It was creeping up on the lunch hour on a Tuesday at Hunts Brook Farm in Quaker Hill in Waterford, and Rob Schacht was washing out plastic bins he'd been using for harvesting tomatoes, lettuce and other produce for the small farm's Community-supported Agriculture (CSA) shares.

A CSA is a farming model in which customers pay for a portion of a farmer's harvest before it begins. Hunts Brook has 75 CSA customers who receive the same stipend of fresh produce each week.

"Let me start with farming in July, 'cuz farming in July is by far the hardest month to farm," said Schacht.

On this particular day, he and his wife Teresa and their summer farming staff started harvesting items at 6 a.m. Schacht said that had the day held 90-degree temperatures instead of being in the 80s, they would have started at 5 a.m.

So, by around 1 p.m., Schacht was already seven hours into his workday, and his wife Teresa was inside with their 5-year-old son, Sam, resting.

Shares from the small family-owned farm this summer include lettuce, kale, eggplant, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, scallions cipellinis, cabbage, herbs, beets, fennel, potatoes, carrots and more. The farm didn't dole out carrots that particular week because the CSA shares had included carrots the week before, according to Schacht.

The shares also include basil, which, sitting bunched in a ridged plastic bin, filled the air in and around a tent set up outside the farm stand with a crisp yet warm aroma.

Farming in July, Schacht will tell you, involves the same steps and tasks as farming at other points in the year - just, all at once.

"Everything that's on a farmer's list throughout the year, it's all on the list in July," he said.

There's planting, there's harvesting, there's weeding ("The weeds grow like weeds in July," he said), there's spraying plants with what is permissible in organic farming, there's taking items to farmers markets, there's the CSA, and to top it all off, there's mid-summer heat.

On this Tuesday, after picking items for the CSA, the Schachts and their staff washed them off in tubs of cold water. "Hydrocooling," he called it.

As Schacht spoke about the day's schedule, a woman entered the tent through the farm stand and asked about a stack of crates holding tomatoes. The farmer explained to her that those were for tomorrow' CSA pickup, where CSA customers would select their items farmers-market style.

"We can never grow enough of everything," he said after the woman walked away, wiping sweat from his eyes.

His next task was to take a break to eat lunch. He then planned to head back out to prepare planting beds in the greenhouses for brassicas to be harvested in the fall, pick onions, prune tomato plants, and spray plants with the biological pesticide known as "Bt" that is commonly used by organic farmers.

Hunts Brook Farm is not certified organic, but is a "Farmer's Pledge Farm." This means the farmers have signed a pledge with the Connecticut branch of the Northeast Organic Farming Association stating that they will follow "ecologically sound" principals in farming, but that the farm does not face inspection.

The list of tasks for the afternoon and evening was not totally inclusive, Schacht explained.

"Oh, I'm sure there will be things that will just intertwine themselves into that mix," he said.

Some days, the Schachts get to take a long break from field work during the heat of the afternoon, which they might spend resting but will probably spend working the farm's finances.

Not in July. Schacht said he expected to be out working until 9 or 10 p.m.. The next day, a Wednesday, would be centered on setting out items for the CSA to occur around lunch time and to send out bundles for those who don't come to pick up their shares.

With all the work that he and Teresa put in year round, Schacht still said of farming, "You gotta love it."

T.TOWNSEND@THEDAY.COM