Day 2

Yesterday was my second day volunteering at the farm. It also happened to be the day before their first appearance at the Urbana Farmer's Market. And the day a local TV news crew came by to do a little community piece on the farm's mission. Kinda busy.

I got to work in the hoop house harvesting 2 varieties of radishes and a bin of mixed leaf lettuces. I got to taste napini fresh off the plant (heavenly!) and decided that this little farm is my Garden of Eden. I get to tend it after all the really hard work has been done ;) I did not till the soil, build the hoop house, prep the beds, plan the intricate planting sequence, lay down the drip tape, nor connect it to irrigation lines. Neither did I plant, weed, water, and monitor these crops for pests. Neither did I purchase the harvesting knives and bins and industrial sinks and walk-in coolers necessary to take this quantity of produce from field to market in top condition.

This is one reason I'm so happy to work there: ANY amount of work they ask me to do, whatever the chore, cannot possibly match the countless hours I did NOT spend to make it the way it is now. It delights me to no end. My little slice of heaven.

We washed the lettuce in industrial sinks, then spun them dry in a modified washing machine. No joke. Real washing machine that got re-engineered. I weighed and bagged the lettuce, then moved on to leeks. Other folks had already washed them and trimmed the greens the day before. I just got to clip the roots a bit and put them in 1# bunches. Heaven!

I was asked to rip out the arugula that was past its prime, and I gladly accepted the task. Unfortunately, the news crew showed up just as I got started and I didn't want to be in the background. I was tasked with watering seedlings instead. Thousands of seedlings. Peppers, lettuce, squash, herbs, and fennel were the ones I recognized.

Can't wait to go back.