Let It Grow Organic Gardens

Severe Weather Alert

2011-06-09T20:48:00.002-04:00

There are currently four hummingbirds fighting over some sugar water inside of an upside down plastic bottle.
It's cute baby squash season, and the farm is swimming in dough. I'm up early to pick - the embryonic squash still have the blossoms attached and I like to get them in before the sun hits. It's just me and the squash out there - occasionally an early honey bee - and the sun comes up over the mountain east of Harold's farm. The little squashes are arranged head/toe/head/toe in the smallest produce boxes I can find, which are then stacked up in the cooler.
All goes on the bamboo tray - the special bamboo baby squash tray - in the center of the table at market.
That's when the hordes descend. I'd never been next to the epicenter of a descending horde. Then I started to grow cute baby squash.

Madness (Updated)

2011-02-01T21:11:00.002-05:00

What a difference, as they say.
(Or, perhaps, this is just one more deja vu.)
A day later, and the long greenhouse is purlined and has side rails ready to anchor a giant plastic sheet.
It all went (back) together quite well. I drilled a few new holes in places where the pipes did not quite want to line up, and bent a few pipes that seemed to be asking for it. I ended up cutting a few that seemed too long, and wished that a few were a few inches longer. Nonetheless, if you just glance at it, from far away, it looks like a greenhouse. When you get closer, it still looks like a greenhouse, just kinda wavy and curvy. When you get up real close to it, and look it up and down, it looks like a third hand greenhouse that got squashed in a blizzard, but you can find no reason why it would not grow vegetables.
I, in fact, walked away from it as night fell with a tremendous amount of confidence.
We've done it again.

Madness

2011-01-29T22:12:00.003-05:00

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
-Someone

I first thought I would save myself the trouble of posting by reprinting something from a previous winter.
Then I decided: No. Let's have one more go 'round!
It's winter and I'm (re)building a greenhouse.
This is the long one near the road, the one that got squashed in the Christmas blizzard year before last. The deja vus in rebuilding a greenhouse are too many to keep track of.
Lining up these two pipes. Again.
Clearing the weeds from this area. Again.
Wiggling the pipe and hearing water slosh around underground. Again.
Running out of the right size bolt and needing to go all the way to town. Familiar.
Wondering who's gonna help me stretch plastic and if it's gonna be a windy day. I have been lucky but I have also been very very unlucky on this count.
Nonetheless I have not the time for such reflections, for I must start seeds soon and thus the greenhouse must be built.
The nice thing about building things out of scrap is that you don't really expect it to last. You just want it to get you through a season or two.

Elixers For Sale. Cheap.

2011-01-14T19:34:00.004-05:00

Dare I?
Dare I order lavender plugs, say, from a quaint little herb nursery on the Olympic Peninsula or the Oregon Coast or outside of Brattleboro? Tiny little sprigs packed twenty or fifty to a tray, their little roots just forming and their whole lives ahead of them? I could have my choice of varieties: mysterious hybrids from the Mediterranean coast, native varieties enjoyed by Pliny himself, medicinal varieties guaranteed to mend a thousand ailments, and, alas, varieties that do not come true to seed.
They are replicated only from cuttings, cutting that trace a lineage through mother plant after mother plant straight back to the old country.
I've grown English lavenders from seed. Wonderful varieties like Munstead, Hidcote, Vera. Perfectly wonderful little plants covered in sweet smelling blossoms. Happy little plants that do everything a person would want of a lavender. They are varieties that are perfect in every way save one: their pedigree.
Namely, they are not Provence.
Provence is the name dropper's lavender.
It is believed to be higher in essential oils. More healthful. More therapeutic.
It is the prized varietal of the cognizenti, the must-have for those knowing themselves to be in the know, and is certain to create a favorable impression on plant vendors when it is asked for in hushed, knowing tones. Every year I have my Provence requesters. Less than once a week. More than once a month. Always answered with a negative. I sweep my hand over the plants I have and list the varieties. Which are always described as "nice" and left unpurchased on the table.
Provence garnered for itself the reputation of being the traditional variety, and is prized by those seeking to buy, for the price of a 4" perennial, an alternate identity. It is the variety for those who wish to believe that the very same plant growing outside their home is the same growing outside homes in France, great bouquets of which are scooped up by elderly peasant woman in kerchiefs and placed into wicker baskets on the front of bicycles. I, sadly, am able to provide my customers with neither the plant nor the costume drama. I'm wondering if I should change.
The backstory of flowers and herbs makes for a large part of their essence, as presentation does the meal. Today's lavender, alas, does not originate in the colorful settings we might wish it did. Plenty comes from the French countryside, but the lavender in your salve or soap or cookie is more likely to have originated in Texas, or Holland, or Japan. It's grown by the acre. Hundreds of acres. The commercially popular varieties change every few years, but the varieties chosen for today's herb farms are not those recommended by medieval herbals or village elders. They are the varieties that are most disease resistant in today's monoculture farming operations. They may not have the richest oil content or the most soothing aroma; they will stand up to mechanical cultivation.
I'm leaning toward growing on a few trays of Provence. They'll be a nice addition to the mix. I don't want to use them as a time machine, though. I don't exactly want a magic herb that will transport me back to the past. I just don't want to live in the present.

