First Harvest of 2010

(Backpost 2 for Friday, May-7-10) It’s nearly 2:30 Saturday morning (that’s right folks, 2:30am) and we are finally packed up and ready to crawl into bed! Only 5 hours until the market opens at 8:00 and 3 hours before we hit the road. We started picking around 6:00 this evening and due to the fact that a minimum of crops are ready this time of year we anticipated the harvest moving more quickly. This turned out to be a huge mistake! Despite the actual harvest taking 3-4 hours, we have spent the last four hours washing, bagging, and bunching. On a brighter note, the weather conditions outside turned out to be ideal. The wind has remained strong but we have officially escaped the possibility of rain and although quite unseasonal, the temperatures have dropped into the low 40’s… almost better than keeping everything in a walk in refrigerator and perfect for preserving the produce.

[Pictured Left] A while back I was able to purchase twenty something milk crates for only fifty cents apiece at the local Catholic Charities. I thought they might come in handy for something, and they did. As it turns out they make exceptional picking baskets. They also sped along the rinsing because the spinach, which just needs a quick dunk in cool water, got dunked while still in the milk crate which of course drains beautifully. Since we picked six milk crates worth of spinach, approximately 9 lbs, I imagine that this saved us an extra hour of rinse time. Now if we could just develop a more efficient system for cleaning and bunching the radishes and onions, after all I do like my sleep!

Harvest Totals – Week 1
Spinach – 9 lbs.
Green Onions – 150ct.
French Breakfast Radishes – 126ct.
Purple Radishes – 48ct.
Turnip Greens – 6 lbs.
Baby Turnips – 3 lbs.
Cilantro – 18 bunches



[Pictured Below] The French Breakfast Radishes and Green Onions have been rinsed, cleaned, bunched and are ready for market!