Just One Lap To Go

Yesterday as we moved the sweet potatoes one more time, getting them out of the greenhouse before the temperature outside got into the 20s, I had the feeling that we were rounding some bases, running some final laps, getting really close to the end. Those sweet potatoes had been out of the ground for about a month, they had been moved from the field to the greenhouse for curing and then they had to be sorted and moved again to a safe, warm space for storing.  It is hard to describe the volume of sweet potatoes we have moved in the last month.  Eight tons is how much weight, 650 baskets is how much volume.  They grow underground, of course, so they were coated with mud this year.  In addition to the weight of the potatoes, we were hauling many pounds of mud around.



This week has been full of those last big pushes.  Even though it is November and we tend to start late and end so much earlier than even a month ago, the tasks are chunky.  We had to wait for another round of rain to go by so we could finish mulching all the garlic.  In fact, it doesn't take very long to mulch ten beds of garlic, or about 1/3 of an acre.  It takes six people who are moving right along about two hours to unload the bales and spread them all out -- especially if we get Michael to help. He mulches about three times as fast as a normal person.



But we had so many other things to do on that day that we had to forcefully schedule a mulching date for 4 PM. And everyone had to leave what they were doing (picking for the weekend) and come to the field from all over the farm and switch gears so we could finish that task.

On both farms, we checked off tasks for the last time all week long.  Yesterday, before the next rain came, the crews dragged sandbags and row cover out, putting flimsy white material over acres of radishes and tatsoi and lettuce, keeping the leaves from the harshest frosts and keeping the ground below from freezing hard.  Personally I really dislike that task and I am fortunately old and gimpy enough to be able to assign myself other reasonably important things to do. By the time it started to rain really hard, the crops were covered (and today it is so windy that in half an hour Carrie and I have to go out and try again to secure the flapping, whipping row cover for the night).

We have one more market weekend to go, one more CSA week to go.  Then we pause and celebrate, have some meetings, switch gears again and start the winter season.  We can see the finish line.  There are carrots to pull, the last potatoes to scrabble out of the ground, parsnips to finally dig after six months of slow growing, and one more round of leafy greens to collect up.  All of these farm rituals are so cyclical and timeless.  And we know it is time to start hibernating because it is finally too cold to have any fun out there.  It's muddy and windy and slippery and frigid.  Time to sprint to the end.