Farm Day

Erdkinder visit to the farm on October 6, 2014

Our visit to the farm this week was a lot of hard work, but also fun. We we harvesting seasonal produce, including pumpkins and two kinds of squash. It was very hot in the fields on Monday and there was not much wind to cool us down.

Here, we are standing by all the butternut squash we harvested. The farm managers, John and Gia, gave us careful lessons on how to pick the squash carefully, and how to know if it was ready to be cut from the vine.

Fiona is examining the squash to check it is ready to be harvested.

The squash on the left was ready to be cut. Its stalk is brown and dry. The squash on the right was not ready to be harvested. Its stalk is still green and wet. Any squash with green, wet stalks must be left in the field to "cure" or, if it is packed with ripe squash, it will make the rest of the produce moldy.

We are collecting all of the ripe pumpkins and lining them up in the field. These will be boxed and sold at market over the next three weeks. These are eating pumpkins, not carving pumpkins. The flesh is sweet and moist when roasted. We each got to bring a pumpkin home!