There comes a moment during the season when many of the plants seem to know it's time to shine. This week was it! The fields provided us with an abundance of glorious, nourishing treats, and most especially, gluttony of my favorite fruit of the season, tomatoes! We spent many hours this beautiful last full week of August harvesting and sorting juicy ripe reds and the first pickings of those later ripening heirloom varieties. In the pick-your-own rows there were pints of cherry tomato gems and plump plum tomatoes. This is absolutely my favorite season and time of the year. So much goodness to bring back to the kitchen to cook, preserve and savor. My summer "bucket list" of recipes I crave and must prepare is long and I have to organize my excitement... make time to put up tomato sauce for the winter, make Gabrielle Hamilton's Sicilian vegetable tian recipe, BLTs galore, tomato jam, Vivian Howard's roasted tomato pie, eggplant caponata... so much tastiness.  We ALL talk A LOT about food, cravings, cooking and eating while we work in the fields or inside the barn on CSA pick up days. Often we start or end the day talking about what we had or want to make for supper. Our various cultural influences make for some tasty recipe swapping. Oh, and in case you have not seen them, there are a few great cookbooks for sale in the farm stand. I love the pickling and preserving book "Pick a Pickle" by Hugh Acheson. Ask anyone  in the barn to show it to you at your next CSA pick up!

It's also that moment when the weeds also know we are working hard harvesting under the late August sun, and it's time to show their might. At our fields in Weston, an army of shoulder high pigweed, crabgrass and a few other vigorous weeds are dusting us with their mighty pollen which invades our nostrils and coats our clothes with a fine yellow dust. They are trying to shade some of our just ripening sweet pepper plantings and they hold strong to the soil with their well developed roots.  We battle and tame their growth with our fierce red clippers. We will win and let in the sunshine!

We finished the week with a massive watermelon harvest, well over 400 melons, on Friday afternoon. We gathered the melons into piles within each row and established a brigade line, and hand tossed each melon in the direction of the trucks that would bring them back to the barn in Waltham (only a couple of missed catches, but we gratefully satisfied our thirst with those sacrificed watermelons).

Friday was a special day indeed, not only because of sunshine and abundant harvest, but for the time we all shared in giving thanks to our most wonderful Weed Crew, whose last day with us this season was Friday. Jack, Annie, Bekah and Jenny have been exemplary and wonderful humans to work alongside.  They have provided so many hours of back-breaking, conscientious weed management in the fields and we are so very grateful for all their labor and friendship shared at the farm. We celebrated with a surprise potluck lunch and everyone prepared such delicious offerings so that we could commune together on the farm one last time. And, wouldn't you know it they surprised us with gorgeous sweet carrot cake cupcakes!

It was a fabulous, satisfying and productive week on the farm and we thank you, our CSA members, for supporting WFCF and making the work we do and love possible.

From everyone on the farm (staff, educators, farmers, field crew, weed crew and CSA distribution volunteers)... happy cooking!

Stacey