Bees

Last night I drove home after the sun had set. I got out of my car in pitch darkness and couldn't help but look upwards at the starry night sky. Millions of stars. Galaxies. It took my breath away.

Today was just as beautiful.

We've had a few days now without rain -- clear skies, sunshine, the works. Even after a slight frost in the fields last Sunday, this week has felt like a revival of summer.

But this week has felt different for a number of reasons. For one, the workdays are quieter. Since it's getting close to the end of the season, our work crew has been cut in half. It's now just the three of us, just like it was at the beginning of the season as we hurriedly pressed thousands of tiny seeds into flats of soil. It was quiet as I scuffle-hoed the lettuce beds. It was quiet as I drove the buckets of left-over turnip greens and rotting tomatoes to the compost heap. It was quiet as leaves whispered their good-byes and floated off maples trees onto the field, swirling over CSA members' heads as they picked their flower bouquets. And then it got a little louder as we got all the kids together for the pumpkin harvest!

It was the kind of gorgeous fall day that takes my breath away each year. So gorgeous that as I write this, the fact that mosquitoes buzzed around my ears and bit my forehead all day long no longer bothers me.

After work, I picked a bouquet. In it I put ageratum, wine-colored zinnias, yellow zinnias, forest-fire  celosia, ornamental millet, and some lacy purple flowers that I couldn't identify. I was so happy as I picked them; each one was enchanting. I couldn't imagine the fields without the reds,burgundies, oranges, violets, pinks, and yellows of the flowers we plant for the CSA. But it's not just the humans that appreciate these blossoms -- the bees do, too.

As I was holidng my bouquet, a bee landed right on top. It first visited one of the yellow zinnias, then moved on to another yellow zinnia. Pollination in action! I was so excited to have been moving slowly enough -- in both body and mind -- to watch this. Yesterday, when we were picking tomatoes, I noticed a bee that was completely covered in pollen. Totally yellow. But I couldn't stop to admire this bee, since there were tomatoes to harvest and things to do. (And I don't get paid to stand still and watch insects!) Now was my chance to be still.


We have two hives on our farm, cared for by a local beekeeper. I sometimes notice the bees flying around, but usually don't. They do their bee thing -- you know, pollinating crops, visiting flowers, flying, buzzing. And it's not just the honeybees that visit our fields -- there are other kinds, too.


Watching these bees reminded me just how complex, intricate, and exciting life is. It also reminded me of something incredible that happened on our farm a few weeks ago, that I haven't yet shared with you. A few Fridays ago as we were bringing freshly harvested veggies up to the barn to wash, we noticed a swarm above the hives. The bees swarmed around for a while, then clung to a branch in a near-by tree. We were excited to have seen this but nervous that the beekeeper had lost one of her hives. A swarm happens when the queen leaves the hive and brings her worker bees with her. Later that day, the beekeeper came to see the swarm. With the help of the farmer, she cut down the branch and put the bees into a new hive box. After checking on the other hives, it appeared that everything was okay and this was just a wild, bonus hive for her. I don't know enough about bees to know why or how this happened, but it was an exciting thing to watch!


Because of all the rain this season, the honeybees ate most of the honey they made. (I'd much rather stay home and eat honey than go out in yucky weather, too.) But the good news is that they produced so much wax in this time period that they'll be able to start off next year on a fantastically good note. It's comforting to know that the bees have everything they need to (hopefully) survive the cold winter ahead.


It still boggles my mind that it's Fall, never mind that 30-degree weather is imminent and October is just days away. But with all its crunchy leaves, winter squash, frost-sweetened kale, apple-picking, fleece jackets, cool breezes and crisp air, I absolutely love this time of year.


Bee well! And shana tova.

To have water is a blessing, but perhaps we've gone overboard

If anyone knows how to build an ark, please send the blueprints my way.

Hurricane Irene left us with five and a half inches of water two weekends ago, but that seems tame now compared to the 7+ inches of rain we've gotten between Sunday evening and Thursday morning of this week. Whatever had begun to dry out after the hurricane is now even more soggy than it was before. The carrots are rotting, the fields have standing water in places they've never had standing water before, and the cucumbers have all but stopped producing. There's something almost insensitive about wishing away rain while there are ongoing droughts in our country and around the world...but for goodness sake, whoever is in charge of the sprinklers up there, spread the love! We can't take it anymore!!!

Tragically, farms in the area are literally being swept away. At the peak of harvest-time, crops are going to mush. Carrots are rotting in the ground. Pumpkins are submerged in water. Newly-seeded fall crops will never germinate -- the seeds washed away. Rivers are soaking produce in water contaminated with coliform bacteria.

And all this only a week after farms around the region were devastated by Hurricane Irene. I heard of one farm in upstate New York losing all 5 feet of topsoil, the farmer being able to stand on bedrock. I heard of one CSA in Northwestern Massachusetts losing 100% of every crop they were growing. A farm just south of us had 6 acres under water. Another farm, just feet from a river, was completely submerged as well.

Because we're next to a wetland and not a river, we're very wet but thankfully okay. It is a blessing to have a diversity of crops and a CSA membership that invests in the farm at the beginning of the season, with an understanding of the risks.

I'll leave you with a link to a Grist.org article about how farms fared during Hurricane Irene. Click here

Plant-Animal Interactions

A few weeks ago I was hand-weeding near the tomatoes when I found a weed I hadn't seen before. At first glance, it looked like it was bearing fruit, since it seemed to have tons of pods all over the plant. Curious, I took one of the pods off the plant and started to break it open so I could see the seeds inside. But the "seeds" inside the pod were moving...

Inside the curled-up leaves of this plant (the "pods") were hundreds of tiny critters. Critters that, at some point in their life cycle (probably when they were eggs) triggered a chemical reaction in the plant, which caused the leaves to curl around the eggs and protect them as they matured. Crazy, huh?

Here's another insect that does something even crazier.

The tomato hornworm is a loathed creature in farms and gardens - anywhere tomatoes are cultivated. Its mint-green coloring makes it blend in just well enough so when you're pruning or harvesting it's a shock (at least to me) to finally realize there's something there. It's mostly a shock though to see such a large caterpillar, since the tomato hornworm eats and eats and eats and grows and grows and grows. Remember Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar? This is it. But this hungry caterpillar likes to eat your tomato plants.

So, in a sick yet poetic turn of events, the tomato hornworm is the favored host of the parasitic Braconid wasp, Cotesia, which lays its eggs inside the body of this squishy, green caterpillar. They hatch (inside the hornworm) and eat (also inside the hornworm) until they emerge to make their cocoons (on the body of the hornworm). Creepy poetic justice.

Tomato Hornworm covered in cocoons of the parasitic wasp Cotesia