Put down your guns and pick up your garden hoes

As this is a blog about organic farming I s’pose I should write about organic farming once in a while…

Hardwick update:
The field was amended (with cow manure)
The field was plowed
The field was harrowed
The field was tilled (we broke down and paid a guy to till)
Beds were made
Onions and leeks (Walla Walla and Varna/Bandit respectively) were transplanted
Potatoes (Red Norland, Yukon Gold, and All Blue) were direct seeded
Beets and Swiss Chard were direct seeded

Petersham update:
(Petersham is brimming with vegetable life)
People driving past slow down to admire (?) the rows and rows of vegetables

In the ground --

Transplanted:
Lettuce (Rouge D’Hiver, Parris Island Cob), kale (White Russian, Dinosaur), cabbage (Red Express, Bilko), Broccoli, collard greens, bok choi, fennel, parsley (Italian Flat Leaf, Moss Curled), onions (Walla Walla), leeks (Varna, Bandit)

Direct Seeded:
Potatoes (Yukon Gold, Red Norland, All Blue), radishes, carrots, mustard greens, arugula, spinach, gourmet lettuce mix

In the Greenhouse:
Tomato seedlings (Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Black Cherry, Silvetz, Scotia, Matt’s Wild, San Marzano, Toma Verde, Prudens), peppers (King of the North, Orion, Sweet Chocolate), bok choi, lettuce (Rouge D’Hiver, Parris Island Cob, Optima), parsley (Italian Flat Leaf, Moss Curled), basil (Lemon, Sweet)

In the Seed Pod:
Lettuce (Magenta, ), squash (butternut, acorn, zucchini, summer (straightneck and crookneck), kabucha),

Yikes.

Funny story about germinating squash seeds. Stayed up late one night, seeded the squash, put the trays on the floor, headed up stairs, and fell into a deep sleep. (Working 12 hours a day in the field does have that effect on a person.) Woke up the next morning, looked at the trays -- which would best be described as “disheveled” and thought, “Ben must’ve been in a weird mood [to do that].” My next thought was, “Mice!!!” I called out to Ben, “The f*cking mice ate the seeds out of the seed trays.” The industrious little sh*ts neatly dug the seeds out of several cells – about ten per tray -- and as far as I can tell; once they gorged themselves they crawled back into their stinking mice holes and passed out, their bellies round, large grins on their tiny mice faces. Sated on my seeds. Grrrrr.

As you can well imagine the practice of leaving seed trays on the floor (as far as squash propagation goes) has been brought to a swift end. Those trays are on a table. Thus far the mice have not figured out how to get at them.

Of course, the next stop for these trays is the green house and there are plenty of chipmunks in the yard. Well, there’s one less chipmunk in the yard as someone ran over it the other day. Truth be told this event pissed me off and saddened me. Is it really that hard to slow down and avoid running over a chipmunk?

It bummed me out only because I think this was the chipmunk I was talking to earlier in the day. Of course, I was saying, “Dude, don’t even think of eating my squash seeds.” He (or she?) flitted past the door to the greenhouse and I couldn’t tell if he (or she) was taunting me.

It’s weird how I get attached to some of the smallish creatures that live around the yard. There is the cutest red squirrel that lives in the attic. She (or maybe he) has deep brown eyes, long black eyelashes, and a small body -- about half the size of a grey squirrel. And don’t ask me why but I like seeing her (or is it him) making her way along the stone wall. She has intelligent energy.

Luckily the Little Red Squirrel heads into the woods to spend her days foraging and living out her small life. I’m not sure if this squirrel is actually smarter than the chipmunks or if it’s just not her habit to dash across the road.

I will be extremely bummed out if I come up the road and find her killed. I think she’s too cool to meet such a mundane fate.

In any event. What of these 14-hour days?

Well they’ve finally caught up with me. In a good way. I’m no longer that neurotic office worker who spends hours obsessing over the meaning of her dreams, surfing the internet, and hating being behind a desk.

The past couple of days -- once the heat has broken and I’m standing in the fields watering the plants – a gentle breeze will pass through the fabric of my t-shirt cool the sweat off my back and I think -- “Wow! In a couple of weeks I’m going to be at market.” At night I fall into bed and fall asleep, a couple times fully dressed, too tired to bother getting undressed and I sleep undisturbed by my dreams until around 5 am.

