Photos: Courtesy of Powisset Farm

Meryl LaTronica, Guest Contributor
Powisset Farm

Time to harvest!

There really are so many wonderful things I like about being a farmer. I get to be outside all day, feeling the sun and the rain and the turn of the seasons. I get to put my hands in the soil to pull weeds, plant vegetables and squish bugs. I get to drive and fix tractors, and work with tried and true farm tools, like a hoe. All of these things are exhilarating and full of purpose. That purpose, of course, being to grow food! And now, finally here in Massachusetts, we have come to the time in the season when we get to begin the harvesting.

For months we have been in the greenhouse or in the cool spring fields, watching tiny seedlings forge up and out into adolescent plants, wondering if they were really going to make it through the changes of spring. We have covered plants with remay (a protective row cover) that we cultivated by hoe and tractor, and we have fertilized, irrigated, trellised and even sung to our plants. Then, one morning this week, I walked out to our first spinach beds, drew my knife from my right pocket, leaned down on one knee and claimed my first harvest of the season. As I threw handfuls of tender spinach into my orange harvest bin, I felt a feeling of being satisfied, being full, completing a journey. The journey being the one from seeding, to planting, to cultivating, harvesting and, finally, to my dinner table.

Cooking up those first handfuls of spinach this week or munching on the fresh leaves as I harvested them felt like a gift. From now until the end of the season, my days will be driven by these harvests. Three, four and five days a week I will be out in the fields, picking. Hours will be spent with a knife in one hand, a harvest bin in the other, and knee pads softening the pressure of working on my knees all morning. The days and season pass by and are measured by the taste of fresh spinach, the feel of a head of just-picked lettuce in my hand, the warmth of strawberries picked for a mid-day snack, and the weight of a perfect bunch of beets in my hands. Growing food is so delicious!

Note: the coolest thing about growing and picking spinach is that you can cut it a few inches above the soil, let it grow back and then cut it again. You can do this as long as the plant is still growing and it still tastes good to you. Here at Powisset Farm, we usually cut each bed of spinach twice. Some people prefer to pull out spinach by the roots.