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.