Sunday, June 21, 2015

Farming is about anticipation

Geez you plant seedlings in February, transplant in April and wait and wait and wait.  Now that it is late June the wait is over.

For the past month we and other farmers have had the same offerings.  Lettuce, swiss chard, some carrots.  Ahh but now we have tomatoes, well ahead of the curve and a new batch of Shitake's.  Today should be a big day and next week is our first Harvest Camp.

The snow days put a huge dent in our first week of summer camp.  The Frederick County school system added 3 1/2 days to the school year which effectively gutted our first week of camp at Mountainside.  That said, we had campers in the garden every day this past week and the interest level is just like last year.  The kids are truly eager to learn and now they can help pick the fruits and veggies off the vine.  So much fun.  50 years ago I would never have considered picking tomatoes to be something that was fun.  Now I do and so do my campers.  How times have changed.

What is equally amazing is just how good farmer Josh is.  Ok so I am attaching a picture of a not yet ripe tomato that looks more like a pumpkin.  I know the technique all fishermen use when taking a picture of their prize catch.  Hold out the fish well in front of you so that the size of the fish is distorted to look bigger than it is.  My hand is underneath the tomato so there is no exaggeration of the size of this baby.  I will have a follow up picture in a future blog when it is ripe.  Ok it is probably time to stop, I am revealing just how far off the deep end I have fallen when it comes to farming.  But it really is fun.


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