1/12/11

2011-01-12T21:41:00.001-05:00

The snow is deeper than a stack of seed catalogs.

That’s the lede.

It handily disposed of two obvious subjects: the current winter storm and the annual task of ordering seeds. I am fortunate this year in that the two are synchronized; the deeper the snow gets the more engrossed I become in the seed order.

The list is a general replication of last year’s – but for the higher prices – with a handful of additions and even fewer subtractions. Even so, it takes a few days to go over every item and then a few more to write everything down on an order sheet. (That takes a lot more time than you would think: filling out forms.)

The scene before me as I work is a long sheet of white from my back window rising up to the highest point in the fields. Blank. Utterly empty. Clean.

The same space is represented on a long piece of butcher paper, equally stark and clean to begin with but soon filled with obvious landmarks, field measurements, and then lists of cultivars, noted with planned seeding dates and row lengths.

I look from the paper to the field, from the field to the paper. From the paper to the field.

The catalogs are stocked with nifty images of vegetables. Perfect glossy representations of flawless vegetables.

I look from the catalogs to the fields. From the fields to the catalogs. From the catalogs ….

Hope is a snow covered field. An undisturbed white canvas. A frozen tabla rasa upon which we project our own idea of glossy perfection.

The forecast says it won’t melt for a while.

More Thought Provoking Q & A From the University of Illinois

2011-01-10T11:48:00.000-05:00

Q. What is a "potomato?

A. Although both potato and tomato plants can be integrated, the "potomato" (sometimes called "topato") commonly advertised is simply a tomato seed inserted into a potato tuber and planted together, producing both a tomato plant and a potato plant in the same hill. The results are not likely to be particularly successful.

Blackberries

2011-01-08T21:22:00.003-05:00

Standing as it does for coercion by the State versus the freedom of the individual, Toryism remains Toryism, whether it extends this coercion for selfish or unselfish reasons. As certainly as the despot is still a despot, whether his motives for arbitrary rule are good or bad; so certainly is the Tory still a Tory, whether he has egoistic or altruistic motives for using State-power to restrict the liberty of the citizen, beyond the degree required for maintaining the liberties of other citizens.
Herbert Spencer
The Man Versus the State, 1884

This isn't about blackberries.
It's about organization, conformity and anarchy.
I have in my position a very detailed plan on the proper planting of strawberries. I have an itemized budget for all materials needed. I have a timeline - a schedule of tasks organized in bullet point fashion.
I have goals.
And I must admit to myself that though this is all of my own doing, it is a result not of my own exemplary work skills but of government intervention. Though I can humor myself into believing that I am, if left to my own devices, capable of such professionalism, the truth is I did this only because I was forced to do so by the state.
I have received an Agricultural Options Grant.
I filled out all the forms and impressed all the important people and wowed all the appropriate committees. I dotted all the i s and crossed all the t s. I tricked them into thinking that I know what I'm doing.
I embark now on a blackberry journey, better prepared for what lies ahead than I have ever been before. I am motivated less by the thought of eventual blackberry pies than I am by the need to complete my stated goals. I'm not excited by the thought of rows of healthy blackberries. I'm afraid of letting down the bureaucracy.
I have to do this. I already filled out the forms.

