Where has the summer gone?
These days I wake up and shiver my way into a hot shower, before layering my body with fleece upon fleece upon fleece (and wool socks). As we load the truck and start harvesting, the intensifying sun slowly melts away the chill and warms our faces.
August has been interesting. After a hot, dry July (drought-like, really), August has been anything but. And the vegetables keep on keepin' on. I'm realizing now that despite the rainy weather we've had, August has been an exceptionally busy and exciting month.
With all this excitement going on, what to talk about first? The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Summer Conference that I went to a couple weeks ago? The field tomatoes that are still holding on despite the downpours? The frogs and toads that hop across our fields, the roads, and even our harvest bins like its a revival of the ten plagues? The harvest of five beds of garlic that lay curing in the barn until the harvest of over 3310 pounds of onions (which took their place)? The work-day we had with a group of teenage farm-enthusiasts from the area? Or maybe the workshop I went to in Boston that combined lessons in food preservation (canning) with a Torah study?
All of the above.
But I'm going to save the NOFA conference and the Jewish food workshop for a separate post, so I can synthesize my notes and thoughts into something cohesive. The rest will unfold as I go through the fruit and vegetable alphabet. (How farm-nerdy.)
Apples: They're here. Well, not here, since we don't have an orchard. But on fruit farms nearby, the apple harvest is upon us. Seeing those first boxes of apples arrive for our fruit share members made me remember that I absolutely positively love fall. And that I absolutely positively love apples.
Beans: Green beans are tasty when pickled in vinegar, but even more so when lacto-fermented for a couple weeks. I've spent two afternoons doing some serious food preservation at the farm-house, and fermenting green beans was one of the "putting-by" experiments. (And a delicious one at that.) All these pickling, canning, and fermenting experiments will surely get me to experiment more on my own in the future. The idea of fermenting has always scared me a little bit, but in reality you can't conjure up anything too horrible (and if you do, just get rid of it and start fresh).
Corn: I made my favorite corn dish again this year, from Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Food. It's a coconut-ginger creamed corn, which I spiced up with a bit of jalapeño. With the sweet corn we get from a nearby farm, and the sweet onions we've been harvesting at the farm (but no more! the bed has sadly been picked clean), this dish was incredible. If you love coconut, ginger, and corn, you must try this dish.
Dandelions: I just learned (either from a book or from the herbal medicine workshop at the NOFA conference) that a tincture of dandelions in apple cider vinegar can provide a hearty helping of calcium. I am hoping to get around to making some to use in everything from salad dressings to hot drinks.
Eggplant: It may have been an excellent year for onions, but it has been a pitiful eggplant harvest. Something is keeping the eggplants from flowering and producing. Sure, we've harvested some, but for two beds you'd expect a lot more than a bucket or two of fruit. The farmer believes it's a soil issue, which hopefully will be clarified for us when we do soil tests this fall.
Fennel: After my grandma showed me just how incredible a veggie stir-fry can be with a little fennel in it, I have been in love with this vegetable. I've been cooking it up with sweet onions, tofu, other veggies, and a sweet mango-curry sauce I got at the supermarket. Scrumptious.
Garlic: Today is the first day we distributed the garlic heads to CSA members! It took a lot of human-power (and a little tractor-power) to get all those hundreds and hundreds of bulbs out of the ground. Then, as they cured in the barn, we clipped the leaves off of each and every one and piled them into mesh bags. There's nothing like fresh garlic.
Howden Pumpkins: You know it's almost fall when the pumpkins are beginning to turn orange! We have a few pumpkins in the field near the tomatoes, and we've spotted more than a little orange. We don't grow winter squash on the farm, for lack of space, but the farm kids have been keeping their eye on the monstrous acorn squash plant growing out of the family compost heap. Fun fact: The Howden pumpkin was developed at Howden Farm in nearby Sheffield, MA.
I'm skipping I.
Jalapeños: gotta love 'em.
