Pomnyun Sunim’s Day Of Harvesting

Pomnyun Sunim spends his day harvesting napa cabbages and radishes to make kimchi.

It is the day of harvesting radish and napa cabbage. There were a total of about 360 heads of cabbage ready to be harvested. For making cabbage kimchi, about 100 heads of cabbage were selected. The rest of them were to be used during training sessions. Radishes were also used to make kimchi.

Although it was a sunny day, the weather was cool and windy. Everyone worked quickly to pluck out the best 100 cabbages from the farm.

In the midst of harvesting, they found a lot of cabbages with shriveled middle parts. Although there were 360 heads of cabbage, there were barely 100 heads of cabbage that were in good condition. By lunchtime, there was a truck full of cabbages loaded in a 1-ton truck.

By growing their own cabbage farms and harvesting the crops instead of buying cabbages from farmers, there was a moment of lesson to be learned about how hard farmers work until the food comes to the table.

Before going back to the farms, Pomnyun Sunim gave a box full of potatoes to the owner of the farms. He wanted to say thanks for lending them the farm to be used and for giving them farming lessons during the farming season.

This time, they harvested radishes. They picked out about 30 radishes to be pickled in kimchi and separated the green leaves to be dried and cooked later.

After harvesting the cabbages and radish, the farms looked barren. Before the next spring came, they decided to clean up the farm by removing all the black plastic covers. The soil was hard and it wasn’t an easy job removing the plastics.

They also harvested cabbages and radishes that were grown inside the greenhouse. Although they were less grown than the ones from the farm outside, the middle parts were full and healthy.

Now it was time for making kimchi.

There were a lot of cabbages with shriveled middle parts, but Pomnyun Sunim gave the idea that they should try to cut out the middle parts and pickle them in salt like how North Koreans do. People were relieved that they didn’t have to throw out the shriveled parts of the cabbages and quickly made kimchi together.

Next, Pomnyun Sunim chopped the firewood and put the leftover radish leaves aside to be fed to the cows. Although it was a day of hard work on a cold day, it felt fulfilling with containers full of cabbage and radish kimchi.