...the State is but an agency entitled to use power and coercion, and made up of experts or specialists in public order and welfare, an instrument in the service of man. Putting man at the service of that instrument is political perversion. The human person as an individual is for the body politic and the body politic is for the human person as a person. But man is by no means for the State. The State is for man.
Jacques Maritain
Man and the State, 1951

Where Does Your Food Come From? Updated.

2011-01-08T16:35:00.000-05:00

Thirsty?
Read this.

1/5/11

2011-01-05T19:58:00.000-05:00

It’s January, and so I am rebuilding a wrecked greenhouse. It’s an event that comes around every January, not unlike President’s Day or the Super Bowl. Though with considerably less hoopla.
The priority is what we call the long greenhouse, the 20 by 100 baby plant greenhouse I inherited from a neighbor some years ago. It was crushed by the great Christmas snow of ’09, and has laid scattered across the front field ever since. I’ve sorted through the mess and come up with a 20 by 60 ish structure, sort of straight and sort of plumb, that will be serviceable once there’s some plastic on it.
After that the perennial greenhouse, the pitched roof one made out of old well pipe, needs quite a bit of attention, meaning a bit of structural reinforcement and new plastic over the top. It may have to make due with new plastic on the sides and nothing else.
Fate may not allow me to do anything else this year. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to cover the big growing greenhouse. That’s the one that sat in my neighbor’s field for a few years and has stood, in skeletal form, in the lower field since the year before last. Yes, it needs plastic, too. And some purlins and some cross braces …. Then it will be ready to grow tomatoes.
Then there’s the propagation greenhouse, the one with the stone tables and the radiant table heat. That one is still a few years from completion, especially since I’ve diverted stones from that one to going to the new floor for the house. But more on that later.
The point of all this is that the new year brings with it greenhouse work, and greenhouses, like the new year, bring a sense of rebirth, resurgence and resurrection. They start barren and devoid of fruit, cold and sterile, seemingly unable to ever stay warm and get green. Sometimes they lay scattered about in pieces. Sometimes they are several years worth of building blocks that have not yet taken recognizable shape. Yet the bare dirt with-in soon warms and sprouts seeds. One barely remembers the emptiness of just a short time before. They become lush and green and provide plenty to eat.
That’s hardly news. The message here is that after the green, after the bounty, they get torn apart by wind, placed asunder by snow. They rot and collapse. They sink in the mud. They fall victim to apocalypse. Then, and here’s the thing, you get to put them back together again. And again.
That’s the true meaning of all the pieces of greenhouse I have scattered around. Not just death. And not just rebirth. Continued and cyclical and eternal death and rebirth is what all this means.
It all makes more sense with pictures.

At Least I Got the Laundry In

2010-07-11T00:17:00.003-04:00

A bit more than an inch of rain last night, and blessed be every drop.
It washed the dust from the leaves. It filled up the flower pots. It watered the tomatoes. It made a little puddle outside the packing shed.
It softened the ground enough to pull weeds. It maybe softened the ground enough to receive a plow.
I've quite a few flowers waiting to get into the ground, but have been keeping them in the greenhouse. At least there I can water them. There are weeds in an old lettuce bed. They need to be disked in. Curly dock has gone to seed - I want to cut the seed stalks off and carry them far, far away. Rocks used to weigh down landscape fabric are still in the strawberry patch. They need to be picked up before I can turn that dirt over. The roller pump is seized. It's soaking in diesel. The peppers and eggplant bear little babies, almost ready to pick. The second squash planting is starting to bear, magnificently.
The milkweed is blooming. Bumblebees really like milkweed.
I really like milkweed, too. It's agood place to watch bumblebees.