Kale: Kale is one of my favorite vegetable to harvest. The leaves just snap right off and in no time at all you've filled your bin. Today, however, in our post-Irene sogginess, it was a little trickier. In fact, as I stepped into a bed of curly Winterbor kale, my boot actually got stuck. I had to hold onto my bin for leverage as I pulled myself out of two inches of muck, made soggy by the 5.5 inches of rain we got during the storm. Even though a portion of our field is under a couple inches of water, many other farms have it much worse. Catastrophically worse, even, and my heart goes out to all the farmers who have lost thousands of dollars worth of crops...
Lettuce: We usually harvest over 120 pounds of lettuce mix and about 80-100 heads of lettuce each week. On Friday we planted three small beds of lettuce. Over the course of the season, we've planted lettuce every couple weeks to ensure that we have enough each week. These last couple weeks it's been feeling a little tight, but I'm not sure how much of that is because of the weather.
Mayonnaise: It's most definitely not a vegetable, but at break-time everyday the "house special" is a rice cake or cracker with mayonnaise, basil, tomato, cucumber, hot pepper, onion, and cheese. I usually have the veggies with hummus or olive spread in the mayo's place. I've never worked anywhere before with such a delicious, nutritious, and generous break-time snack.
N: no N.
Onions: Remember all the onion starts we planted in mid-April? Four months later, they're all out of the ground. The sweet onions were the first to go, and since they didn't need to be cured, we've been distributing them to members for the last few weeks. A week ago today, we harvested the other three beds of onions: the storage onions. In all, it came to about 3310 pounds of onions, which are now laying on the floor of the barn to cure. There were two beds of a variety called Copra, which is a white storage onion, and one bed called Red Zepplin, which is a red storage onion.
Peppers: Like the eggplants, the peppers aren't doing as well this year either. The plants are producing a lot of fruit, but much of the fruit is rotting on the plant, well before it turns red. As we harvest ripe peppers, we have to remove the rotting ones that are filling with decomposing juices and other lovely surprises. Yuck.
Q: What vegetable starts with q?
Root vegetables: We grow lots of carrots, and we buy potatoes from a nearby organic farm. Both of these crops are washed in a funny-looking contraption plainly named a "root washer." It consists of a rotating barrel-like structure that has spray jets to wash the roots as they turn. Today was the first day I set up and used the washer by myself, and at first it was like a scene from an I Love Lucy episode as the the potatoes fell out of the washer faster than I could put them back in and the washer sprayed me with as much water as it did the potatoes.
Swiss Chard: Apparently, you can plant a bed of swiss chard and harvest from it all season long. I never knew that before this season! We have two beds of swiss chard, which continue to provide new growth to harvest week after week.
Tomatoes: There's a lot of them. We've been heavily harvesting field tomatoes for the last couple weeks, which is good timing since our greenhouse tomatoes are pretty tuckered out. We've started to rip out some of the least healthy plants in greenhouses 1 and 2.
U-pick: Members pick their own flower bouquets, cherry tomatoes, husk cherries, tomatillos, green beans, and herbs from the herb garden. Anybody want to go u-pick apple-picking with me sometime this fall?
Vetch: It's what's for dinner. No, just kidding. It's a cover crop. Rye and vetch will be planted in a section of the field which will not be used next year. Oats and peas will be planted in beds that will be used.
Watermelon: The melons are in, although now they're even more watery from all the rain. We don't sell or distribute the few melons that grow in the fields, and we've been enjoying them at break-time. In the cookbook I mentioned above, Bryant Terry has a good-looking recipe for pickled watermelon rinds, which I would love to test out this summer.
X marks the spot for cruciferous vegetables, whose flowers form the shape of an x. Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kale are all cruciferous vegetables. Yesterday we cut the tops off the Brussels sprout stalks to encourage them to focus energy on the lateral buds we know as the sprouts, instead of continuing to grow upwards. I took some of these tender leaves home with me and cooked them up with a little water, salt, and pepper. They were pretty darn good, but I can't wait for the real thing!
Yellow squash: See zucchini.
Zucchini: I've never been a huge fan, and now I'm definitely sick of it. Maybe I'll make another batch of zucchini pickles, though, because those were pretty tasty. A few weeks ago I co-made a chocolate zucchini cake, and it was heavenly. I guess I'll eat some more zucchini if it's hidden in chocolate...
