Well, we’ve hit the time of the season when too much is in season. What to pick? Can I pick it all in time? Welcome to farm labor 101. It can be a slog, but something certainly to appreciate on this Labor Day, a day we set aside to appreciate the worker.
As some of you know from reading this blog for a while, I grew up a blue collar kid in a blue collar town (East Grand Forks). Lots of times when people learn I farm, I’m often asked if my parents farmed. But I often say I come from a long line of landless peasants – we worked FOR the farmers, we weren’t the farmers. My grandpa made a career of being a hired man and working in the potato warehouses of EGF.
And that’s certainly a point to be made on this Labor Day. We’ve mechanized and modernized American agriculture a lot since my grandpa’s day. The migrant farm workers of my youth in the Valley are long gone, replaced by chemicals and vacuum seeders – no need to thin beets anymore. But in the world of fruits and vegetables, we’re still very much a labor dependent. Drones are not (yet) harvesting and bunching radishes or picking apples. That’s why we see such an impact on California produce with recent ICE raids. Those strawberries still need human hands.
But this newsletter is not about me adding my own hot take to a world awash in political pundits. Today, I simply want to appreciate all those who have labored the fields of Lida Farm with me including my family and all the apprentices over the last 10+ years: Kelsey, Mason, Sarah, Molly, Camila, Archer, Jane, Zach, Gretchen, Marissa, Maya, Emily, and Luke.
In the box:
- Regular tomatoes
- Golden Sweet Grape Tomatoes
- Cantaloupe
- Watermelon
- Radishes
- Salad mix
- Mizuna: A Japanese green used in Asian cooking (could be mixed into a salad). A much younger me once made a video – see https://youtu.be/PlYV75UpST8?si=3-cQucxy8mcUoyot
- Red Bell Pepper
- Anaheim Peppers: Green long ones
- A Couple Summer Turnips: The loose white radish looking things with tops. Actually quite similar to a radish, you’d simply slice and eat raw, not unlike a kohlrabi.
Lida Farm 