What else?

We learned the hard way that plants really do need to be hardened off. Some of the Rouge D’Hiver took a pounding after being transplanted and it ain’t coming back. Unfortunately there have also been a couple of days where the mercury hit 90 and some lettuce has been cooked in the fields. Yes, we’ll be offering this as cut greens (removing the scalded leaves) and soon, very soon, we’re placing an order for shade cloth so we can bring “head lettuce” to our customers as “head lettuce.”

I feel encouraged by garlic and radishes. They’re polar opposites. Not by design but our plants happen to be at opposite ends of the fields. Garlic, as many of you know, goes into the ground in October, winters over, and is harvested in July. Radishes can be harvested in 20 days. Radishes can grow in poor soil and as we’ve got some sandy patches (Cat box as we refer to these bits) were direct seeded with radish.

The garlic patch reminds me that last year I was ambitious enough (or is it crazy enough) to purchase organic garlic seed from Johnny’s.

Tomorrow I’ll go take a peek at the radishes because they match my spirit: they’re impatient. No other plant that we’ll plant will be ready to be harvested in such short period of time. The cotyledons are the size of dimes and teeny tiny true leaves have sprouted. The stems are what I’d call, “Terrific red.” Almost a blood red -- foretelling the pinkish reddish skin. I can hear the crunch of taking a bite, taste the slight heat. Radishes are a bit peppery.

The garlic and the radish are at extremes and here I am in the midst of that. Which is no kind of segue but it’s late and I’m tired so deal with it…

Farming has put me in the Present. Full on. Stubbing your toe or getting a paper cut can bring you back to the present. Ouch. Time to wake up and pay attention.

A few weeks back I realized that I was a chronic escapist. That I’d spent a great deal of my life wishing I were in other places. Even if I was somewhere totally lovely, with someone I wanted to be with, I would wander away. Once I realized that I was a chronic escapist I started to reel myself in. I started to put myself into the moment as deeply as I could. Bed making was a great way to be present. Instead of resenting it and wishing I were doing something else, I started to just make a bed. I watched my breath, I observed the way the muscles in my body moved as I dragged a hoe back and forth, as I raked the dirt to shape the bed. I was in the deadly dull grunt work of bed making. I was looking neither to escape nor to be gratified. I was looking to just be. And when my mind wandered I’d fetch myself and put myself back in the moment of bed making.

I told myself: This is it. This is all there is.

Of course there was much more than just bed making going on. The hawks screeched in the nest. The sun bore down on me. The black flies buzzed about my face. The breeze (when it arrived) cooled me off. The scent of lilacs wafted across the yard.

What was fascinating about all of this is it awakened something in me about how I value my time and my efforts and myself. I know that I’m not a farmer. The problem is I don’t know what I am. (Luckily I do know WHO I am. phew.) What’s more interesting is that I can’t think of any other way to spend my time right now. I know that being a farmer is exactly where I’m supposed to be. This is the beginning of the rest of my life.

To say I’m not a farmer isn’t entirely accurate. I think what I want is a more diversified operation. I want some chickens and a couple of goats. (I saw the cutest goat today at Misty Brook Farm. She’d totally managed to get past the fence and was front of a shed nibbling on an extension cord. I was going to alert the kid in the barn but then a woman who was feeding the chickens noticed the goat. The woman addressed the goat in a tone – the way any of us who spend more than a couple of days on the farm do -- “Goatie. How did you get out?” As if she were talking to a person and expected the goat to answer. So the vernacular with animals is always rhetorical questions.

Tonight Ben served the first serving of Seven Crows Garden kale. This was comprised of baby leaves plucked off and steamed. My taste buds will smile more broadly when I cut off a few leaves of mature Dinosaur kale, chop it up and sauté it in some butter. (Hot damn! Those will be some freaking good eats.)

And that’s all I’ve got right now.

Tomorrow is my day off. Yes, I do believe in the Sabbath (way more than ever before). I’m gonna sleep until 8 am. Yeah. That’s sleeping in.

Oh, my dearly departed city life. Will I there ever come a night when stay up dancing at Pyramid Club ‘til dawn? I do hope so. But that’ll be something to think about during the off-season.

Right now it’s lights out.

Sweet dreams dear readers.