I Was a Bit Indecisive in Foam & Fabric This Week

2010-07-09T20:15:00.001-04:00

if only I had known

An Intergenerational Study on the Appeal of Corms

2010-07-06T21:57:00.003-04:00

The gladiolus are in. (Gladioli?)
Slowly, the blooms crawl up the stalks and unfold, not unlike an old radio serial drama.
I cut them and bring them to market, stick them in a big plastic bucket and let people buy them.
"Oh, gladiolus! My grandmother used to grow these!"
And people purchase, presumably, the simplicity of yesteryear.
Does anyone other than people's memories of their grandmothers still grow gladioli, and if not, why are they still offered in catalogs? Has no one seen a glad since they were six, skipping across grandma's front yard with a skinned knee and a nickel Coke?
I didn't start growing glads as some attempt at hipster cred, I grant you, but neither did I anticipate the overwhelming reaction would be one of nostalgia. I'm left wondering why people are so quick to snap up the glads and so reluctant to grab onto something more current, say, lime green echinacea.
It introduces the largeridea of the appeal of farmer's markets in the first place. Whilst I grant you that many customers want nothing greater than fresh, local organic produce, there may be many who want just a little more for their dollar.
Simplicity? Innocence? The, um, good old days? There's no question that the iconic American farm is a powerful marketing tool. Look only to the verdant rows of crops and the well-constructed barns that adorn the labels of so many food products. These are not simple times, and we seek comfort in the appeal of the hearth. The land. Main Street. A few stems of gladioli.
Thus, a farmer's market, touted by some as the food source of the future, owes a lot of it's success to the past. Farmer's markets are a portal to another time, when life isn't so hectic and times are simpler. They're like Cracker Barrel, only without bathrooms.

Mkt

2010-07-01T22:48:00.002-04:00

What are these?
Squash blossoms.
What do you do with them?
Fry 'em in butter.
Some people stuff them with cheese.
Or a rice/herb mix. Anything. Use your imagination.
Some people fry 'em in a tempura batter.
You can put them in grits.
You can put them in an omelet.
They're good raw in salads.
They're great with fish.

Am I Talking About Deer, Or Raft Guides?

2010-06-30T22:28:00.002-04:00

It was bad enough when they randomly showed up and ate my food, and got even worse when they moved in, but now they're having babies here.
We've found three baby deer on the farm in the last 24 hours. All asleep, all motherless, all spotted and adorable. The first was up on the ridge, just inside the fence. Isiah spotted it when we were up there for a routine fence check. He carried it down the hill, brought it home and put it in a pen with his goats.
The second was early this morning, under an outdoor plant table. I had run a deer off about ten minutes before - the mom? - and then noticed the little baby curled up under a table of potted bee balm and coneflower. The mom (?) had run up the hill toward Sam's barn, so I carried the little baby over to the edge of the hill, put it down, and vacated the scene. It bleated a while. An adult deer came out of the trees, ears pricked way up, and walked around in circles for a few minutes. The baby chased it all the while. The mom (?) went back into the woods, and the baby chased after it.
The third was between a bee hive and some lemon balm toward one side of the house. I found it mid-afternoon, and at this point all reason was briefly suspended. The unlikelihood of this trinity would not penetrate my brain, and I just kind of walked around in a daze all afternoon. Julie got back from market about eight, and I went over and picked it up. I put it down on the ground in front of Isiah, but it hopped up, ran through the blueberries, up the side of the field and out a gate.
The question is: How many others are out there? And why is it that the farm was selected as the maternity ward? Or, are deer population this dense everywhere? I'm averaging one deer per three acres. Is it the same through-out the western part of the state? Will a walk through the woods yield one baby deer every three acres?
How is it that the deer are giving birth here, when they usually just descend in the middle of the night, eat some beet greens, and leave. Or, are they giving birth elsewhere, and bringing their babies here and abandoning them on my doorstep?
I've encountered many demons since I've been here, and exercised most of them, but this babay deer curse is something new. It just may get the best of me.

As Someone Once Said To Dustin Hoffman ...

2010-06-24T23:18:00.006-04:00

Fun With Plastic
Another in the Annals of Organic Farming Series

It's another drought year, and the landscape fabric is coming in quite handy. Unsightly, abominable stuff, really, but it has it's purpose. It keeps the sun off the soil. Laid down just after a rain shower, it locks the moisture down in the ground. The dirt under the fabric feels coil and moist, is still friable, when all else around is turned to dry powder. Worms come right up to the surface. Spiders and beetles frolic.
It chokes the weeds out. A pepper planted onto bare, tilled soil is, well, a pepper planted onto bare, tilled soil. Two weeks later it's another anonymous green stalk among the hordes. A pepper planted onto landscape fabric remains just that through the season; a distinct entity, immediately identifiable. It's quite remarkable what you can do with your plants when you can find them. Why, you can check them for disease, you can water them, you can pick them. Nifty.
You rarely step on them.
Landscape fabric, whatever it's aesthetic limitations, might qualify as my single most valuable tool. It quickly pays for itself in non-lost crops. The time invested in laying it down is quickly repaid in non-weeding time. It absorbs the sun and warms the soil, but slows evaporation and keeps the soil moist.
But the inspiration for this post is none of the above. The inspiration for the above post was a remarkable little discovery I made this morning: Buckwheat has prop roots!
A volunteer buckwheat has sprouted up in the squash field, about three inches off center from the hole in the fabric. The buckwheat grew horizontally until it reached daylight, and then shot up toward the sky. I was impressed. Buckwheat is usually such a docile, even wimpy, little plant. I was surprised at the lengths it would go to to survive. But there it was - the plant needed a way out and it found one. It had sprouted roots along it's sideways portion, stubby little props like you see at the base of corn. That's another good thing about landscape fabric: it pushes buckwheat to its extremes.

