Week 3, Fall 2023
Hey everyone, Claire Ivey here!
It’s week 3 of the fall season here at ZA and so far we are having an amazing time! The abundance of harvest is hard to wrap my head around; it seems like there is a never ending supply of squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Anyone who incorporates all three into a meal gets bonus points, and if you incorporate something twice? We give them a crown and they get to be ZA royalty for a week. It sounds crazy but it’s actually in the ZA constitution that we MUST follow.
On Monday, we started with harvesting our usual things; winter squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchinis, and mushrooms. Over the summer season we started taking our compost a little more seriously, so now it gets turned once a week and its temperature taken everyday. May I say, this is hard work- compost is heavy! We also did our weekly Monday walkthrough of all the gardens to see what we can offer for the market that week. Sophie continued to work hard to look over and organize our finances from the last 6 months, shout out to her because I can’t imagine that was a super fun job.
On Tuesday, we prepped for the Wednesday food pantry by harvesting a few things and seeing and packaging what we could bring. Our star Amy drove out to drop off lots of veggies for the market that we sell to. Tons of potatoes were also harvested! Francis and I tried to clear the 2 beds of potatoes we have but just continued to find more and more. In the afternoon Claire Pryor, Francis, and inoculated some golden oyster mushrooms. Sophie, Martina, and Margalit planted carrots, radishes, and spinach for the fall. We also started to plan our Sukkot gathering at the farm on October 1!
On Wednesday, we harvested our fruits, then Martina went off to the Sheldon food pantry. Also harvested was okra, green beans, sweet peppers, and a ton of winter squash (not really a ton but around 61 pounds which is a ton in my book). Amy pulled a lot of ragweed out of Bayit to give some of our plants a bit more sunshine. In the afternoon we had a learning session with former apprentice Brendan Campbell about disability justice; it was an amazing presentation and we will continue to think about how we interact with disability physically and as a concept here at ZA. After that, Margalit, Amy, Martina, and Francis did another mushroom inoculation and with the extra hands were able to knock it out of the park in a record 30 minutes!
On Thursday, we did more potato harvesting (those suckers are getting hard to find but we know there is still more!), and mushroom harvesting that came with a thorough cleaning of the mushroom tent as well, which is super important so that it stays a sterile environment and other bacterias and fungi don’t overtake our yummy mushrooms. For Sukkot, we are selling a Sukkot kits that include winter squash, some homemade tomato jam, a sachet of dried herbs, and a few other goodies. Claire Pryor, Margalit, and Martina took charge on this and totally killed drying a ton of mint yesterday as well as making and canning tomato jam! At the end of the day we did some tomato trellising, fixed up some of our drip lines, worked on some fundraising efforts, and Amy and I did a presentation to the group about harvest holidays around the world and did a little journaling activity.
Today (Friday), we have gotten started by harvesting all the goods for the farmers market tomorrow. Amy also made these awesome little recipe cards that are so cute, so that people can get things that they might not know how to cook but can learn! Acacia has been working on drawing and creating the blessing and note that will be put into our Sukkot kits (which you can find on our website under ‘shop’), and so far it's looking beautiful. We just finished up lunch that I made, which was pasta, cooked green beans and summer squash, rosemary tofu, carrot top and beet pesto, and leftover tofu tomato cucumber salad. This weekend we will all be traveling to Chicago to observe Yom Kippur. Gavi has already started making the challah for shabbat dinner tonight, and the day is slowly winding down with meetings to attend and a bit more work to do. I myself am preparing for Mabon tomorrow! Mabon is a pagan harvest holiday and is the second of the three harvest holidays on the wheel of the year. Tomorrow I’ll be spending time reflecting on the abundance of fall and nature, making apple treats like cider and cake, and spending time with the moon.
We hope you have a lovely weekend and meaningful Yom Kippur!
See you next week,
- Claire Ivey