harvest for the field corn.  We planted two varieties of sweet corn with one a 65 day variety and the other a 80 day.  There were supposed to be 6 rows of each surrounding my house and only three rows germinated.  No matter, we have so much corn to pick it will be a challenge to sell and eat all of it.

One of the true joys of summer is the smell of a corn field ripening.  There is a sweetness that fills the nostrils.  It only lasts for a couple of weeks but it is unmistakable.  Put that crop within 20 feet of your bedroom window and I savor enjoy every inhalation.

One of the other oddities with the corn crop is that the view of my camp from my patio has disappeared.  Three weeks ago I noticed that I could barely see the soccer field.  Then the baseball fields fell out of view.  Now I can only see the top of my son Drew's house.  We are completely enclosed and will be until October.  Last year, our first year in the house we had soy beans.  I feared that corn could cost me the view and it certainly has, but at least I am not claustrophobic.

So this post will be about the corn and I have another coming about everything else that is growing.