harvesting and weeding... again!

We harvested the rest of the share for this week-- the most exciting of which was broccoli.  In our efficient 3-person broccoli-picking operation, 2 of us wielded large sharp knives and sliced off the stems of the broccoli with one big swipe, then pulled off the leaves in two grabbing motions.  We then tossed them a few rows over to the third person, waiting with the harvest cart full of plastic harvest boxes (dragging it along as we moved down the row), who caught them with skill and dexterity & placed them neatly in the boxes.  It was quite a sport.

We also weeded a whole lot of things.  We had several great volunteers helping us do one of the most painstaking chores on the farm: weeding carrot seedlings.  In this particular case the weeds greatly outnumbered the actual carrot seedlings, and it was a test of patience.  But with many hands, we got quite a large amount of the row done. 

I have learned now the lesson of choosing wisely where to plant your carrots-- not planting into a spot that was very weedy the years before, where weeds may have flowered & thrown seeds into the soil.  Carrots are particularly hard, because they have these delicate little leaves that don't shade out weeds at all, and you ideally want about 20 carrots per foot.  No room for a hoe between those plants.