Season Finale

leaves beginning to turn, 1 week ago

The last of the Pase Tomatoes, who knew their

fishy scent could be so potent

Well, the season is wrapping up with little left to harvest. Today was our fellow friend and co-worker Brandon, Basil Killer Wiarda's last day on Riverbend. Ah, he will be missed. The following week another worker, John, will be seeing the last of the farm as well. From then on, there will be three, perhaps four. There is not much to do on the farm besides prep for next year and clean up. Yesterday four of us farmhands plus Greg picked up the squash in the fields, only to find a third of the fruit expected. Apparently, the squash blossoms didn't pollinate, which directly affected the yield of fruit. Not good in this case. Nevertheless, we still managed to fill two wagons full of winter squash. We hauled it from the fields back to the greenhouse where we dusted off the vegetable washer and put it to use for the first time this season. I wonder why we were never told of this earlier in the year...huh. Anyway, we ran through half the harvested squash into the washer. It was quite the job with three nozzles spraying water every which way. Everyone was soaked within the first 10/15 minutes. Tomorrow we will be finish cleaning and curing the squash for storage. Some squash like Blue Hubbard and Blue Kabocha will develop a better, sweeter flavor once stored for months on end. I will have to do a little more research as to why that it is, but for now, I will trust farmer Greg.

Until next time.....

Eat your veggies!