It’s starting to feel like fall around here—warm and sunny. At times the sun is filtered through smoke from the Sobrantes fire, casting things in an orange glow. As with past Big Sur fires, because of the rough terrain, it will probably burn until the rains start later in fall, and our air quality will suffer as a result.
We are entering the period when the work intensifies here on the farm but it fortunately corresponds with a fall “second wind”—when I feel reinvigorated by the impending change of season. By late August, the summer routine can honestly start to drag on a bit. The native vegetation starts to dry out, and everything seems to be coated in a layer of dust from the trucks and farm equipment. Soon we will be busy getting the farm ready to withstand the winter rains, but the promise of change somehow makes the work easier.
We’ve cut off the water to the hard squash and pumpkin blocks and will let them cure thoroughly before cutting them off the vine and packing them up in crates for winter storage. Powdery mildew almost always becomes a problem with squash late in the season. With hard squash the trick is to plant early enough so that they reach full maturity before this foliar disease takes its toll, and this year, for the most part, we succeeded. When the squash are out of the field we will pull up the drip lines, disc in the vines and plant cover crops.
The butternut squash and delicata have done well this year. We’ve also got Hubbard squash, green and orange kabocha, spaghetti squash, marina di chioggia squash, carnival squash, and a good crop of the small winter luxury pie pumpkins. We’ll hold our annual CSA pumpkin patch on Saturday, October 15, so you can come get your Halloween and Thanksgiving pumpkins from the farm. We’ll have Jack-o-Lantern style pumpkins, Cinderellas (rouge vif d-etampes), and the winter luxuries. We look forward to the chance to connect with you here at the farm!
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