Farmers are among the few people who welcome a good bout of cloud cover and rain, even on our days off. In that same vein, you'll have to excuse our eager waves goodbye to summer and our open arm welcoming of fall.

Mother Nature seems to have a few more humid and hot days in our near future, but you could find some smiling faces around the farm last Wednesday. There was just something in the light, in the sky, in the breeze, telling us that fall is coming. In sync with the feel of the day, we spent the morning putting some of our fields to bed by spreading winter rye and hairy vetch seed which will provide some winter ground cover and a replenishing supply of organic matter. It's hard to believe that it's the time of year already that parts of the farm have run their production cycle and are buttoning down for the cold. Wasn't it just last week that we harvested hundreds of pounds of summer squash out of these same fields? Despite being able to mark one day from the previous by the way the bok choy is suddenly standing up inches higher in its rows or the squash doubles in size, despite feeling like we could mark minutes by standing still and watching the crops (and weeds...) change before our eyes, the months have still raced by.

I imagine maybe it's a bit like watching a child grow up. You see her through all of the predicted developmental phases, marking them in a journal, only to wonder where the time went when you're walking her down the aisle. Where is that abundant supply of pickling cucumbers for my daydreamed refrigerator full of pickles? Flats of never ending tomatoes for the jars of sauce in the freezer? Farming teaches us daily that nothing is constant, everything is in a state of change. The cycles of these summer vegetables are on the wane, while we'll see the sweetness of kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts and kohlrabi wax with a frost. We all love the work we do here. But the work doesn't just mean heavy summer harvests, born of our spring labors. In the heat of an August afternoon tomato pick, it's hard to keep in mind how temporary those fruiting plants are. Yet here we are, edging into a new season. As these shortening days tumble us closer into autumn, the changing harvest is a patent sign of this.

This week you'll see fall favorites such as vibrant greens and the beginnings of broccoli or cauliflower. We'll harvest the first sweet potatoes sometime this week and Picadilly Farm will begin to deliver potatoes and Delicata winter squash. You'll also keep getting some summer flavors in bell peppers and maybe even a tomato or two. And through the week, we'll continue to take care of our hardworking and tired fields, knowing that our practical labors as well as our memories of this summer will influence next year's crop health and harvest.

-- Erinn Roberts