strawberry picking

I managed to get some extra work at a local organic farm for the next week or so since it's getting to be the busy season, especially for strawberries. I spent half the first day weeding onions along with about 8 other girls around my age and since all we had to do was sit along the rows and loosen the soil around the plants to pull weeds, there was plenty of time to chat. Most of them had worked at the farm last year, several grew up in Puerto Rico, some studied anthropology like me, and all are travelers. One of the more permanent workers is from Nepal and she knows Tibetan as well. We had plenty to talk about and they were very enjoyable to work with!

The farm is quite large for an organic farm, and the farm stand has a steady flow of customers throughout the day. They've got produce as well as pork and chicken eggs. There is a leanto shed for the tractors, which looks like any other farm building, except when you go to the outside, the entire roof is solar panel-- not something I ever saw in Kansas! Still, I feel like I'm at home in Kansas when the dust is flying. I suppose anywhere the natural ground vegetation is removed will be as dusty as a desert.

Today our task was to spread organic compost over three rows in preparation for beet planting. The compost came from another organic farm in New York. I suppose this one does not produce enough compost of this type, which was made from stall shavings, horse and cow manure, among other things. (Actually, I found the tine-end half of a fork that was accidentally in there.)

Then it was more strawberry picking! I feel like I've seen about every shape and size of strawberry possible, and it's like a treasure hunt trying to find the best ones. We pile them into trays with 8 berry baskets each. Others with brown or squishy spots go in the cull box, and those are available for people interested in making preserves. Even though it's tough work, it's been fascinating to me simply observing the process of organic growing.