Good Week and Happy Sukkot!

 

 

Please note changes in delivery days during the next two weeks.

 

 

Please be patient with arrival times (we are doing four days work in three!) And with deficiencies.

 

 

 

Late summer and early fall is always a difficult season for vegetables.

Vegetable plants such as peppers, squash (including cucumbers and zucchini) and tomatoes, that are actually fruits of summer and from which we pick several times during the season, are already tired. Even in greenhouses in the Arava the output always goes down during this period. There is a shortage of almost all types of organic vegetables in all of the markets in the country.

Every year at this season I remind myself that agriculture is a cycle and soon Sukkot will arrive, which is the harvest festival and which symbolizes the end of this agricultural cycle, and of course the beginning of a new cycle.

The first thing that announces the change in the weather, which we know is a constant process even if we do not always notice it, is the large fresh lettuces that were harvested. Thank goodness for them!!

 

We also feel a relief in the heat load. The mornings are darker, the humidity is rising and the days are getting shorter…

Less than two weeks ago was the fall equinox. On this day the sun’s rays reach the equator at a 90 degree angle, so the length of the day is equal to the length of the night. As of September 22nd in the northern hemisphere (where we are) the fall begins and in the southern hemisphere spring begins. In the northern hemisphere the days continue getting shorter and the nights continue getting longer and in the southern hemisphere the days continue getting longer while the nights continue getting shorter.

At this time summer crops are harvested and collected and winter crops begin. Small growers with a variety of crops do this gradually 🙂 and of course according to each one's terrain and climate.

But all of us, at this time, start having thoughts and concerns about water. Will there be enough rain, with good timing? Should we gather a certain crop or is there still time for more growth before the rain? Should I plant a different crop and will there be enough rain for it?

Sukkot comes at the end of the summer agricultural season and is also called "Harvest Festival".

During the days of the Second Temple, when the people here were primarily agricultural, every dawn during Sukkot there was a large procession led by the Cohenim, blowing the Shofar and playing the trumpet, parading to the shiloah spring at the foot of Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. There they would pump water into a vial of gold that was brought to the Temple. In the Temple the water was transferred to a special silver cup, which was not used for anything else, and from it the water was poured on the altar as a sign of the people requesting that God provide a year blessed with rainfall.

After the first day of Sukkot they would light a golden lamp in the Temple and start celebrating Simchat Beit Hashoeva. It was said that if you have not seen the joy of Simchat Beit Hashoeva, you have not seen joy in your life and there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that was not lit with this joy.

Nowadays only a minority deals with farming and feeds the remainder of the population. However, the concerns and prayers for rain in our country remain really, truly so significant.

"בגשמי אורה תאיר אדמה,

בגשמי ברכה תברך אדמה,

בגשמי גילה תגיל אדמה…"

 

May we have a warm and wet winter.

Happy holiday!

Yours,

Maggie, Michelle and the garden Staff

 

we expect in our boxes (draft only):

Onion

 

Butternut Squash

 

Arugula

 

Cucumbers

 

Tomatoes

 

Lettuce

 

Yams

 

Potatoes

 

Palermo sweet peppers

 

 

 

Larger ones also:

 

Pumpkin

 

Chives

 

And Zucchini

 

 

 

Fruit baskets:

 

Mango

 

Pomegranate

 

And oranges

 

 

 

Larger ones also:

 

Carambola

 

And Sweeties