Perple, Buzzed Heads, & Garlic: Veggie Share Week #6 – 7/11/23

 In CSA Newsletter

Perple, Buzzed Heads, & Garlic

Perple, not purple. (Autocorrect keeps having a fit.)

Perple is what happens on hour 5 of the garlic harvest.

Agreeing to buzz heads and drink wine after work is what happens after hour 6 of garlic harvest.

I routinely tell my crew that farming is a collection of monotonous tasks. On a given day we usually switch things up every couple of hours. There are some exceptions:

strawberries
peas
green beans
garlic
onions
potatoes
sweet potatoes
winter squash

These crops either a) involve lots of slower hand picking and therefore take hours and hours or b) are crops that come out all in one big push and get stored.

We started the garlic harvest today. We harvested for many, many hours. It’s hard not to get a little loopy when doing the same thing for hours on end.

Some readers may remember my writing about the sweetness and bittersweet of the garlic planting last season – it’s the last big harvest we do all together.

Conversely, garlic harvest is the first big storage crop harvest we do.

I’m just so impressed with this year’s crew. Not only did they do the work today for 6 hours, getting half the season’s crop out in one push, they did it with laughter and connection.

They chose pump-up playlists. They played words games. They forgot how to spell things in those word games – perple – cause that’s what hours of repetition in the garlic field will do to you. And they laughed and laughed.

They made it fun! Which is really saying something.

They enjoyed each other so much that several of them hung out after work. They decided to drink wine, buzz cut some members’ hair, maybe eat rotisserie chicken (or maybe be repulsed by this, depending).

The mom boss that I am feels such joy when crews come together like this and enjoy the work and each other together. It’s not every season. It’s definitely special.

I already know that come October, when they are breaking seed and planting the 2024 garlic crop, they will laugh and reminiscence about perple, shaved heads, and the many other things that will bring them meaning together this season as they work so very hard to harvest food for you.