Here it is August, and this vegetable farmer is stuck in July. I’m stuck in July because that’s where my fellow farmer and I always get stuck. What with harvesting, haying, planting the fall crops, and weeding, we don’t know which way to turn.
The real kicker in July is the raspberries. We love raspberries, but, wow, it’s a lot of picking. (29 quarts! Seven hours! On just one day!)
First our CSA members pick all their own quarts during CSA pick-up hours, working mostly along the edges of the patch. Afterward, I plow up the center, and try not to fall into the woodchuck hole, which we have filled in numerous times, and which the woodchuck gleefully clears out, hurling all the rocks and dirt right out again.
In fact, once I was picking berries, and there was the woodchuck peering up out of the hole. “What are you going to do?” I said to this beautiful worried little critter. “Besides eat all my brassicas, I mean.”
In and out the furry brown nose and bright eyes went, and finally, working up an enormous courage, the woodchuck darted out and ran. Goodness! It was exciting. I’m not sure why the chuckie didn’t turn around and go back down the tunnel to another exit, but clearly he or she had another idea in mind, probably involving the delicious broccoli.
I also spend some time in the center of the raspberry patch detaching myself from the blackberry canes. We keep chopping them out, and they keep growing gleefully back in. Those thorns are powerfully sharp.
Of course, it is our own fault, as we were the ones who planted the canes next to the raspberries in the first place. It seemed like a great idea at the time, transplanting some vigorous wild blackberries into the garden. Our old-time Vermonter farmer friend said, “Oh, you’re going to be sorry you did that,” and oh, was he right.
Then there was the bird, hollering its head off at me in the raspberry patch.
“What’s the trouble?” I asked. But then I saw the trouble. It was a perfectly lovely little nest, with four perfectly lovely little speckled eggs. I carefully worked my way around the nest. The bird didn’t settle down until I was a good distance away.
Three days later, I was picking again, and now two birds were hollering, and there were four naked little squirmers in the nest. In another few days there were four feathered squirmers in the nest, and I carefully showed the spot to my fellow farmer, who had come to join me in picking.
“What are they doing?” I whispered. I was worried because it had just been sprinkling. “What do chicks do when it’s raining?”
“They’re all tucked in,” my fellow said. “They’re taking a little nap. And the leaves are covering them. I can hardly see them.”
“Oh, good,” I said, but then on the next picking day I was even more worried, because I couldn’t see them at all: the nest was empty. The parents were still hollering around, carrying choice bits of chick-food, but there were no birdies in the nest.
I went and worried to my fellow, about how maybe I should have put a little fence around the chicks. Maybe an overeager CSA member picking raspberries had accidentally dumped them out of the nest, too early.
“No, no,” said my fellow, “If the parents are still feeding them, the chicks are around somewhere.”
So I did a little chipping sparrow research, and it seems like the chicks were right on schedule, with the parents carrying around snacks for the hidden fledglings. I was pretty pleased about that, and I was also pretty pleased that the raspberries had about finished. July was over, and it was time to fly like a bird, or run like a woodchuck, or at least gimp like a farmer, into August.
Originally published in The Monadnock Shopper News, Aug 24 -- Aug 30, 2022