We're Organic Farmers. It's Just That We're Twenty-first Century Organic Farmers

2010-06-07T22:02:00.005-04:00

There's a hole in the deer fence somewhere. My evidence: a pile of deer poop in one of the squash beds. The squash is planted in landscape fabric - long sheets of woven black plastic, holes cut down the center, the edges weighed down by rocks. It's nifty stuff - it chokes out the weeds and preserves heat and moisture. Unsightly, I will grant you, but it saves a tremendous amount of time. Um, unless you're a dung beetle.
The deer poop was on the fabric, and the dung beetle was trying, awkwardly but stubbornly, to bury it. She rolled a few balls over this way, and then rolled them over that way. She piled a few up here, then a few up there. She had made little progress burying by the time I finished picking squash, but she'd shifted a bunch of dung around.
We're bug friendly around here. We're pollinator friendly, and spider friendly. We even once thought about breeding flies. Until this morning I would have thought we were dung beetle friendly, and would have been mistaken. There's always something I haven't thought of.

Bees, Gentler Even Than Tunicates

2010-05-28T22:23:00.003-04:00

Wasps, that raggedy band of otherwise non-assigned hymanopteras, are attacking the mason bee eggs.
Mason bee season is over. They haven't been seen in weeks, but their eggs are stockpiled in a nesting block hung from a chestnut in the front yard. Safely, I thought, until next Spring, when the adult bees would emerge to mate, forage and lay more eggs. But wasps are tunneling through the mud cappings the bees build over their eggs, and are messing with the eggs, the pollen the bees placed in there for the newly hatched eggs, or both. One by one, the cappings are penetrated, and the world loses another bee to be.
They're not hurting anyone. Bees don't hurt anyone. Or anything. They're the ultimate fruitarians. They don't kill animals and eat them. They don't kill plants and eat them. They only sip a little nectar now and then, nectar that the plants made just for them. A bit of pollen gets stuck to them sometimes, but the plants like that, too.
Bees go through their whole lives without hurting anything or anyone. What else can say that? Maybe a turkey vulture. Let's not talk about turkey vultures. Let's stick to bees. They need nothing but that which is freely given.

As promised, there is exciting bee news ahead. Stay tuned.

The Highlight of Sunday Evening Used To Be Tinkerbell Flying Around That Cartoon Castle

2010-05-20T20:20:00.004-04:00

But television has changed.
What does it for me now is the spiders that live on the living room window. Darling Jumping Spiders (Phidippus audax, according to our resident entomologist) live, hunt, eat and presumably reproduce, all on a flat piece of glass between the sofa and the cookbook shelf. They're happy there -able to hide in the corners but see their prey from any possible angle. And the entertainment value - at least, relative to other forms of entertainment available out here in the sticks - is immeasurable. The entirety of the soap opera of spider life is played out on the screen before. We've got them named and can distinguish individual personality traits. We even fight over who gets to control the remote.
Everyone's invited over pretty soon to enjoy the show. Pot luck. We might need a few extra chairs.

ALERT: There Will Be No Snowstorn This May

2010-05-16T08:54:00.002-04:00

The winds came in yesterday evening all gray and moist, and they laid everything flat. Grass, flowers, all tossed about, back and forth, and then laid down neatly on the ground.
The flowers on the big hydrangea in the front yard last most of their petals. Such was the timing of this storm: after the flowers had opened, before the petals naturally fell. One of the greatest joys of May in recent years has been to get as many people as possible under the hydrangea, and then shake the trunk as hard as possible. All the petals fall down upon us, our own little May blizzard.
But, this year, it is not to be.

