We are finally seeing some quantities of ripe plum tomatoes as well as our Galaxy collection cherry tomatoes, so early last week we decided to try calling in an extra crew to help get them harvested. This time of year worker availability can be a bit hit and miss because everyone tends to be busy, but we were fortunate enough to be able to book five people for Friday. Since we don’t have enough tomatoes to keep a crew busy for the entire day, we came up with some extra jobs that we needed done and the could free up the rest of the crew from. There were the last bed of onions to harvest, the weeds were getting bad in the carrots so we figured since they were ready anyway might as well harvest them as well. There are lots of cabbages ready to harvest that need to get in soon, tomatoes to harvest in the greenhouse, and we needed the lower leaves pruned on the tomatoes in the greenhouse. If we got through all of that there is always weeding to do, so I didn’t figure we’d be short on work. Well carrots and onions took most of the morning but we got them done. After lunch we decided there really wasn’t room in the cooler for three bins of cabbage right now, so we had them pick tomatoes in two of the greenhouses and our regular crew kept packing tomatoes for orders and market. We really wanted to get the lower leaves pruned, so they finished the day getting just over one greenhouse all cleaned up. We got a lot done and it was great, but it was about twenty minutes after they left that I remembered we hadn’t picked a single tomato in the field. Oh well. Most of them will hold for this week. I guess we have a lot of work to catch up on.
This week in CSA we have Italian Beans, Heirloom Tomatoes, Small Cabbage, Golden Beets, Iceberg lettuce, Cucumbers, Garlic, and Basil.
This week we will have a limited quantity of fresh lamb available at our Wednesday and Saturday markets. As mentioned, plum tomatoes are ripening. Please be patient with us for canning quantities of seconds. They will be here soon, but I’m not expecting much yet this week. But we’d be glad to take your name and contact down if you want some when they are ready.
This week is looking like a lot of the same as last week. Just trying to keep up with harvest and sales while trying to keep ahead of the weeds. And maybe this week we’ll actually pick those tomatoes.
Until next week,
Happy ordering!
Nathan and Aleta Klassen
https://www.localline.ca/nith-valley-organics
