Among other things during the last week of May, we transplanted sweet potatoes, u-pickers hit our two strawberry fields hard, and we started to harvest garlic scapes. The appearance of garlic scapes usually indicates that garlic bulbs themselves will be harvested about a month later. As Carrie noticed, the garlic plants are drying somewhat earlier than usual. We are not exactly sure what this means. The drier than usual spring is certainly a factor. Perhaps we will start harvesting garlic sooner than expected and perhaps our bulbs will be smaller than in previous years.
May turned out to be a fairly dry month. The farm probably got less than half the usual precipitation. All in all this has been a dry spring: in terms of rain, April was a good month, but it was sandwiched between a March with virtually no precipitation and a fairly dry May.
Last Saturday we were surprised by the number of worksharers that came to the farm--almost forty individuals. In August we can keep such a crowd busy harvesting, but there is simply less to harvest in May. Nonetheless, once the harvest was done we kept everyone fairly busy with weeding some of our beds as well as raking recently mowed rye grass and hairy vetch (cover crop) and then piling it all up on a compost heap.
We appreciate our volunteers and worksharers, and we understand that most of them are unable to come to the farm during the regular work week. But let me lobby for Tuesday as the day of the week to come. If you want to work for a share or simply volunteer at the farm, you will be especially welcomed on Tuesday, which is our most intense harvest day.
And now a few photos.
Above we see Dave clearing a heap of just-mowed cover crop that was in his way. Dave was using the tractor to prepare a couple of beds with a mechanical spader. (Photo by Sarah Tooley.)
Worksharers and Gail (foreground) weeding one of our beds. 
Kenji engaging in close combat with new green stuff on his compost pile.
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