You are receiving this message because Hutchins Farm is very excited to have begun picking tomatoes (along with other faves like corn and blueberries). The current flow of tomatoes has been characterized as a ‘trickle’, which means that we don’t yet have a consistent supply every day, but we should by sometime next week. We’ve clearly entered a new phase, call it ‘High Summer’.
‘High Summer’, to me a phrase redolent of musky corn pollen, sweat-soaked bodies laboring under a merciless sun, purple-black stacks of clouds enlivening the endless afternoons with gusty torrents, thunder and flashes of electricity. High Summer has arrived in Concord, filling every space with thrumming, throbbing, steaming, swarming life, animating every corner however desolate, covering each freshly turned furrow with a shaggy coat of weeds seemingly instantaneously. One feels that, if we could just slow down a little bit, like a 45 played on the LP setting, we could watch the squash vines running, tendrils gesticulating, clasping each other across the space between rows like long sundered old friends (or maybe wrestlers readying for a contest with an audience of wildly waving trees at field’s edge?)
High Summer’s riotous celebration thrills the senses, with the sultry, occasionally oppressive heat, the primal terror of the flash and thunderclap, aromas of every description carried on the languid breeze, the ceaseless cacophony of bird squabbles and croons, the afternoon buzzsaw of the cicada, the late night chorus of anonymous frogs and bugs, and, close to our hearts, the flavors both intense and subtle that this brash, overheated season engenders in the fruits and vegetables it permits us to grow.
The roll call of those fruits and vegetables, despite certain desertions like spinach and peas, seems to grow daily, with some of the most recent (and welcome) recruits including melons, watermelons, tomatoes, sweet corn, garlic, peppers, eggplant and blueberries. The farmstand slowly fills, with the early arrivals (lettuce, kale, arugula, radish) joined by their slower companions (beets, carrots, basil, parsley), the crowd pleasers (blueberries, sweet corn, tomatoes), the overachievers (summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers), the bit players (artichokes, garlic, tomatillo) and the long list of those who have yet to make an appearance.
Our crew, those who work at the farmstand, the farmer’s markets and in the field, have really pulled together and given their best efforts to understand and execute the complicated choreography of growing produce for our retail operation. As in any season, challenges abound, but challenges make work interesting and satisfying (especially when they are overcome or at least put behind us).
We are open at the stand the usual Tuesday – Sunday 11AM to 6PM, and the markets are rolling along on their regular schedule: Mondays in Cambridge’s Central Square, Thursdays in Belmont Center, and Saturdays in Somerville’s Union Square. Happily, the construction in Union is over, and we are returning to our normal location in Union Square starting this weekend – so please come look for us in our regular old spot!
We hope you are all able to visit the farm one of these glorious high summer days and enjoy the incomparable flavor of one very specific summer day in one very special and beautiful place.
Hope to see you soon,
-Brian Cramer and the Hutchins Farm Crew
July 17th: Apprentices Maria and Ted planting the not-quite-final sweet corn planting of the year.
July 2018 Newsletter – High Summer is here!