And that's that! Hope everyone is enjoying the last days of August.
Peace,
Danielle
Showing posts with label farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farming. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Farming is tiring (but oh so satisfying)
The title says it all. This week was hard.
With this week's wave of hot and humid summer weather came a long list of farm chores to keep the new plant growth in check. It suddenly felt like the fields were alive and we had to race against the clock so that everything that needed to go in the ground was in ground, everything that needed to be weeded was weeded, and everything that needed to be trellised was trellised. I keep a journal of everything we do on the farm from day to day, and since this week was particularly interesting (and exhausting), I'm going to share what we did, Monday through Saturday. Here we go!
It started off with a relatively cool Monday, which is the day we planted all the non-tomato nightshades and curcubits in the field. We spent the day planting beds of peppers, eggplant, squash, and cucumbers. We covered the beds with floating row cover and then moved soil bags to hold down the edges of the remay (white fabric that lets light in, keeps heat in, but keeps bugs out). It was so wonderful to look out onto section four at the end of the day and see that every single bed had something growing in it! Four beds of onions, one bed of chard, two beds of peppers, two of eggplant, two of squash, and two of zuccini.
Then came Tuesday. Oh Tuesday, the day of moving soil bags and wooden pallets and wooden stakes. Today was the day we staked the peas. One after the other, row after row, bed by bed. I was told that the soil this year was particularly soft, and that the stakes were easier to drive into the ground. I guess that just means that if this had been last year, I probably wouldn't like peas. But when we went back out into the fields the next day, the pea section looked lovely. Because of the old wood and the trellising, it has an almost "secret garden" kind of feel. I can now visualize what it will be like to walk through the pathways at the height of summer, picking sweet sugar snaps with large pea plants towering over me. It will be beautiful.
On Wednesday I started off making signs for the plant sale we had this Friday, which was pretty successful. After that, we planted all the cherry tomatoes, plum tomatoes, tomatillos, and husk cherries in section two, and then two beds of cutting flowers (sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, celosia...) in section one. After that...tomato pruning and seeding in the greenhouse.
Thursday was hot and humid. It was even hotter than Wednesday, which was hotter than Tuesday and much hotter than breezy, overcast Monday. On Thursday we made a total transformation of the herb garden from a mess of weeds and fungus and overgrown perennials to a neat garden with 6 distinct small beds. The perennials of the garden are sage, thyme, oregano, lemon balm, and mint. We planted curly parsley, Italian parsley, two types of basil, more oregano, more thyme, more sage, and some cutting celery. Dill and cilantro were direct-seeded.
In the afternoon, everything on the farm that we had been doing for the last month or so really came together for me. In order to cultivate the beds with a tractor, I pulled off the remay from beds in section 5, 3, and 2, and wow! Vegetables! Everything that we had covered after transplanting was healthy and growing, and especially after the tractor went through and got the bulk of the weeds out, the beds looked amazing! To our farm manager, the lettuce heads weren't large enough to harvest, and there is still an elevated level of stress with regard to what will be ready for the CSA. But to my untrained eye and inexperience as a farmer, I was floored to see such greenery that had truly been covered by the remay since we had transplanted the seedlings. It looked like....like... a farm!
On Friday, we harvested spinach and radishes, then washed and boxed them for the farmer's market the following day. After a variety of small tasks in the greenhouses (switching the drip, watering) and in the fields (fixing the remay in section #1, using a scuffle hoe in section #2), I staffed the plant sale for a couple hours. Before I quit for the day, I weeded the perennial border near the barn so that we have room to plant some annuals next week.
Saturday, 6:45 am. We load the truck for the farmer's market and head off. I drive the truck with the plants. After we unload, myself and another farm worker drive back to the farm and load up with more plants. At the farmer's market, I talk to customers, keep the plants stocked, and ring people up. There were three of us all together, so two could sell plants and one could sell the spinach and radishes. At 1:00, we packed up, drove back to the farm, and unloaded.
