Did I mention that we are still busy transplanting — basil, tomatoes, peppers, melons, cucumbers.  All these transplants need to get planted out while it’s cool, so we can get the sprinklers set up and running before they wilt in the sun.   Today, there were three people planting basil instead of picking strawberries for three hours.

So, beginning tomorrow, we’ll be starting at 6:30 am, and as the days get longer and hotter, we’ll eventually push that back to 6.  But unless we issue headlamps, install halogen lights in the field, and start work in twilight, we’re never going to get everything done while it’s still cool and dewy.

IN TRAINING
It’s Spring Training here at Camp Terra Firma.  It starts with the relentless asparagus harvesting schedule — 7 days a week, no exceptions.  Then the peas start — we pick’em every two days, otherwise they get too tough and lose their sugar.  Finally, the strawberry marathon — every day except Sunday, and not just an hour or two like the asparagus.  Nope, the whole team is out there pulling berries off the vines from 6 until noon.

See, winter gets everyone out of shape.  I mean, a carrot doesn’t care if you pick it today, tomorrow, next week, etc.  Same goes for kale, chard, cabbage.  Even salad mix and spinach, which grow very quickly when it’s warm, hardly grow at all in the winter.  Broccoli and cauliflower are the closest things we have to an impatient crop during the winter, and even they give us as much as a week’s window of harvest time.  Vegetable growing is an unhurried, almost relaxing (ha!) activity during the cold, dark months.

In the summer, the plants tell us what to do, they boss us around.  “Pick us every day, or we will explode, burst, cook in the sun.”  Just about everything we grow here in the summer gets picked every day.  We have to stay one step ahead of them, checking them every day before harvest begins to make sure we don't miss a day.  And you don't go out into the field with a list of how many you want, no.  You go out into the field, pick everything that’s ready, and then you know what’s available.  

So April and May are the months we get into shape, start getting used to the rigorous schedule of summer.  We get shaken out of our winter harvest slumber, get a chance to rub the salt from our eyes and get our bearings before the tidal wave of tomatoes, melons, corn and beans bears down us in late June.

NATURAL INTELLIGENCE
Have you ever watched a tree flex and sway with the wind?  It’s evidence of some higher order, that’s for sure.  On blustery days here, the wind tears, tosses, and shreds numerous human-made objects that are seem so solid.  Over time, even well-made buildings suffer damage from the unceasing gusts.
Trees are an amalgam of delicate and light parts attached to strong base:  Leaves tear as easily as paper and branches can be broken by a child.  But in the wind, these fragile parts sway and toss, bend and move aside to allow the air to pass through them.  While gale-force winds might knock over diseased or shallow rooted trees, most trees benefit from the natural pruning action of wind, which breaks off dead branches that might otherwise cramp newer shoots’ growth.

 At the dawn of the 21st century, scientists with lots of hubris are busily spending grant money  trying to create robots and computers that can imitate the way humans think, learn, and move.  Putting electrodes in rat’s brains to control their movement, etc.

I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to produce an artificial tree equal to a natural one.  But my hope is that in any such endeavors, we humans are missing a fundamental understanding that will prevent us from ever creating a being equal to those invented by nature.  Except, of course, the way we’ve done it forever — by having children...

ASPARAGUS RETURNS
 If you’ve been missing greens and/or beets in your boxes, you’re in for a treat this week.  Our spring Beet crop, planted into a muddy field in January, has sized up and is ready for harvest.  Spring beets are always more tender than fall planted ones — greens and roots both. 

 Asparagus is back  after a week’s respite for spring cleaning.  The beds are weed-free and moist from an irrigation, and the warm temperatures are pushing out extra long spears.  Look for another 2-3 weeks of spears in your boxes — although bunch sizes may vary from week to week —and enjoy them while they last. 

 If you thought the strawberries last week were good, the ones you’re getting today should blow you away.  And if you were disappointed last week, you won’t be this week.  We’re not sure why, but every year it seems to take a week or ten days for the berries to reach their full peak of ripeness — and we are there.  You may notice two different types of berries, because we grow two different varieties.  Chandlers are moister, more acidic, and less round in shape.  They are the ones that melt in your mouth, or on your counter if you leave them sitting out overnight.  Camarosas are meatier, less acidic, and round or heart shaped.  They are usually bigger, but we’ve had some huge Chandlers this year, too.  If you get one basket of each (assuming you can tell them apart), I recommend eating the Chandlers first, since they shrivel and go bad more quickly than the Camarosas.

 TFF subscribers may not harvest their own produce, but they get to see the crops growing from week to week.  Have you noticed how much the onions have grown in the last two weeks?  And as the days lengthen and the temperatures increase, they will swell even faster.  We’ll be harvesting and drying them for bulbs around the last week of May — until then, watch them grow!

Thanks,            Pablito