Last week I drove past the muck farm I worked at when I was in high school. If you've never heard of muck, it's a type of dirt that you can find in some areas of west Michigan. It's very dark, is moist and is great for growing things like celery and onions. I grew up near the town of Hudsonville, which is also known as the "Salad Bowl City" because of the vegetables that are grown in the muck there.
Anyway, the farm I worked at grew celery and I spent many hours there. We worked after school starting in late March, planting tiny seedlings in the greenhouse. Later in the Spring we would take those same seedlings and sit on a celery planter in the field, planting them.
In the summer I worked in the building trimming and packing the celery into boxes and this work lasted until late Fall.
We always smelled like celery and even now that smell brings me back to those times!
The farm now grows celery and onions.
Here's one of the fields. You can see the harvested field in the front and the green onion tops in the back. The workers are in the field "topping" onions.
Here are some of the onions all crated up and ready for shipping.
Here's a bunch more filled crates, along with a view of the crates.
This is one of the celery planters I told you about earlier. When we would first start planting in the Spring it was quite cold and the cover helped protect us from the wind. Later this cover would come off and we would enjoy the sunshine.
It was hard work, but we also had fun. Thanks for letting me take you on a trip down memory lane.