And then on the seventh day, we rested. :)
Except for part of the day, I didn't. After a nice relaxing morning-- I took a jog and then went to a yoga class in town -- I measured out a ten by ten plot of land near where I'm staying on the farm. It's been wonderful to learn so much about growing vegetables while working on someone else's farm, but I've been itching to grow my own too. Not that I can't eat what's grown in the fields, but there's something special about just tending to a handful of your own plants to feed yourself during the growing season. Some peppers, tomatoes, kale...and okra! So I outlined the plot and started to rip up the sod with a digging fork. (But when I got tired, I stopped. It's Sunday for goodness sake!) I also sowed some okra seeds in a 6-pack in the greenhouse. I bought a package of "clemson spineless" okra seeds at the natural foods store in town. If this heat and humidity is any indication of what is to come for the rest of the summer, I think the okra will do just fine.
My intent is that this small garden plot will give me a little relief and relaxation during the course of the growing season. Because when you're working on the farm and you need to transplant hundreds of seedlings in an afternoon, you can't tenderly place each one into the ground before moving onto the next. And when you're getting paid by the hour, you can't leisurely remove weeds, observing the tiny hairs on the stinging nettle and admiring the diversity of weeds that so quickly took up space where you just so happen to want to plant tomatoes. It's not that I don't enjoy the farming, but the approach to vegetable growing in a garden (versus a farm) is very different, and I'm beginning to miss some aspects of gardening's smallness. In my garden plot, at the end of the day, I will have all the time in the world to admire my plants.
I look forward to it.
With this week's wave of hot and humid summer weather came a long list of farm chores to keep the new plant growth in check. It suddenly felt like the fields were alive and we had to race against the clock so that everything that needed to go in the ground was in ground, everything that needed to be weeded was weeded, and everything that needed to be trellised was trellised. I keep a journal of everything we do on the farm from day to day, and since this week was particularly interesting (and exhausting), I'm going to share what we did, Monday through Saturday. Here we go!
It started off with a relatively cool Monday, which is the day we planted all the non-tomato nightshades and curcubits in the field. We spent the day planting beds of peppers, eggplant, squash, and cucumbers. We covered the beds with floating row cover and then moved soil bags to hold down the edges of the remay (white fabric that lets light in, keeps heat in, but keeps bugs out). It was so wonderful to look out onto section four at the end of the day and see that every single bed had something growing in it! Four beds of onions, one bed of chard, two beds of peppers, two of eggplant, two of squash, and two of zuccini.
Then came Tuesday. Oh Tuesday, the day of moving soil bags and wooden pallets and wooden stakes. Today was the day we staked the peas. One after the other, row after row, bed by bed. I was told that the soil this year was particularly soft, and that the stakes were easier to drive into the ground. I guess that just means that if this had been last year, I probably wouldn't like peas. But when we went back out into the fields the next day, the pea section looked lovely. Because of the old wood and the trellising, it has an almost "secret garden" kind of feel. I can now visualize what it will be like to walk through the pathways at the height of summer, picking sweet sugar snaps with large pea plants towering over me. It will be beautiful.
On Wednesday I started off making signs for the plant sale we had this Friday, which was pretty successful. After that, we planted all the cherry tomatoes, plum tomatoes, tomatillos, and husk cherries in section two, and then two beds of cutting flowers (sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, celosia...) in section one. After that...tomato pruning and seeding in the greenhouse.
Thursday was hot and humid. It was even hotter than Wednesday, which was hotter than Tuesday and much hotter than breezy, overcast Monday. On Thursday we made a total transformation of the herb garden from a mess of weeds and fungus and overgrown perennials to a neat garden with 6 distinct small beds. The perennials of the garden are sage, thyme, oregano, lemon balm, and mint. We planted curly parsley, Italian parsley, two types of basil, more oregano, more thyme, more sage, and some cutting celery. Dill and cilantro were direct-seeded.
In the afternoon, everything on the farm that we had been doing for the last month or so really came together for me. In order to cultivate the beds with a tractor, I pulled off the remay from beds in section 5, 3, and 2, and wow! Vegetables! Everything that we had covered after transplanting was healthy and growing, and especially after the tractor went through and got the bulk of the weeds out, the beds looked amazing! To our farm manager, the lettuce heads weren't large enough to harvest, and there is still an elevated level of stress with regard to what will be ready for the CSA. But to my untrained eye and inexperience as a farmer, I was floored to see such greenery that had truly been covered by the remay since we had transplanted the seedlings. It looked like....like... a farm!
On Friday, we harvested spinach and radishes, then washed and boxed them for the farmer's market the following day. After a variety of small tasks in the greenhouses (switching the drip, watering) and in the fields (fixing the remay in section #1, using a scuffle hoe in section #2), I staffed the plant sale for a couple hours. Before I quit for the day, I weeded the perennial border near the barn so that we have room to plant some annuals next week.
Saturday, 6:45 am. We load the truck for the farmer's market and head off. I drive the truck with the plants. After we unload, myself and another farm worker drive back to the farm and load up with more plants. At the farmer's market, I talk to customers, keep the plants stocked, and ring people up. There were three of us all together, so two could sell plants and one could sell the spinach and radishes. At 1:00, we packed up, drove back to the farm, and unloaded.
And then on the seventh day, we rested. :)
Except for part of the day, I didn't. After a nice relaxing morning-- I took a jog and then went to a yoga class in town -- I measured out a ten by ten plot of land near where I'm staying on the farm. It's been wonderful to learn so much about growing vegetables while working on someone else's farm, but I've been itching to grow my own too. Not that I can't eat what's grown in the fields, but there's something special about just tending to a handful of your own plants to feed yourself during the growing season. Some peppers, tomatoes, kale...and okra! So I outlined the plot and started to rip up the sod with a digging fork. (But when I got tired, I stopped. It's Sunday for goodness sake!) I also sowed some okra seeds in a 6-pack in the greenhouse. I bought a package of "clemson spineless" okra seeds at the natural foods store in town. If this heat and humidity is any indication of what is to come for the rest of the summer, I think the okra will do just fine.
My intent is that this small garden plot will give me a little relief and relaxation during the course of the growing season. Because when you're working on the farm and you need to transplant hundreds of seedlings in an afternoon, you can't tenderly place each one into the ground before moving onto the next. And when you're getting paid by the hour, you can't leisurely remove weeds, observing the tiny hairs on the stinging nettle and admiring the diversity of weeds that so quickly took up space where you just so happen to want to plant tomatoes. It's not that I don't enjoy the farming, but the approach to vegetable growing in a garden (versus a farm) is very different, and I'm beginning to miss some aspects of gardening's smallness. In my garden plot, at the end of the day, I will have all the time in the world to admire my plants.
I look forward to it.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Grafting Tomatoes
Today was an adventure in botany.
In an attempt to beat the looming storm coming from the tornadoes and such down South, we headed out to the fields first thing in the morning with scallions, kohl rabi, and bok choy seedlings to transplant. One whole bed of scallions (planted in bunches of ten), half a bed of bok choy and half a bed of kohl rabi. As interesting as that was, it doesn't compare to what we did next.
After having a light lunch and changing out of our wet clothes (because, of course, it started raining), we packed up a bunch of tomato seedlings and supplies to graft tomatoes in the barn. It was decided that the barn would be the best place to do this because we could control the environment much better than in the greenhouse -- keeping it at a steady temperature with little light and no wind to damage the fragile plants.
It has to be said that I love different plant propagation methods -- rarely do I ever not have a cutting or two rooting in a jar of water somewhere in my home. (That sounded just as dorky in my head before I typed it, but it's true so it stays in the blog!) Needless to say, this was totally up my alley.
The rootstock that we used is called "Maxifort." This tomato variety is solely used for grafting because of its ability to produce a better yield for weaker tomato varieties when grafted together. The varieties that we grafted to the Maxifort were Brandywine, Valencia, Green Zebra, and Purple Cherokee (heirlooms). For a step-by-step instruction on the exact method we used for grafting, check out the video below:
We followed all the steps of this method except for the stringent level of cleanliness used in the video's laboratory setting, which we found impossible to do on a farm...especially since our hands were covered in soil from potting up the tomatoes! We did what we could.
In an attempt to beat the looming storm coming from the tornadoes and such down South, we headed out to the fields first thing in the morning with scallions, kohl rabi, and bok choy seedlings to transplant. One whole bed of scallions (planted in bunches of ten), half a bed of bok choy and half a bed of kohl rabi. As interesting as that was, it doesn't compare to what we did next.
After having a light lunch and changing out of our wet clothes (because, of course, it started raining), we packed up a bunch of tomato seedlings and supplies to graft tomatoes in the barn. It was decided that the barn would be the best place to do this because we could control the environment much better than in the greenhouse -- keeping it at a steady temperature with little light and no wind to damage the fragile plants.
It has to be said that I love different plant propagation methods -- rarely do I ever not have a cutting or two rooting in a jar of water somewhere in my home. (That sounded just as dorky in my head before I typed it, but it's true so it stays in the blog!) Needless to say, this was totally up my alley.
The rootstock that we used is called "Maxifort." This tomato variety is solely used for grafting because of its ability to produce a better yield for weaker tomato varieties when grafted together. The varieties that we grafted to the Maxifort were Brandywine, Valencia, Green Zebra, and Purple Cherokee (heirlooms). For a step-by-step instruction on the exact method we used for grafting, check out the video below:
We followed all the steps of this method except for the stringent level of cleanliness used in the video's laboratory setting, which we found impossible to do on a farm...especially since our hands were covered in soil from potting up the tomatoes! We did what we could.
Rainy days and Onion Starts
This Spring has been a cold, rainy one. And if you're a farmer, you've had to wait day after rainy day, wondering if you'll ever be able to transplant all those seedlings that are more than likely taking up precious space in your greenhouse.
A couple days ago, after starting some pea and sunflower sprouts in the greenhouse and setting the lettuce, chard, brussel sprouts, and kohlrabi outside to harden off, the farm manager decided it was worth it to try to plant some of the 9,000 onion starts she had ordered from Johnny's Seed Company. Despite the thin mist, we donned rain pants and barreled down the hill to where the beds had been prepared with black plastic (to protect the soil from the nasty weed galinsoga).
Puncturing the plastic every five inches in long rows, we created little holes in the soil to place the small onion starts.
Basically, an onion start is a baby onion. In order to plant large onion seedlings when the soil can first be worked, you would need to start the seeds in your greenhouse smack-dab in the middle of winter, say January or February. To many farmers in the North East, this is cost prohibitive. Purchasing onion starts from a warmer climate far outweighs the cost of heating a greenhouse during the coldest months of the year. Not to mention the fact that it would take away from your off-season. So these "onion starts" are grown in the greenhouse, removed from the soil, bunched and boxed, and sent to your doorstep. There they wait until you're ready to plant them in the field. As long as you keep them cool and dry, they'll be fine.
So we marked the rows, pierced the plastic, dug the holes, and planted the onion starts over and over again, as the fine mist changed its pace and turned into a downpour. No turning back!
As soon as I upload pictures from my camera, I'll post some photos from the fields and greenhouse. Since Onion Planting Day (which actually ended up spanning three days), we've planted chard, lettuce, bok choy, kohl rabi, and scallions. So far, it's rained at least once every day. The crops are happy and well-hydrated!
A couple days ago, after starting some pea and sunflower sprouts in the greenhouse and setting the lettuce, chard, brussel sprouts, and kohlrabi outside to harden off, the farm manager decided it was worth it to try to plant some of the 9,000 onion starts she had ordered from Johnny's Seed Company. Despite the thin mist, we donned rain pants and barreled down the hill to where the beds had been prepared with black plastic (to protect the soil from the nasty weed galinsoga).
Puncturing the plastic every five inches in long rows, we created little holes in the soil to place the small onion starts.
