Harvest day #2! We harvested Red Russian kale, carrots, beets, turnips, head lettuce, spinach, chives, dill and chocolate mint. This time, I showed the day’s harvest coordinator around and then got busy digging carrots. I was working with Chris and we started finding “best of bed” carrots that we saved aside. It was a fun but tedious process. Most of the carrots were the size of my index finger.

Kale harvest was fun. Monica showed us how to put your fingers around the crown of the plant and just push down and the outer branches just snap off. It looked easier than it worked for me.

This won the prize of prettiest of the day - Chive Flowers for a wholesale customer.

After harvest was completed, I helped package the mixed lettuces and the spinach. There were a lot of greens but the process EarthDance has developed is one of efficiency.

Matt pointed out that if you always stack your bags of greens in rows of 10, there is no need to recount. Sounds like a simple concept but applied across all of the separate of the harvest, packaging, storing, loading and selling, it makes a big difference. You learn to eyeball crates and know immediately how many packages you have just by the arrangement.

Every week, I forget how much I enjoy being outside for an entire day, learning about pests or plants or implements, working with different people that are quickly becoming good friends. Chris, in this picture is inspecting the herb spiral that we will be fixing is always sharing recipe tips with me. He encouraged me to try roasted tomatillo salsa (turned out great) and then using that salsa to make chicken enchiladas (another winner).

I opened up my gift from Rebecca and Scotty this morning as I’d been saving it so a time when I could savor it…and this morning, I did! Vegetable Literacy gets down to the botanical basics that the farm managers are explaining: Brassicas, Solonaceaes, etc. Now, I have the perfect book to explain these genus and species.

My first recipe to try from this book will be using the Apiaceae genus, making the Carrot Almond Cake with Ricotta Cream for our Master Mind meeting tomorrow!