Baby potatoes!

These are Red Norland and Yukon Gold -- a couple weeks before the late blight hit.

So yeah. Then the late blight hit. This means that the potatoes have got to be eaten within a couple of days of harvest. This also means that next year it's going to be a lot harder to come by seed-potato.

One day I was in the field and I looked at the potato plants, the foliage was green. Literally 2 days later I looked into the same field and every single plant had died and turned brown and I noticed the smell of rot.

It's all kind of sad. But that's farming. Nothing much I can do about it now.

I've been eating and selling the Red Norland at a fast clip. They're effing tasty and while I'm bummed out they won't keep... like I said before, that's farming.

I ate the whole thing.

Meet Hon Tsai Tai. A flowering brassica. You eat the flowers, the leaves, the stems. As my mother put it, "I didn't know if I should eat it or put it in a vase."

I say, "Put it in skillet, saute it, and eat it. Damn good eats!"

New Red Fire

Waldmann's Dark Green

Belstar.

A classic car kind of day.

This was the second consecutive day of sun. After 3 weeks of nothing but gray and rain, I have to say I was feeling a bit Novemberish. I'm old enough that the weather doesn't effect my moods. But the vegetables -- well, warm weather crops such as eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes, they require a bit of sun. Our plants are suffering from arrested development. I'm a novice farmer (to say the least) but I'm hoping that my peppers and eggplants are as eager to emerge as I am eager to see them emerge. But I fear that if they have to take their course they'll be a long time in coming.

I've seen summer squash offered at other farmers' stands and I'm thinking, "How did they do that?" I can't even guess at when I'll have squash ready for market.

The forecast looks good for the next couple of days and after three weeks of rain, with a couple of flash floods, and last Friday, lightning storms that set three buildings on fire in the town next to mine -- yeah, a couple of days of sun is going to do wonders for my soul.

I have a feeling that a lot of other people around these parts feel the same. This was the first Sunday all season where dudes took their classic cars out of the garage for a Sunday afternoon drive.

While I was driving around today, in my 1999 Volvo that needs about $2000.00 in repairs (gulp)I had a sudden bout of melancholy. About 10 years ago my life was filled with sudden deaths. A co-worker died from acute lukemia, a former co-worker was murdered, and a young guy who washed windows in the building where I worked fell 12 stories to his instantaneous death. This all happened within the span of 3 months. At that time I turned to The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I wasn't looking for anwers. I was looking for coping mechanisms. One of the concepts that I explored was that of "attachment." While I was bummed-out or grieving, it was suggested that I let go of that. The idea is that everything is impermanent and to hang on to things (to be attached to them) is about choice.

There is a corollary to letting go of when things don't feel so good. In my daily practice I let go of the things that do feel good.

But what I've really done, after I read Thich Nhat Hanh, is that I've learned to finesse things a bit. When I'm in a really bad mood and I can't just let go, I give my mood the royal treatment. I take it to lunch or a movie, or I carry it around like a new born baby and I mother it. Eventually it gets the attention it needs and abates.

Today, in all that glorious, blissfull, much-needed sunshine, I had to say, "This too shall pass." I let the sun soak into my skin, observed a wonderfully blue sky, perfectly populated with white fluffy clouds, felt the cool breeze on my skin and I thought, "This is one of the most beautiful days I have ever lived." Then I said, "Let it go."

I don't mind feeling melancholy. In fact I think I'm a better mood on gray days, because I'm a bit of a contrarian. While everyone is lamenting the rain, "I'm thinking, it's no big deal. It'll be sunny soon enough." On sunny days there seems to be an expectation that folks should be in a great mood. Today I liked having a mellow, enjoy-it-while-it's-here kind of mood. I watered the greenhouse. Drove Carly to the bus. Took the weekly CSA share to my mother. (See photos for some of our awesome veggies.) And just let it roll.

And for anyone who's interested in buying some of our veggies, you can find us on Saturdays at the Barre Farmer's Market and the Shutesbury Farmer's Market. We haven't settled on our weekday markets mostly becasue it's been raining for the past month. Did I mention that it just rained for the past 3 weeks?

And the kids who are enrolled in the Harvard Forest summer program have been eating our prouduce for the past 3 weeks.

And now I've got to get back outside to enjoy some of that yummy sunshine.

Here's wishing all of you a few sunny days, some slow cooked food, and access to fresh, locally grown produce your heart desires.

Farm to Table

Normally I don’t shy away from being verbose but lately I’ve had to make a choice between farming or talking. And farming is winning this battle.

Last week was a great week. A nice mix of rain and sun. And as our farm is taking a low-irrigation approach, rain is a welcome event.

On a gray Wednesday Ben and I headed to Hardwick to transplant eggplant and pepper plants. Late in the afternoon we were joined by Clara, Ben’s high school friend, and Mandy, Clara’s co-worker.

Clara and Mandy both work at the Green Bean.

As the day progressed -- transplanting, mulching, and praying for rain, the conversation with Mandy turned towards cooking, eating, farm and food politics, and whatnot.

It dawned on me that Mandy just might be the person to cook our Farm to Table meals. When I asked her about this, her eyes lit up.

Mandy is, in my opinion, very lucky. She’s figured out that she loves to cook and she’s turned that into her revenue stream.

I asked Mandy if she wanted to visit Anahata and cook dinner that night. She could wander into the field, pick what suited her taste, then cook it to her liking. She agreed and I dashed off to Hannaford to pick up the 3 ingredients she requested: scallions, peanut oil, and sprouts.

Well. This wasn’t just any-old meal. Mandy busted out a ton of damn good eats.

Stir fry: chicken, carrots, scallions, bok choy, onion, fennel, chili sauce

Coleslaw: carrot, Bilko cabbage (from the field), vinaigrette

White Russian kale (from our field) and egg, cooked on the stove top in a cast iron skillet. (This was a dish with no-name.)

Arugula and radish (both from our field), with a fresh cranberry-lemon vinaigrette.

Mandy used fennel, cilantro, and parsley -- all from our field.

Beyond the fact that Mandy cooked us an amazing meal using produce from our fields, the evening was alive with possibility. It’s going to take a few strategy sessions to get this process sorted out but it seems very likely that we will serve more Farm to Table meals during this growing season.