Friday’s first frost warning, just days after a record-setting hot Tuesday, felt significant. Maybe Mother Nature was asking, “We’re having a beautiful fall, but are you actually ready for it?” Maybe it was a practice round for the colder weather to come. Or maybe it was the reminder that the climate is changing.
Weather like that reminds us how much of our food depends on someone paying attention. The people growing your food know these fields by heart and can respond in an afternoon.
Last week, that meant timing the hoophouses more carefully to trap every bit of heat. Our team now starts at 8 am instead of 7 to avoid the chilly morning dew. We planted garlic, cold-tolerant field spinach, and winter cover crops. On Friday afternoon, we pulled row covers off crops we’d been protecting from pests and stretched them over delicate greens like the rainbow Swiss chard pictured above, hoping to bring you tender greens a few more times this season. Over the weekend, our interns trimmed hooves, topped up the livestock’s minerals, and checked that every animal was healthy for the cold ahead.
Now we’re grateful for a mostly sunny, dry week to clear tomato trellises and stakes, finish up summer projects, and start mulching and trimming the orchard and food forest for winter. And the cold left us a gift. A few chilly nights turn starches into sugars, so the baby bok choy and broccoli are getting sweeter. You’ll taste it in your share and at the farm store over the next few weeks.
Last week’s weather may have been an anomaly, and this week’s calm could be the real start of autumn. Either way, we’ll be paying attention, so the best food we can grow keeps making it to your kitchen.
