Changes - Part 1 - Weeks - A

It is truly remarkable how dynamic a farm like Simpler Thyme is, how quickly things change and grow. I have been here for five and a half weeks now, and in that time have harvested and helped plant many different veggies and herbs. When I came here in mid-May, less than half the garden crops had been planted outside already: some brassicas (kale, broccoli, cauliflower, kohl rabi, brussel sprouts, mizuna, etc.), potatoes, peas, greens like lettuce, chard, and spinach, and root veggies like garlic, onions, and carrots; there were a decent number of unplanted raised beds at the time, as well as our three tractor-planted fields. In mid-May the hot-house was full of seedling flats/trays, and the cold-frame/hoop houses were yielding massive amount of lettuce, chard, arugula, mustards and other greens. As May ended and June ticked on by we put tomatoes, pepppers, eggplant, squashes/melons/cucumbers, brassicas, and some more peas and potatoes in the ground.What was in the ground when I first got here has of course grown up: in the past week I've harvested snow peas from plants that were mere inches tall when I came; kohl rabi hearts and beets that were tiny before; tat soi, mizuna, komatsuna and argula greens that were also puny when I got here.

The entire time I've been here we have been harvesting asparagus: I've seen how the stalks of the plant can grow way more than 6 inches on a hot sunny day and now more than an inch on cool, dark, wet days. Normally we harvest it every morning because if it is let go - if the plants are allowed to get tall, then the stalks get tough, the 'ferns' open up. A truly amazing and acute change to observe is to leave the patch on a Friday, not harvest on a Saturday morning or at all until a Sunday afternoon. Where usually it takes about two people hours to harvest the whole patch and fill two or three 11 quart baskets, that extra day and a half amounts to six or so baskets and significantly more time involved.

You can definitely tell that change is the name of the game when you get to see mid-season crop-rotation take place: there are two locales on the farm where sweet potatoes 'slips' were put in the ground Saturday that had crops in them earlier in the week: snaps peas, and leaf lettuce, which are pretty much done for the 'spring.'


What has been planted since Mid May?







And what about harvesting, what have we been selling and eating?