Happy Fall!

By Nicole Sugerman

Okay, it’s not officially fall yet—but it sure does feel like it here on the farm. The students are back, in their second week of the school year- the energy is busy and exciting. All 500 of our winter squash are curing in the hoophouse, sealing up their cuts and getting sweeter so we can store them and give them out to you all throughout the fall. We are busily planting out our very last field crops- baby greens (mesculun, arugula, lettuce, and spinach), bok choy, lettuce heads, and radishes- and beginning to plant our kale and chard in the hoophouse, where it will (hopefully) be able to survive through the winter, using passive heat from the sun that is magnified and then trapped in a plastic structure.
The recent cool weather has been enjoyable for the crew, although it’s making our summer crops slow drastically in production. We have gone from harvesting 140 pounds of peppers in one day to harvesting 20! But fall favorites are here or just around the corner- enjoy the refreshing tang of our first radishes, and anticipate the near arrival of greens, bok choy, kohlrabi, and more. I appreciate my newfound interest in eating warm oatmeal in the mornings, a food previously unappetizing when the mornings were hot. We have started to wear our flannel, and it’s dark when we bike home on share pickup days.
We would like to welcome Simon to our full-time crew. Simon will be with us for the next five weeks as a fall intern. He is in Philadelphia for the fall, but lives in Germany, where he studies agriculture. Welcome, Simon!