#sun_mountain_farm_club — Public Fediverse posts

Garlic planting means the season is over.
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My task list, after cherry tomatoes, and the wash station / packing area.
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Harvested cherry tomatoes this morning, my usual first task on Mondays. Hard to spot ripe ones with the sun rising in the East. I guess we have another week or two?
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Taking the last of the cucumbers at Good Steward Farm before clearing the bed.
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Spent the morning taking all of the tomatoes - cherry and heirloom slicers - then pulling kale and squash plants to make way for new plantings of beets, broccoli, tatsoi. Taking everything always makes me nervous; I usually spend so much attention distinguishing between what's ripe, what will ripen off the vine, what will hold until the next time someone harvests...
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On my way to dinner with my friend Will, I stopped to visit the shell mounds formed when this was the shallows of the inland sea. The shale is full of sea shells. The power lines betray the struggle between encroaching industrial development and farm and ranch land.
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Harvested the butternut squash I planted after the first ones failed to germinate. Wiped the dirt off them and put them in the rack to cure in the breezeway.
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Swallowtail? Caterpillar on a dill plant wrapped up by bindweed.
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I love harvesting Midnight Romas. You have to gently squeeze them to see if they are ready because if you twist them to see the color they pop off the vine. (They start dark purple then turn red.)
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Had a lovely morning working on Frost Farm yesterday. Lots of good conversation as we harvested tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, and melons. Saw my favorite native plant: Devil's Claw, looks like okra, but it's an asterid not a rosid and is native to the Americas. Not usually found this far north. The morning ended as usual with a poetry reading. #sun_mountain_farm_club

Farming involves constant prioritizing, do you have time to trellis and prune? What are the implications of falling behind? And if you wait too long you can't reverse it, the bent stalks will break if straightened. I favor taking the time, which ultimately saves time when harvesting, but I respect the judgment call.
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Started work at 6 today, which is now before sun up. The mosquitos were delighted to accompany me as I harvested scallions. Otherwise alone in the field.
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Some harvesting is, as Galeano said of love, infinite as long as it lasts.
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First local sign of what seems to be a purge of SNAP providers and users due to the Trump budget: a local small organic farm that has accepted SNAP for years had to go through a much more demanding re-authorization process only to be rejected. Our cooperative farm and art market has been in SNAP authorization limbo for months, too. (SNAP is a federally funded nutrition assistance program adminstered by the states. Current cuts are not the first, Obama also signed on to cuts in 2013)
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Got a nice flower in my hat today. Also happy to see the butternut squash I had to replant doing so well.
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Tabling at the cooperative farmers market. I made purslane pesto to give away.
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Picked five bags of corn and some onions for a farmer in Avondale who had a heat stroke episode a few weeks back. Beautiful peaceful morning.
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Freshened up the straw mulch under the heirloom tomatoes. They're susceptible to diseases and often come out cracked and and scarred, but delicious. On this farm we stay on top of pruning and trellising and it makes harvesting so much better, even though I need a ladder...
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Weeded arugula then tore up a forest of bolted fennel, weeded, raked, forked, and tilthed while dripping sweat. Did the same for lettuce that didn't do well. Two beds prepped for the next plantings. Came home with a bundle of lovely purslane for sopa de verdolagas.
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Got dressed in the dark today. It was a hot one. Farmers Union co-op specialists meeting this evening followed by a #sun_mountain_farm_club meeting.

2/2 Our task was to weed a bed of tomatoes and another of onions. But the weeds had been let go so long, the first challenge was to find the plants. To make matters worse, most of the tomatoes were "indeterminate", meaning they grow multiple endless vines, and they were never trellised, so the fruits were buried in piles of greenery. We worked for an hour, then reassessed and decided it wasn't worth it. We offered to do other work, but there wasn't a suitable task, so we called it. The real issue here is succession, how to get an aging farmer to recognize when it's time to let go?
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Drove out to Avondale this morning, east of Pueblo, near the Arkansas River, to join farmer Susan to help out another farmer who suffered major heat exhaustion a couple of weeks ago. This is Pueblo chile country, watered by the Bessemer ditch.
1/2
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That yellow stain on my pants is from the hundreds of bright yellow bean beetle larvae I squashed this morning while harvesting green beans. The yellow on my hand is from harvesting cherry tomatoes.
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78° F at 5am is not a good sign, but I'm hoping a 6am start will make farm work more comfortable this morning.
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Summer dinner.
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Weeded sweet potatoes this morning out at Sunflower Fields farm. 99° Amazing how farmer Soleil grows so much in this setting. I left with a bag of okra. :-)
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Upwards of 100 fahrenheit today, so we started at 6am. Made a huge difference. We fed and watered the guinea fowl, picked cherry tomatoes, and weeded, harvested, and picked bean beetles off of the green beans. At one point, Jenny reminded me to take a break in the shade and eat a cold orange slice. If she hadn't I would have kept going. As it was I struggled to take a full ten minute rest.
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@sarahtaber

Tabling at the Farm and Art Market.
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Sopa de verdolagas, chilled, is my new favorite. Sautee garlic, olive oil, onions, and jalapeño. Add tomatoes, salt, oregano, and mushroom broth/water. Use soup to steam potatoes. Add steamed potatoes and purslane (main ingredient), a shot of balsamic vinager. Garnish with raw purslane and lime.
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@sarahtaber This is excellent. Thank you! It is especially helpful that you speak from personal experience. I am part of a farm worker cooperative in Colorado. We work on local organic farms, in upper 80s/low 90s dry weather, often in long tunnels. I try to keep hydrated but I have been experiencing all the symptoms of the heat stupids lately and, lacking a concept, blaming myself. Just knowing the standard signs of heat stress/stroke doesn't help you deal with the problem when you should.

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