The First Kale Harvest of the Season

Village Farm Team,

We made our first kale harvest of the season last week! We harvested Red Russian kale for standard-sized bunches and a new-to-us baby kale mix called “Kalebration”. This colorful mix is made up of several different kale varieties that we will be harvesting in their baby phase. Of all of the brassica varieties that have been cultivated from wild cabbage (Brassica oleracea), kale is believed to be the closest to the wild cultivar. If you want to get your kale fix, make sure to stop by the veggie wagon on Saturdays from 8am-noon.

We’ve been “renovating” our beds this week in preparation for more cool season crops. Once we clear and weed a bed, we’re able to go through manually with a broad fork (first photo) and loosen and aerate the soil. Then, we add a layer of fresh compost and a healthy dose of organic fertilizer. The last step is to go over the beds with our BCS tractor in order to mix in the fertilizer and compost (second photo). If we weren’t planning on planting these beds this week, the last step would be to cover them with a tarp.

We enjoyed seeing all of the dressed up pooches that stopped by the veggie wagon on Saturday as part of the Howl’oween Pawrade! Each contestant was able to take home a couple of butternut squashes grown on the farm this year. We’ve also been enjoying all of our Farm Club members’ scarecrows they’ve been putting up in their plots! These scarecrows are part of a Farm Club contest but hopefully they will scare away farm pests like rabbits and rats from snacking on the crops in the meantime.