Blockbuster hits? Vampire safe rooms? This week at Morven!
Hi everyone! John here!I'm excited to announce that Steph and the interns at the garden have started the filming for our full feature length movie. Packed with drama, excitement, and as much farming as our producers would allow, expect this 3-hour cinematographic masterpiece to be coming to a theater near you!
Just kidding! We did, however, have a full crew of about a dozen men and women come and film the four of us harvesting, digging, and scaring caterpillars. Apparently, UVa is planning on adding our beautiful garden (and faces) to a big video showcasing a bunch of different people and groups around the university. While I'm disappointed that I didn't get a personal hair and makeup crew, we all had a lot of fun showing off the farm for the big screen!In other important news: we had two beds of garlic to pull up this week. This meant a lot of pulling up bulbs and hanging up stalks. When you harvest garlic, it's edible right away, but it's way wetter (and a little stinkier) than you're used to seeing in stores and farmers markets. To get that papery wrapping that we're all familiar with, the bulbs have to stay up somewhere dry with constant airflow. While filling up the nice and clean food lab with our pungent harvest might've been fun for a couple days, we decided to find a barn with a little less nose traffic to stash our produce. Using two old greenhouse tables, a ton of trellising twine, and a little bit of ingenuity, we managed to spread out and aerate almost a thousand garlic bulbs. Without further ado: I'm very proud to reveal the world's most vampire-free horse barn.
I'm also very relieved to reveal that Julia and Gabe are now confirmed to not be vampires
While we're on the topic, I'd been increasingly curious about the links between vampires and our favorite cloven crop, so I took it upon myself to do some digging. A variety of different factors coming together can point to the defense associated with our tiny bulb friends. Firstly garlic has been used in a variety of different cultures as a natural insect repellent: it can still be used today as a natural (albeit reeking) solution! Garlic is also known to have antimicrobial and antifungal properties (like many other plants!) that many people in early history associated with benevolence and purity. In addition many people growing their own garlic plants would end up hanging their crop near doorways and openings in order to maximize air flow, leading to a natural association of the plant with guarding the entrances. The combination of these small things could've been the reason that superstitious individuals found solace in their garlic bulbs.While you won't be getting any bulbs in this first share, our summer CSA does starts this week! Be on the lookout for chard, radishes and some other fun surprises. We'll be sure to keep you updated with any new garden (and vampire) information next week!