Week 6, Fall 2022
Hello, it’s me, Ayden, and welcome back to the farm journal!
I started off this week by helping Lexi soak some inoculated shiitake logs in the hopes that they will fruit again and provide some more delicious shiitake mushrooms! Mira and Stephanie cut off some sunflower heads and hung them to dry so we can collect some sunflower seeds later. Lexi and Stephanie soaked some straw in preparation for another oyster mushroom inoculation. As usual, our Monday afternoon consisted of packing our order for Marty.
On Tuesday we started our morning by foraging for some gigantic hen of the woods mushrooms right in front of the house! To continue on our mushroom kick, Mira, Lexi, and I did a double inoculation of gray dove and golden oyster mushrooms. The golden oysters are a more temperamental variety so we hope they fare well in our basement grow-tent. For lunch Mira made a fresh watermelon feta salad (watermelons provided by our farm) and some sauteed chickpeas and eggplant (also courtesy of ZA). In a reflective preparation for Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, Lexi took us across the road to have some intentional time with our Shmita plot. Shmita in Judaism is the practice of letting farmed land rest every seventh year the same way we observe Shabbat every seventh day of the week. Although you may not actively plant or tend to any crops on the land during the Shmita period, you are allowed to harvest any crops that grow on their own. ZA has set aside a part of our farm to designate as our Shmita plot so that we may observe this tradition, at least in a small part. On our walk through the plot we took note of the diversity of plants growing, found some squash that had grown involuntarily, and even found three varieties of mushrooms growing on a dead hickory log. Two of those varieties, pheasant back and oyster, are edible, adding to our foraged mushroom haul for the day.
In preparation for the fast of Yom Kippur, Lexi prepared us some delicious stew made with tomatoes, chickpeas, swiss chard, dates, and the unexpected star ingredient, peanut butter. Peanut butter isn’t necessarily the first thing you might envision adding to a stew, but I would HIGHLY recommend for anyone to try this combination. After dinner we drank some tea and attended services virtually with Makom Shalom and Metziut, where we spent the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Kol Nidre, the first prayer service of Yom Kippur, takes place on the eve of the holiday. These solemn prayers set a tone for the rest of Yom Kippur, encouraging us to humble ourselves and think deeply about the past year and the year to come. During Yom Kippur day I tuned into virtual services at my synagogue back home in Brooklyn. I made sure to take plenty of time to rest, and we all spent some time resting outside in what would later become our Sukkah, or temporary dwelling for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. I think Yom Kippur is a really special time, coming at the tail end of the Jewish High Holidays. Mira expressed an appreciation for the opportunity to reflect and renew ourselves every single year. As we approached the end of the holiday, I joined Lexi for Neila (the closing prayers), who was tuning into services in Philly with congregation Mishkan Shalom. Although the switch for many of us to virtual prayer services comes with many drawbacks, this Yom Kippur I was able to “attend” services in Chicago, Philly, and Brooklyn all in the same day, which I really appreciated. I like having the opportunity to experience Judaism in a variety of different ways and being able to explore different traditions and practices that people find meaningful. Services in Philly ended before our fast was over so Lexi and I joined Mira with Mishkan and Metziut for the closing of Yom Kippur. It was really powerful to recite and repeat the final prayer calls together as the holiday came to an end. It is customary to blow the Shofar, or ram’s horn, to signal the end of Yom Kippur. Luckily JR pointed one out to us in the house and I was able to play it, although I was a little rusty on my Shofar skills. We broke the fast with more of Lexi’s stew and I sliced up an heirloom tomato to enjoy as well.
Our friend Allison joined us for work on Thursday. In the morning we chopped down all the kale in our Miracle garden and weeded the area to make space for planting garlic. We also helped Lexi measure the growth of some of our trees as part of a grant we have to see how biochar will affect tree growth. Mira and Allison chopped some straw to prep for mushroom inoculation. Lexi updated me on how we want to go about expanding our mushroom production as our produce production slows down in the fall and winter.
On Friday Steph and Mira planted our garlic. The first frost of the season was slated to occur that evening so we were in a bit of a frenzy trying to harvest as much produce as we could that we thought might not survive the frost. In that vein, Stephanie harvested some eggplant to make some yummy eggplant parmesan. I spent most of the day harvesting as many shishito and melrose peppers as I possibly could. Later in the day I also helped Mira and JR put a tarp over our tomatoes in ATR. For Shabbat dinner I made a soup with roasted onion, kale, tomato, pepper, and summer squash and also prepared some of our foraged hen of the woods.
We spent this Shabbat relaxing as usual. After shabbat ended I broke out JR’s electric guitar and played some classic tunes like Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Hotel California. On Sunday I was woken up by the lovely smell of basil in the dehydrator, props to Mira. In the afternoon we went on a hike through some of the woods nearby in search of a creek. Unfortunately the creek had dried up, but we did find an amazing view from a soy field. The trees around us look so beautiful this time of year as the leaves turn yellow, orange, and red. I can’t wait to continue enjoying what fall has to offer here at ZA!
