heat

picture this -

your alarm goes off at 5.30am. you get ready for work and walk out your front door. the air hits you hard. it's already 80 degrees with high humidity at 6am. you get to work by 6.30 and by 6.45, you are out in the field. someone starts picking tomatoes, someone else is picking swiss chard and you start with collards, kale and cabbage. you are moving quickly to try and get as much picked as quickly as possible. you can feel the temperature rise and with that the beads of sweat form. mustard greens, summer squash, cucumbers are all picked and taken to the garage. you stay back to wash and pack up everything so far and send out the next team. after an hour and a half in the field, you come back with a shirt that is soaked through with sweat. you keep reminding yourself to drink water...days like this, you can't drink enough. the girls come back with red onions, peppers, eggplants, okra, tomatillos and husk (or ground) cherries. it's 10.30am and it feels like we have been here all day. we wash and pack everything. we all go back out and divide and conquer - two girls getting root crops (beets and turnips) and the other two getting herbs. while it doesn't feel like you are doing much, the sweat is just dripping off your face, rolling down your back and cleavage, pooling in your sunglasses. you all go back and bunch and count herbs. it's lunch time. someone has the idea that they should go to turkey hill and get slushies for everyone. sounds good to you. what a treat. you actually got cool sitting at lunch in the AC slurping your slushy, but that doesn't last long. after lunch you need to pick beans. unfortunately, or fortunately, the beans are producing very well. there are more beans than you have time to pick. so four of you pick one row of green beans, since you have leftover of the other varieties from wednesday. you barely pick a few plants and the sweat starts. of course the beans are in full afternoon sun, on probably the hottest day of the year. not only is it hot, it's humid. the air is thick and it is hard to take deep breaths. your shirt becomes soaked through again. no matter how many times you wipe off, you still feel the sweat running down your back, cleavage, nose, forehead. your arms and legs glisten with sweat. your face starts to hurt because you've rubbed it so many times with your shirt. your eyes begin to burn from sweat getting in them. your underwear are soaked, your pants are getting there. your feet are hot in your shoes. are we done yet?!

you come home and peel your clothes off. your black sports bra has white lines from all the salt you lost. your socks are stiff and crusty. your shirt stinks. you take your hair down and it's all wet underneath. imagine how much water you drank today and how much you lost through sweat. how many calories did your body burn just trying to keep itself cool? all you want to do is eat when you get home. eat, shower and drink more water.

such is the life of farmer. you can't not work because it's too hot or too cold. you don't pick produce, you don't have anything to sell, you don't make money, your farm/business doesn't survive. life doesn't stop because of the weather. you alter your schedule, like by coming in early, and make things as tolerable as possible, but in the long run, things just need to be done.

we all survived this past week. heat indexes were 110-115 degrees. it wasn't easy, but we all worked together and got done what needed to be done. this coming week looks a little bit cooler, but still in the 90s.

thank you to all the farmers out there who work in all weather conditions...we couldn't eat without you.

artichokes

one item you don't see very often, if at all, at farmers markets in lancaster county, is artichokes. and there is good reason for this...they are very difficult to grow in this region.

artichokes are perennials, but only in warmer regions. so in this region, it would be an annual, right? well...yes, except that the plants only start producing artichokes during their second season. so this poses a challenge, however not an impossibility. there are ways to trick the plants into thinking they are older than they actually are.

i started the seeds inside in february for these plants. once they were eight weeks old, it was time to give them a cold treatment, to make them think they were going through a winter. the cold treatment is 10-14 days of temperatures between 35-50 degrees. this is hard to do in march and april. it can get too cold at night and inside is too warm. we thought about putting them in the fridge, but without a light, they wouldn't grow. after several other thoughts, we decided to put them in the garage. they would be protected from frost, but would be as cool as we could get them. some nights, we had to bring them inside and some days were warmer than 50 degrees. the plants looked fairly healthy, but i didn't have high hopes that they would produce artichokes.

we planted them outside towards the end of april. i don't remember when, but one day walking through the field, i noticed something in the center of a couple of plants.....an artichoke! not every plant has produced, but most have. and while the artichokes are not the size of those from california, i still think it is a pretty big deal to have them at all. i get questioned a lot at market about whether they are locally grown. yes, they are. would you like to know how we grew them?!

now that we have them, we need to educate people on what to do with them so they sell better. i think people just aren't expecting to see them at market so they aren't mentally prepared to purchase them.

let's hope production goes just as well next year, if not better.