The day of fortune is like a harvest day, We must be busy when the corn is ripe. -Torquato Tasso
Summer's end heralds the harvest time, the most simultaneously demanding and gratifying time of year. Like a strict teacher, it insists upon our constant dedication, industry, and zeal, but it is under its high expectations that we realize our biggest gains. The language of the harvest is deeply imbued with cultural meaning. We reap what has been sown. Our ideas bear fruit, or we seek the fruits of our labor. We glean, we squirrel away. Preserve. Produce. Yield. Vintage. The Grim Reaper with his scythe reminds us that winter eventually comes for us all.
Last weekend the Ithaca Crop Mob joined Nathaniel of Remembrance Farm in Trumansburg to observe the rite of the harvest. Remembrance Farm, one of the three farms of the Full Plate Farm Collective CSA, specializes in salad greens, root vegetables, and eggs. On Saturday we met to harvest the onions that would feed the CSA's more than 500 members, as well as area restaurants and others through Regional Access.
