Noonday Notes, Issue 7

The last few months at Noonday have been bonkers: planting, harvesting, fertilizing, delivering, pulling weeds, and sweating a lot. Farming bruh. But I can feel the brakes pumping in the land and in my body. July is near, and in South Texas, that means something different than farming on the East Coast: it’s time to rest y’all.

When I had a farm in Central New York, the growing season lined up with the baseball season. We’d plow around Opening Day, and by the time the Red Sox were headed into the postseason, we were planting garlic and preparing for snow. There was a start and a finish, spring to fall. But here, I’m learning a new flow. July is not the peak of the season—it’s a pause in the middle of what seems to be two growing seasons. A built-in sabbath. Truly, God blessed Texas with his own hands.

This idea of rest isn’t just practical-it’s spiritual. At my church, we are leaning into Fallow July as well. A reminder that God created not just work, but rest. That sabbath wasn’t an afterthought, it was part of the design.

In Leviticus 25:4, we hear this command for the land:

“But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.”

Well, I’m going with the seventh month on this one. Let the soil rest. Let my body rest. I’m accepting God’s invitation to renewal; to pause and prepare for whatever the next season will ask of me. Low-key existential stuff. So, next week will be the final delivery of our first season at Noonday Farms. I’ll send out a wrap-up Noonday Note with some harvest stats that may wow and impress you. (Spoiler alert: over 300 cucumbers.)

Then it’s off to plan for fall (after I sit by the ocean for a few days), and get recharged to take another swing at spinach and brassicas.

Here’s to pausing with a purpose, lying fallow, and trusting that rest grows good things too.

Read the rest of Noonday Notes here.