Pepper Grind

Friday harvest wrapped up around 4 o'clock, but that wasn't all folks! The sweet and hot peppers and the eggplants we've had cooking in the greenhouse since March are verging on being overdone, lest we stick them in the ground asap. So following a full day's harvest of lettuce, greens, peas, and alliums, it was out into the field in the waning afternoon light to plant 20 rows of sweet peppers. When transplanting, a tape measure is laid out to ensure precise placement--for the peppers, they are spaced 2 feet apart, and staggered between rows. The rows of maroon nubbins running down the center of the pepper beds are lettuce. This crop will mature and be harvested long before the peppers are producing fruit; this planting of lettuce serves as a way to make use of otherwise empty space before the peppers are large enough to utilize it.

By 8:30 we had knocked it out of the park, and following a brief harvest of cilantro and parsley, plus packing of the market truck, the day was at an end. The night, however, was only beginning....