Transitions, Again

2010-05-15T19:09:00.002-04:00

Spring has officially turned to summer. I determine this not by astronomical device, nor by ancient pagan ritual, but by the disappearance of the garden hose.
Summer is when basic objects disappear. Garden hoses. Fire pits. shovels. Trucks.
In springtime, all is visible. Even in late spring, objects are visible at least enough to be mowed around.
Summer is the Great Disappearance.

The Black Snake Has Saved Us Both

2010-05-02T21:20:00.002-04:00

I've two chickens left, a rooster and a hen. They're survivors. Anything that has made it through the last winter deserves to stay in the gene pool, but these two have lasted when all the others have perished.(Last week the hen went broody, which is kind of nice and heart-warming, but I'd rather have the eggs.) She's on the box shelf, on the side of the packing shed where there would be stacks of waxed produce boxes if she wasn't there. She's between two bales of hay, left over from Krystal's aborted cob oven project. (I need the hay for mulch, but the chicken seems to need them more.) The rooster started raising a racket this morning, and I went over to find a black snake slithering its way up to the eggs. I reached under him with a stick, got him good and balanced, and carried him away.
Until he slithered off and continued on his way to the eggs. This process was repeated a good five or six times, until a fashioned a bit of a lasso on the end of the stick and carried him over to the walnut trees.
I thought that was the end of it, but, of course, it wasn't. A few hours later I saw him again, winding his way down the driveway, visions of fresh eggs in his eyes. I lassoed him again and tried to get him into a burlap bag, but he was having none of it. So I dropped him into a blue barrel and capped it good and tight. I loaded him into the van and dropped him off - well, the exact location might be in violation of a few Federal statutes, so let's just say he's safe and sound and elsewhere.

Okay, that may not be the most fascinating story ever, but it has saved me from continuing with my original idea of a post, which I promise you would have been tiresome.
Stay tuned, however, for some important bee news.

Market 4/23/10

2010-04-23T22:58:00.000-04:00

And where the marjoram once, and sage, and rue,
And balm, and mint, with curled-leaf parsley grew,
And double marygolds, and silver thyme,
And pumpkins neath the window used to climb;
And where I often when a child for hours
Tried through the pales to get the tempting flowers,
As lady's laces, everlasting peas,
True-love-lies-bleeding, with the hearts-at-ease,
And golden rods, and tansy running high
That o'er the pale-tops smiled on passers-by,

John Clare
1793-1864

I-40 About to Re-Open!

2010-04-22T22:29:00.002-04:00

Continuing on the theme of the inexorable pace of Nature so recently examined in this space, we will now consider the will of ten million pounds of rock. We reflect on the 250 million years the Appalachians have been here (250 million years, folks, where I come from they call that Permian) and the gradual rate at which they fall back to sea level.They care not for interstate commerce. Holiday traffic is of no concern to them. Your next business meeting? They can't be bothered.
They take their cues from molten lava at the earth's center, and from the steady pace of raindrops.
And from gravity, which is pretty hard to avoid.
It is in fact all quite joyous, to me at least.The inevitable, cyclic and predictable arrival of Spring is to me as are volcanoes erupting, mountains eroding. As the earthworm pokes itself up out of its burrow just one more time so is a bit of rock dust swept away by a rain shower. As magma erupts from the Earth so is the greening of the grass. I loose sight of the big things as I go through my day, though. The little things I can keep track of a wonder about for an eternity:
Mason bees sometimes nest in sap-sucker holes. Sap-suckers poke holes to get at beetle larvae. Beetles lay their eggs in trees. No beetles, mason bees.
It would be folly to even try to conceive of interrupting the cycle, but not to put a road through a mountain. We all know damn well we can't get the grass to stop growing or the crows to shut up, but we're convinced we can stop a mountain?
Myself, I wish I could be there. I wish I could be an onlooker when the governor or whover cuts the ribbon and the first semi exceeds the speed limit.
On second thought, I don't wish to be there. I would, however, like to be there, at that day in the distant future, when the highest most point on Clingman's Dome finds itself lapped by the waves of the Atlantic. I'll pick up any trash or spare hubcaps and just sit there a while. Cause sooner or later the ground will rise back up.

