“Human-scale” Farming

The bounty of summer’s peak continues to impress and overwhelm us here at Morckel Meadows and we remain sincerely grateful to have this appreciative community of supporters with whom to share the abundance. Thank you to everyone for your words of encouragement and grace last week. We’ll be sharing much of the same traditional summer vegetables with a few variations and adjustments.

Here is our tentative list of what we hope to get harvested and distributed this week:

Cherry Tomatoes and Heirloom Tomatoes (Martha Washington, Moskovich, Pink Wonder), Zucchini, Yellow Straightneck, & Zephyr bicolor squash, Bush Beans (some overripe), Mild Peppers (Bells, Carmens, and/or Shishitos), Hot Peppers (Jalapeno, Anaheim, Hungarian Hot Wax), Cucumbers, Red Okra, Storage Onions, Eggs, and Flowers.

When we first started to visualize how to scale up our project, it was important for us to explore how to grow and maintain our production on a “human scale.” At the least, we wanted to test and push the boundaries of small scale vegetable production. We all generally accept that training for, and running in, a marathon is a healthy endeavor, even though the race can feel torturous at the halfway point. There’s growth potential in the preparation, during the race itself, and as we reflect back on the experience as a whole.

“Human-scale” farming, at its simplest, is an attempt to design and work a farm & garden using as few industrial inputs or processes as possible. This is “tractorless” farming. This is 19th century market gardening. What can we reasonably accomplish with hand tools avoiding fossil fuels? What is the appropriate healthy balance of efficiency and productivity?

Farming, especially on a small scale, is objectively hard work, but it can be purposeful, mindful, and meaningful work. Our approach has been idealistic, we’ve had to compromise here and there, and we frequently have to remind ourselves of its privilege during tough times, but we are learning a lot about the limits of what a few hands can maintain and produce. Because of your investment and participation, we’re gaining invaluable experience that will inevitably assist in our goals of health, productivity, and sustainability for ourselves, our land, and our community.

Squash production is transitioning a bit. As our winter squash varieties slowly ripen on their vines (Butternut, Spaghetti, Delicata, Watermelon), our older Zucchini and Yellow Squash rows are slowing down and dying back a bit. Just in time, we have second successions of summer squashes starting to produce.

In addition to big ol’ club zucchinis and yellows from our earlier plantings, we’ll have younger fruits and a new variety of bicolor squash called “Zephyr.” These visually unique fruits ought to be nutty and delicious addition to the lineup.

We had a pretty nice crop of microgreens for our Sunday shareholders last week while our Wednesday crop failed miserably. Poor germination led to uneven growth and eventual collapse. These sprouts never made it to a harvestable consistency. We’re waiting on a seed restock and will try our best to get these in a more consistent rotation.

Our fruits are ripening rapidly. This is great news for tomatoes and peppers. The mild peppers get sweeter with the color change and the tomatoes get juicy and consistently red ripe throughout. The rapid ripening is less exciting for our beans and squashes, however. We all may need to get creative and motivated to ensure harvests of overgrown green beans and club zucchinis are appropriately used or preserved.

Like overgrown peas in the spring, it may be appropriate to shell the beans this week by splitting open the pod and scraping out the beans. You can boil these tender bean seeds for probably a half hour or until you can slice through with a fork. Then, get them in a pan with some butter, maybe some onion, salt & pepper, ham or bacon.

We’ve been freezing lots of zucchini. We often peel away the skin with a potato peeler, scrape out the seeds with a spoon like you would a winter squash, then slice up with a cheese grater. When we have a pile of grated squash, we will usually squeeze it out with a permeable kitchen towel or cheesecloth. After we get as much liquid out as we can, we pack it up and freeze it for winter zucchini bread options.

Erin loves to make zucchini pancakes or fritters! Zucchini kraut is also a thing, but we can’t claim to have successfully preserved this way, though it has been intriguing.

In our flower patches, we’ve observed a boom in pollinator populations in the last few weeks. It’s been really special watching diverse species of bees and butterflies thriving. We’re delighted to watch multiple individuals of various species even fight over the same flower!

They especially love the Tithonia, or “Mexican Sunflower” bushes that live at the heads and feet of our 100 foot summer block rows. You ought to have many of these gorgeous blooms in your jars this week. We have a traditional sunflower patch opening up as well and we’ll share these stems as they’re available.

The fall garden is taking shape with direct seedings of Spinach, Beets, Lettuce, Arugula, Radish, and Turnip germinated and taking off.

As summer tapers off and the weather starts to cool a bit, we’ll be returning to the cool season crops of early spring.

We’re over the hump of our first CSA season and it has been quite an experience. We do not take is for granted, thank you all again.

Erin & David