Frog Log

This Saturday may be our last market for the year. We don't quite know how the lettuce will "pick out" but if this Saturday isn't the last, then next Saturday will be. That means that we have trucked on down to the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market for six and a half months this year; that Ken King and designated family members have rousted out of bed at 4:00 AM for almost 30 Saturdays and 25 or so Wednesdays; that friends and family have pitched for just as many Tuesdays and Fridays helping to harvest and make salad mix for next day's market; that countless seeds have sprouted, grown to fullness and offered up their ripe richness to harvesting hands; that brightly-colored rows of vegetation have decorated the garden in a changing patchwork throughout the season; that bowed backs have moved slowly through the rows, keen eyes and nimble fingers creating order in cultivation or harvest; that hundreds of boxes have been filled, trucked to market, emptied and dispersed, a...

Okay, the garden really looks different now. Most of the remaining crops huddle under white polyester-filament row covers, hoping to survive the present cold snap. Amid the long white humps of covered rows, only the kale and collards stand tall, flexing their vegetal muscles as they tell Jack Frost to bring it on! If the lettuce makes it through the next few days, we will have salad mix fior another week or two. We'll also have greens, onions, beets, and some of the best-flavored winter squash we have grown in years. Hopefully customers won't give up on the Farmer's Market just yet. We growers have our tricks to extend the season. There will be plenty of good pickin's at the market, even long after the first frost. And if you arrived at this Frog Log to learn more about the Oct. 28. party...hope you can make it! With the Tigers winning their third game against Oakland tonight, it's starting to look very likely that they will be in the World Series! And if that is th...

The garden looks different now that Fall is truly upon us. The leafy greens have taken on a darker hue; the reds are more bronzey. And the texture of the garden has become more homogenous. The tall corn stalks have been chopped, errant weeds have been mowed, and even the bushy tomoato vines now lie in a tangle on the ground, pulled from their supports by the weight of plump tomatoes. All the crops are lower, closer to the ground; and as we make the final harvests, the bare earth prepares to be tucked away, to rest and restore until the growing season returns. And we are on our last bean patch. Now I have written about beans before. And Tom gave me a hard time for saying I was tired of picking them four times in one Frog Log. Okay, maybe that was a little excessive, but then we pick an excessive amount of beans! We start picking in mid-July, right around the Art Fair, when everyone on the market has beans. But when most other farmers go on to tomatoes and corn, we don't stop plantin...