{"id":1011,"date":"2016-06-22T19:46:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T19:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2019-12-30T23:04:59","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T23:04:59","slug":"langedijk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/?p=1011","title":{"rendered":"Langedijk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"IMG_3330\"<\/a>

The Auction House for vegetables straddling a canal that centers a vast network of canals<\/p><\/div>\n

Tuesday morning our little duckling line of bikes set out for the historic Langedijk (Long Dike) vegetable market about 8 miles away.\u00a0 We wound through Schoorl via bike lanes and trails, then hit a bike trail that led us along a canal through open countryside toward Langedijk.<\/p>\n

The area around Langedijk, as well as the town itself, is reclaimed salt marshes called the “Realm of a Thousand Islands\u201d, but in fact over 15,000 islands have been created over the centuries.\u00a0 How do you make an island?\u00a0 You dig a canal in the marsh, mound the dirt on one side, and voila!, you have an island AND a canal.\u00a0 Now you can farm the island.\u00a0 This creates a dense archipelago of tiny islands (a typical island may be 30 m. x 300 m.) for cultivation, each one accessible only by boat and connected via a vast network of canals.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A new visitors center has a map showing the archipelago of islands etched onto the glass of its facade<\/p><\/div>\n

How do you get your produce to market?\u00a0 By boat, of course, to a wholesale auction house that straddles a canal.\u00a0 The system is ingenious and organized, and it thrived until the 1960\u2019s, at which time roads, trucks, large-scale agriculture, and filled-in canals overtook its function.\u00a0 Today it exists as an experiential museum for visitors and the small islands are farmed by volunteer groups of organic farmers.\u00a0 It remains a fascinating look at Dutch engineering, collective industriousness and social organization.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A water-level view of an island amid the canals<\/p><\/div>\n

\"For<\/a>

For decades, the thousand islands were farmed by hand. Now a tractor can be landed by barge on an island to do the plowing and tilling.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday morning our little duckling line of bikes set out for the historic Langedijk (Long Dike) vegetable market about 8 miles away.\u00a0 We wound through Schoorl via bike lanes and trails, then hit a bike trail that led us along … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycling","category-fam-friend","tag-holland-cycling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3327.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3QqGi-gj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}