Yesterday, we were concerned about nighttime temperatures that were predicted to fall into the teens. We decided to go ahead and harvest the leeks, collards and kale that we’ll distribute at the second Winter CSA pick-up.
At around 3:45 pm, as the sun dropped low in the sky, the leeks began to freeze in our hands as we were peeling and topping them. We quickly finished the work and hurried in to the wash station to spray, dunk and pack them. We had previously harvested the kale, and it was floating in large basins of water. Pulling the kale out of the dunk tanks to make way for the leeks further stupefied our already numb hands. When we went to spray the leeks, we found that the hoses had partially frozen. We had to run the water for several minutes to clear the ice. As we finally loaded the truck with the leeks and kale for transport to the root cellar, the wash water on the ground was freezing and we were slipping around. The whole business was painful and fun at the same time.
And now the root cellar is comically over-full. We had to put the last crates right at the bottom of the stairs, and so now there’s no going into the root cellar unless you’re taking something out. And this space crunch comes even though we stored about 3,000 pounds of veggies in bulk bins in the green barn basement. So, it was a bountiful year, and we also grew more crops with the goal of filling the new, larger root cellar. But because of construction delays on that project, we’ve been getting creative with storing the extras.
This will be the last crops update until the spring. We have much to do in the coming weeks:
- Finish the roots harvest
- Mulch the strawberries
- Take soil samples
- Write the crop plan for next season
- Order seeds and materials
- Clean barns, equipment, and vehicles
- Inventory and order supplies
- Run winter CSA distributions
- Seed and harvest greens for the greens share
- Hire a team for next season
and, of course, take some time off!
-Matt Celona is the Crops Manager at Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary