Posts Tagged ‘timing’

Finding Balance

Here we are, in the thick of the growing season, and we’ll be missing the farmers market today.  A ‘perfect storm’ of busy season at the day jobs, lots of farm work, and variable weather have created a situation where we don’t really have enough produce (at harvestable size) to make attending the market this week as worthwhile as catching up on things here.

The alternating foggy and sunny weather have meant that it’s been difficult to properly predict when our produce (mainly leafy greens) will be ready to harvest.  Some weeks, strong sun has made crops (think lettuce and spinach) - planted a week apart – ready for harvest on the same day.  That means a big market load for the week, but likely a lighter one for the next week.  And if that happens to coincide with a time that we were too busy to seed or transplant on schedule about four weeks prior - then we end up with a very sparse week, like this one.

We are also trying to balance how much we plant, to ensure we can properly care for, then harvest, clean (and bunch) everything in time.  We have been able to bring more to each market this year than last year, but that additional income has a price: time.  Lots of time.  At this point, between our regular jobs and the farm business, we are working 11-13 hours every day.

We did finally make it a priority to take some time to relax a bit over the last few weeks: we took a day trip to visit friends in a town a couple of hours away; Matt went fishing; and I reconnected with friends I’d lost contact with.

Now we’re taking a deep breath, ready to plunge into the second half of the frenetic market season.

Go Time!

Tomatoes Meet an Early End