Basically, an onion start is a baby onion. In order to plant large onion seedlings when the soil can first be worked, you would need to start the seeds in your greenhouse smack-dab in the middle of winter, say January or February. To many farmers in the North East, this is cost prohibitive. Purchasing onion starts from a warmer climate far outweighs the cost of heating a greenhouse during the coldest months of the year. Not to mention the fact that it would take away from your off-season. So these "onion starts" are grown in the greenhouse, removed from the soil, bunched and boxed, and sent to your doorstep. There they wait until you're ready to plant them in the field. As long as you keep them cool and dry, they'll be fine.
So we marked the rows, pierced the plastic, dug the holes, and planted the onion starts over and over again, as the fine mist changed its pace and turned into a downpour. No turning back!
As soon as I upload pictures from my camera, I'll post some photos from the fields and greenhouse. Since Onion Planting Day (which actually ended up spanning three days), we've planted chard, lettuce, bok choy, kohl rabi, and scallions. So far, it's rained at least once every day. The crops are happy and well-hydrated!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Of farms and farm tools
This past Saturday I drove West to the Berkshires, where I'll be living and working as a farm apprentice for the growing season.
After hours of packing, driving, unpacking, and settling in, I attended a potluck event for farmer apprentices as part of a regional training program. Weary after a long day, I found myself coming back to the same question in my mind: How on earth did I get here?
How does a love of container gardening, teaching kids about plants, and growing tomatoes on a back porch somehow lead up to looking at $10,000 farm equipment in the rain with thirty other aspiring farmers?
Looking back on the evolution of my interests in gardening and ecology, my self-five-years-ago never would have seen me here. But therein lies the beauty! To quote John Muir: "When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." When I began studying Biology, I did so because of my love of animals. Animals, however, interact with plants, and they do so in some pretty awesome ways. Studying ecology led me to stream research with a focus on riparian plants, which led me to ethnobotany, which, coupled with my love for teaching, led me to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and onto other environmental education opportunities that somehow or another all included vegetable gardening. I tugged at a single thing in the natural world and it pulled me in at warp speed 'til I got to the bottom of the food chain! (Well, the human food chain at least.)
So here I am. As I packed up my things to bring out to the Berkshires, I found something I had purchased in Santa Fe last winter. It's a tiny piece of painted wood with a Native American proverb written at the bottom: "Creation is ongoing." The simplicity of this statement is beautiful, and for the past year it has been my mantra. I see creation in the way my life seems to keep taking exciting turns. I see it in the thousands of seedlings in the farm greenhouse. I see it in the endless opportunities to shift my mindset -- to think positively and be open to different perspectives. I see it in Spring.
I look forward to seeing where this apprenticeship takes me...
After hours of packing, driving, unpacking, and settling in, I attended a potluck event for farmer apprentices as part of a regional training program. Weary after a long day, I found myself coming back to the same question in my mind: How on earth did I get here?
How does a love of container gardening, teaching kids about plants, and growing tomatoes on a back porch somehow lead up to looking at $10,000 farm equipment in the rain with thirty other aspiring farmers?
Looking back on the evolution of my interests in gardening and ecology, my self-five-years-ago never would have seen me here. But therein lies the beauty! To quote John Muir: "When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." When I began studying Biology, I did so because of my love of animals. Animals, however, interact with plants, and they do so in some pretty awesome ways. Studying ecology led me to stream research with a focus on riparian plants, which led me to ethnobotany, which, coupled with my love for teaching, led me to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and onto other environmental education opportunities that somehow or another all included vegetable gardening. I tugged at a single thing in the natural world and it pulled me in at warp speed 'til I got to the bottom of the food chain! (Well, the human food chain at least.)
So here I am. As I packed up my things to bring out to the Berkshires, I found something I had purchased in Santa Fe last winter. It's a tiny piece of painted wood with a Native American proverb written at the bottom: "Creation is ongoing." The simplicity of this statement is beautiful, and for the past year it has been my mantra. I see creation in the way my life seems to keep taking exciting turns. I see it in the thousands of seedlings in the farm greenhouse. I see it in the endless opportunities to shift my mindset -- to think positively and be open to different perspectives. I see it in Spring.
I look forward to seeing where this apprenticeship takes me...
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