This is a beautiful and thrilling time of year! Crops are growing, being planted, even some being harvested. There is a feeling of promise in the budding flowers and tender shoots of newly sprouted seedlings.
A field of green peas under a beautiful spring sky
The peas are putting out tendrils and reaching for the sky. In just a few short weeks, they will bear the delicious sweet green pods and then be tilled into the soil adding the organic matter they have grown back into the earth.
Sweet, little green pea plant
Along with all the plants that we want to see growing, the weeds are also eagerly capturing the spring sunshine and growing apace. This means LOTS of weeding! The team is hoeing onions that are barely up. It takes an immense amount of concentration to keep from damaging the tiny thread-like plants as they hoe out the weeds around them.
Hoeing onions
Wolfgang may be the boss, but when there’s work to be done, he picks up a hoe just like the next guy.
The abundant wildflowers at the field edge make habitat for bees and other pollinators.
The first harvests are from fields where the crops were planted last fall and the plants were hardy enough to survive. One advantage to the mild winter was that more plants survived. This parsley is big and the flavour is extra sweet.
Winston is harvesting curly parsley that overwintered in the field.
Her days of hoeing and harvesting are over; but Barnhild is still happiest with the soil between her toes and veggies in her hands. Greeted by a chorus of, “Ma!” everyone drops what they are doing to hug her and ask how she is. Her care and concern when she worked alongside the teams continues even though she isn’t with them every day.
A visit to the field and the warm welcome of her team, makes Barnhild’s face light up.
Winston puts his arm around Barnhild after helping her cut a bunch of parsley for her lunch.
