Week 10, Fall ‘21
After a long weekend spent on a group trip to Chicago, our lively band of farmers eased back into work on Monday. Marya and Joey started off the day by crunching numbers and doing data entry for our ongoing basalt application research. Then they went to the post office to ship soil samples to the lab at Yale. Meanwhile Maranda, Julia, and Maya huddled around the kitchen table for a productive communications meeting. After this, Julia and Eric made a crop plan for Bayit Garden fall planting and updated harvest and market logs. In the afternoon Julia, Eric, Marya and Joey harvested radishes, jalapeños and curly kale while Maranda and Maya packed for market in GIP (newly minted acronym for Giuseppe’s Ice Palace formerly known as Finn’s Fridge formerly known as “the walk-in fridge)). To cap off the day, the crew zoomed into a workshop about indigenous pasts, presents, and futures with Nicki McDaid and Forrest Bruce, two PhD candidates at Northwestern studying Learning Sciences. They taught us so much about expanding our conceptions of community, about our relationship with the outdoors, and about their research with indigenous STEAM, an initiative to synthesize STEM education and indigenous knowledge for young people. Thank you to Nicki and Forrest for sharing with us! Lest we forget, for dinner Marya and Maya cooked acorn squash soup with focaccia bread. Our new motto here at ZA is: “on Mondays we eat squash.”
On Tuesday, Julia, Eric, Maranda, and Lexi mulched Goat Garden to keep our soil and seeds nice and warm. Maya delivered our produce to market, and Joey got started taking a fresh batch of soil cores. Marya did an agroforestry walkthrough, further solidifying her title as Agroforestry Queen. In the afternoon Marya was joined by research newbies, Maranda and Julia, and the three of them took rhizons in the toolshed. Meanwhile, Lexi, Eric, and Maya planted a variety of veggies and flowers in the greenhouse -- giving it the gorgeous makeover it has long been deserving of. All the while Joey crunched numbers and entered harvest data into our meticulous logs. For dinner, Maranda and Eric made pesto pasta with a lovely garden salad consisting of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, roasted turnips, avocado, and lunchbox peppers. Everything was served with a side of trilogy beans.
Wednesday was a hefty day of harvesting. Lexi, Julia, Eric, and Maranda did a final harvest of the season for tomatoes, eggplants, bell peppers, jalapeños, and shishitos. They also harvested peas and beans (of course). Marya and her newest research disciple, Maya, conducted titrations in the toolshed. And Joey fluxed. In the afternoon...Joey fluxed. The harvesters continued harvesting and the titrators continued titrating. Eric also helped JR clean the drip irrigation and put row covers on the plants. Preparing for winter is a full time job. For dinner Joey and Eric made fried radish cakes with sauteed radish greens. Radish on radish, our favorite!
On Thursday we welcomed farm consultant and teacher at Evanston High School, Matt Ryan, back to the farm for another workshop on farm efficiencies. We learned so much about crop planning, compost, wash station efficiencies, weed management, and soil health. We were so inspired after the workshop that we immediately revamped the greenhouse and wash station. Thanks Matt for inspiring us yet again! In the afternoon it was quite rainy so we worked on indoor tasks. In the evening, Lexi and Maya made chickpea and eggplant chana masala with sauteed foraged mushrooms and greens.
By Friday we were quite tired. Luckily, Lexi energized us with spirituality programming in the morning where, after a brief tai chi session led by JR, we watched a webinar recording on indigenous map making and spirituality in the midwest. It was incredibly informative and definitely shaped the way we think about maps, space, and land management. After spirituality programming, everyone went out into the good ol’ bean patch in ATR and harvested in the pouring rain. It was...well, a soggy but memorable experience. To warm us up in the evening, Joey and Eric made a Shabbat dinner of spaghetti with homemade tomato and TVP sauce.
