Mega Harvest Last Week

After a slow start, it has been a good year for tomatoes.

A half-bushel box full of ripe tomatoes weighs about 20 pounds. Last week on Tuesday we picked 10 boxes with some of the students from Class F. Then on Wednesday, we had help from an LCS family who came in the morning to help with the harvest. We decided to pick tomatoes. They picked paste tomatoes and I picked heirlooms. Between us we had 27 more boxes by the end of our harvest. That evening, two friends came over. They each took home two boxes of tomatoes and helped us pick 12 more boxes and helped pick winter squash. We might have picked more tomatoes, but we ran out of boxes.

The next day was our actual harvest day, and Great River School Upper Elementary was here to help. A group of them picked tomatoes with Katie all morning. By the end we had picked a combined total of 75 boxes of tomatoes. Luckily we had 2 vehicles going in to the market, because we could have filled one with only tomatoes and not had room for anything else. In the end we still had to leave 5 boxes behind. It was a good day at the market and and at the the end we only had 25 boxes of tomatoes left. Many of those went to the staff at LCS to do projects with the students. Of the rest, some are going to be canned or frozen here at the Land School and and others were given to Land School neighbors. As of today (Sunday), we have not had a frost, so we are likely to have another big harvest this week. Probably not as many as last week though - that was a record.

In addition to tomatoes, last week saw the peak of peppers, the continued abundance of broccoli, the world of cabbages bigger than your head, mega potatoes, and the appearance of the 1 pound onions. We were grateful for Class F's help Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; and for GRS Upper El on Thursday, and GRS Lower El came on Friday.

Thanks to all who helped harvest.