Two months in the life of a small vegetable farm.

A glorious summer sky, as seen through towering sunchoke flowers.

My crop of volunteer celosia. They are pretty, though they took over our whole lima bean planting.

I plant more mountain mint in the farmscape rows each year, and the beneficial insects love it.

A gorgeous volunteer cherry tomato in the eggplant. I don’t think these ever got harvested, so they will surely return next year.

This spider is dining on a stink bug! We could use a few more of these spiders!

Newly hatched from its chrysalis.

Our blueberry planting got a make-over.

And you can finally see the bushes!

The weeds got to be a bit much in the asparagus so I mowed down the whole patch. I’m sure this is not a great idea for management, but luckily they came back and they look great now: no weeds.

Hopefully the mid-summer mowing didn’t stunt them too much.

We moved the shiitake logs we inoculated this spring to a new site in the woods.

I think they like it there because they immediately started fruiting!

I have never seen so many mushrooms at once.

We planted three figs, after purchasing them in February. They sat in the potting house all summer while we kept putting off making a decision about where to plant them.

Gavin moved quite a few buckets full of rocks out of the far field.

He dumps them into the access to our creek.

There is a road on the other side of the creek here so we figured we’d keep it open.

Mixing amendments for the fall plantings: trace minerals and alfalfa meal. Every year we do soil tests on each field and Gavin calculates what nutrients and minerals are needed to keep the crops and the soil microbes happy. Healthy soil is the fundamental crop we are farming here.

The soil in the tunnel looks good, with worms, aggregates, and roots.

The creek field ready for fall crops.

And a few months later…

Fennel extravaganza.

A really magnificent fennel crop.

We just started harvesting the turmeric. I haven’t had a chance to get a photo of it after harvest yet but the tubers are pretty funky looking!

The ginger looks great this year.

My outdoor late tomatoes have done well also.

And we’ve finally fallen in love with the tomatillo. They make an incredible salsa, roasted with onions, chiles, and garlic and then blended. Stir in cilantro, salt, and lime and you’re in heaven.

Pulling out the cherry tomatoes is not my favorite job! But it’s time to let go of the summer crops.

And welcome some fall roots like these Misato Rose radishes.

Fall brassicas, shortly after planting.

Six weeks later, busting out of their row-covers.

Almost at harvest.

Broccoli!

After a nearly carrot-less spring and summer (due to losing all my carrot rows to the weeds), I made a pretty ambitious fall planting. Spent a full week hand-weeding it too, since we missed the opportunity to flame-weed. And now we are in the carrots big time!!!! There is perhaps nothing more delightful than pulling a perfect carrot from the soil.

Getting ready for winter in the tunnels.

We’re resting the garden field and it’s looking great with its new winter cover of rye and crimson clover.

The big field is in buckwheat and oats now, getting ready for next year’s spring planting. And the new fields (in the far left) are in rye and clover. Our harvest season is winding down, but we’re gearing up for many winter projects and looking toward the future. It’s been a great season!