Orchard Lecture

Orin brought the orchard into the class room today. In order to teach pruning, he needed sufficient props, and it necessitated cutting down whole saplings to bring to class. He came in, draped in apple branches, fruit still hanging- fully committed to giving us a visceral learning experience. I appreciated the integration of learning styles- tactile, auditory, visual, sensual. Teaching us how to fall in love with gardening.

Toes full up

We planted the last beds in the main field today. A pre-emanation that things will eventually come to an end. Sooner than all of us have imagined, fall will arrive, the dregs will be turned in, and cover crop seeds will be spread- tucking the fields in for winter.

After we transplanted the tiny seedlings into the rows, the whole group lay down in the furrows- shoulder sized walls of dirt mounted up on both sides. Nestled in the the dirt, eyes at plant height, staring up at the sky.

Toes full up, we lay in wait as our seedlings might- to be watered, to grow, and to start the cycle again.

Abundance and Scarcity

It's hard to remember in the midst of such abundant chaos that there is

Scarcity

Barren Land

Poverty

Resource Depletion 

and Starvation

While we're here, our arms full of vegetables, it's almost impossible to remember.

So many beans, zucchini, salad greens, and beets, we rush to keep up with giving them away. 

Would that we'll give them to the right people.

If only the world had the ability to experience this good life. Perhaps they'd put down their arms and help harvest. 

Russian Beets

We cleared oversized beets today. Huge beets so impressive that we named them as we pulled them out of the ground. Mostly male Russian sounding names. Vladmir, Gorback, Putin. 321 pounds of magenta colored calories, headed for the walk-in.  

First Fruit

Today after work the apprentices who had been stringing the tomatoes gathered us all in a circle. They said they had news, and with somber faces, they told us it wasn't good.

Then the three of them smiled wily at each other, and from behind their backs they produced three red glowing orbs.

The first tomatoes of summer.

Beneath the elderberry tree our crew busted out harvest knives, split the three equally, and relished the soft reminders of just how sweet farm life is.

Actually Farm

Today in the field I coordinated a harvest. A small one by all standards, but a harvest none the less.

It felt so good! To know to run things, and to be able to direct the class of 20 undergraduates who were out to learn. Topped beats, string beans, cucumbers- the icons of summer. It was empowering to feel like I had a solid grasp of field scale packing. How to pick, pack, and the post harvest handling information flowed from the nether regions of my brain almost unconsciously. It's amazing how teaching others allowed me to realize just how much I've learned in the last few months. I had yet another moment feeling as if I could actually do this- I could actually farm.

Whoa.

Late night central

It's Sunday night. The Farm Center is trashed. 

Mugs, cracker boxes, gargantuan metal bowls and sticks of lavender traipse across the bowling alley tables.

Salt shakers and pots and baskets with the dregs of berries stand lonesome in the over head lights.

Half filled mason jars and huge wooden cutting boards attest to a cooking project long over.

Outside, our fiddler plays a slurring late night tune to the half moon,

a good night serenade to the trappings of an eventful weekend.

Dry Flowers

I began to dry flowers today. And I will love me a few floral wreaths come November.

Recipe:

Cut the flowers with short stems, trimming the ends evenly.

Wrap with rubber band tight.

Hang on nails or twine or wire out in doors out of the sun.

Recipe works best with some combination of the currently available plants: Lamb's ears, Zinnias, Larkspur, Lavender, Calenjula, Nigela and Statice.

Add others as they come on.

Preserving the Harvest

This was my recent contribution to the CSA newsletter. (CSA is short for Community Supported Agriculture, the main way we sell our produce. Over 100 families receive a pre-packed box of fruits and vegetables from June-October. They pay us up front for the season, thus 'supporting' our farm in the pre-harvest costs of growing the food.)

As you may have noticed from the recent plethora of choices in your box, the time of plenty has begun. Our fields are beginning to pump vegetables and leftover green, red, white, and yellow filled boxes have begun to line the walls of our walk-in, begging for a second chance.

And so the time of preserving the harvest has commenced. In the late-nights and off-hours, you can find the large canning pot full of boiling water, steaming up the windows of the farm center, sentinels of sterilized jars lining the stainless steal counters, chatty voices swapping recipes into the wee hours. I thought I would share some of the things canned thus far, to pique your interest and inspire your own preserving fervor. Jams have included blackberry, apricot, blueberry, plumb, and strawberry, as well as rose petal jelly. Preserved vegetables have recently taken off, with dilled beats, cumin carrots, and pickled fennel as the forerunners. We look forward to the near onset of string beans to dill, zucchinis to spice, and after that tomatoes to salsa and sauce. We recommend that if you happen to frequent the local farmers markets, you stop by the Happy Girl preserved food booth and peruse their creative cans for ideas. And as reference guides, we collectively suggest The Ball Blue Book of Preserving, The Joy of Pickling, Putting Things Up, and The Busy Person’s Guide to Preserving Food. Happy canning!

CSA Presents

I packed 64 boxes for our CSA today. Lined up like expectant mouths, the boxes engulfed the hundreds of pounds of dew-laden vegetables coming out of the morning field. There is something instinctually gratifying about packing dozens of boxes full of beautiful things, knowing that some stranger is going to open that present and take it home.

It’s like playing Santa, filing boxes full of lush leaves and bountiful bobbles headed for who knows what table in what kitchen. For some meal in a neighbors house, our kohlrabi the centerpiece of someone’s dinner conversation.

CSA presents an opportunity to gift people with good food, straight from field to counter-top, radicalizing its participants through direct action along the way.