Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Farmville

No, not the one on Facebook.

I've spent a few hours at our CSA farm this past week. Saturday saw us heading out at 9:00 a.m. to put in a few hours. My parents, son, aunt and one of her friends came along for the fun.

Some of the pictures I snapped. I also dropped my phone multiple times in the dirt.

My son, also known as Toad-Boy and daughter, 24, held onto a cart of horse poop as it was driven up the hill.

You might wonder what horse poop has to do with garden work. Okay. That shouldn't be a stretch for your imagination. We all know what poop is for. This particular pile was mixed into the furrows that would become holes for asparagus plants.

How many plants? 400. Planting asparagus takes a little doing. First the furrow, then the horse poo, the mixing of the two together, a hole dug approx 18 inches apart to allow for asparagus growth.

Asparagus plants live for 15 years. The best producing years are seven and eight. Pretty amazing for something that looks so delicate. After the tiny plant is placed in the ground and tucked in, bags of autumn leaves were pulled out of the shed and leaf mulch was placed around the plants.

What you might not know about horse poop and the organic gardener. Organically certified horse poop is a rare bird indeed. Too many hoops to jump through. However, the poop can be used if the horse is fed a proper diet. And if the bedding is approved bedding. Cool that this poop came from a nearby farmer who feeds his animals grass and other natural foods and buys the wood chip horse bedding from another local guy who doesn't treat his wood with any chemicals. Win. Win. Win. And a minimal carbon footprint (or streak).

We picked the first snap peas of the season and took the newbies on a guided tour. Lots of fun. Except for the residual sunburn. The weather was perfect. And dinner of snap pea stir fry. Yummo!

Tuesday was a beastly hot day. I went a little later than usual so expected all the harvesting to be done for the day and that we'd get out of there a little earlier than usual. Uhhh. What's that saying about best laid plans? We harvested the final cutting of lettuces from the greenhouse and finished up at about 3:30. Then we had the washing, the weighing, the bagging, boxing and tagging. I finally had to leave at 5:00 and 24 had to leave at 5:30. Amazingly, the majority of work was almost finished when she left.

We brought home two kinds of peas, more lettuce, more swiss chard, dill, kale and beets. 24 had a chance to prune tomatoes, too. We are getting quite the education. And finding that anything we pick and eat is extra tasty knowing the work involved in getting it to our table.