Dear Curiosity Journal,
With the Gardening in Harmony workshop on Saturday, Rufus and I do an ambitious push in the gardens to get the spring crops turned over. When you garden for market, succession planting is key to reaping the most value per bed, so there is no time for plants to live out their full life cycle as they might in a home garden. Once we’ve made the final harvest, we uproot the greens and make way for tomatoes, peppers, okra, cucumbers and other summer crops. During my first season of farming, I struggled with this concept. It seemed like there was still so much life and value in the spring greens we were mercilessly ripping from the soil where they were living so happily. It still saddens me a bit to see them go, but I have a better understanding of the life cycles, how greens become bitter in the heat, how the pest pressure hits with warmer weather, how there are only so many growing days in Wisconsin, how to deeply appreciate them when they are in their glory, and how to let them go when the next planting window opens.
~Joy
