by Madie Murray

F2C Chair

“Fifth Season” on Orcas Island is when we gather as much abundant fresh summer produce, fruits and herbs from island farms as possible and process and freeze them so they can be used later in the year when they would normally not be available for our school breakfasts and lunches. In essence, we are creating an additional, or fifth, season of food.

On Friday the 13th, a band of earnest Farm to Cafeteria volunteers gathered together in the school Home Economics classroom amongst a virtual garden of plums, beets, basil, onions, tomatoes, garlic, corn, green and yellow beans, parsley, Italian prunes, red and yellow spuds, pears and squash…and did I mention plums?

Perhaps our biggest job was pitting and packaging about 75 pounds of plums that will be turned into sauces and desserts prepared by our cafeteria staff this fall.  Processing the rest of the items was a piece of cake, so to speak.

The school garden, as well as Black Dog, Taproot, Coffelt, Morning Star, and Family Tides Farms supplied the amazingly beautiful veggies and herbs. The orchards of Ed Suij, Coffelt and Barbara Wheeler provided a huge supply of delicious pears and plums.

A great big thanks to these amazing farms and orchards for their generous support of this program, also Bing, Zach and Debbie in our cafeteria, and to the volunteers: Kate Long, Merry Bush, Margie Doyle, Mariah Miller, Geri and David Turnoy, Jackie Daigle, Evangeline O’Sullivan, Chelsea Cates, and Jim Wilde from Lowe’s who came all way from “America” to give us a hand.