With the Cabbage Come the Cabbage Moths

2010-04-19T22:52:00.001-04:00

Not one day. Not twenty-four hours. Not a complete news cycle. The cabbage has not been in the ground for one day yet, and already the cabbage moths have found it. Hell, sometimes even I for get where it is. Not the little white pests. They’ve visited the transplants already, ovipositors at the ready.

There’s no fooling a bug, you will often heard said, and that was once again demonstrated outside today, in the middle of my fields. There is something vaguely comforting in the regularity and expectedness of it all. In the persistence and predictability of the little bastards. My last post mentioned a litany of spring symbols; I neglected to mention the sight of the cabbage moths. I also neglected to mention the smell of B.t., the preferred control of cabbage moths. I neglected to mention, because I wasn’t thinking of it, the annual ritual of breaking out the backpack sprayer, of mixing it with B.t. and trudging up to the fields to coat all the cabbage plants with the deadly mix that was sure to wash of with the next rain. And repeating the process the next day.

The appearance of the cabbage moth (they didn’t waste any time) brings me to the half-empty counterpoint of my last post. For, yes, there is a long list of spring rituals that don’t make us all cheerful and joyous. That don’t make us fill our lungs with warm air and greet the changing of the seasons. That don’t make us want to frolic through a meadow and give thanks to lush green life returning to the planet.

The pagans probably had some ceremony or dance to welcome the coming of the cabbage moths, but it had been forgotten by history. Instead, there’s the pumping action of a backpack sprayer. It may seem a bit awkward at first, but you get used to it. Just like the May pole dance.

Stay tuned for exciting news from the bee world!

Spring, And the Farm Takes to the Air

2010-04-16T21:25:00.004-04:00

I reached into the ash at our feet, picked up a stone, and juggled it in my hands like a hot potato. Magnus said,"Dig two inches into the ash, you can bake hot-spring bread. Some housewives do it. It takes four hours."
John McPhee
Cooling the Lava, 1989

Now came the dust, though still thinly. I look back: a dense cloud looms behind us, following us like a flood poured across the land ...We had scarcely sat down when a darkness came that was not like a moonless or cloudy night, but more like the black of closed and unlighted rooms.
Pliny the Younger AD79

It smelt strongly like rotten eggs. Initially, I thought maybe it's something to do with my young daughter, or the animals in the field.
Iceland resident Jane Matthews
quoted in The Guardian

Recent events in Europe remind us that Nature will do as it pleases, sometimes regularly, cyclically, and sometimes randomly and unexpectedly. Air travel is shut down over an entire continent, and all due to activity so old it predates continents themselves. It reminds us that even our highest technological achievements - Stratoliners and the like - are no escape and are unable to master the ground we live on. We live, forever, as children of the world that begat us.
The unexpected and the random in Iceland is coupled by the predictability of springtime in the Appalachians, and all the appropriate harbingers are checked off. Daffodils. Dandelions. Fruit trees. Honeybee brood. Equinox. Maple blooms. Peepers. Poplar leaves. The final symbol of Spring, the winged frenzy of insects, had been building slowly and recently reached its high fervor. A clump of dandelions just outside the house this afternoon were host to more species of flying insects than I could name - honeybees and tiny little wasps and the most welcome of all: little bee flies. Carpenter bees have been squabbling around me for more than a week now. Swarms of gnats make little funnel clouds above the lawn. Mason bees are peeking out of their nests. Saw a dragonfly up by the pond. And the butterflies - swallowtails mostly - are floating over the road and lighting where they please.

Anise Hyssop, Baked Potatoes, and Carol's Sh*t List

2010-04-13T21:42:00.002-04:00

Note: I will use asterisks at appropriate places throughout this post, to make it more family friendly. I apologize to those who may be offended.

It all started about a week ago - it was opening day of fishing season, as I recall - when the big red dump truck rolled up the road. My neighbor Carol and his son got out and motioned me over.
"We got a whole load of sh*t here. We figured Jack could use it. Where do you think he'd want it."
"I'd go up and put it on his front porch," I said.
"That's too much work," Carol said.
"Well, right here on the edge of his walnut field would probably be best," I said. "That's where he usually makes his compost piles. Right upwind of my house."
His son stomped on the ground a bit, and then stomped again. Confident that he wouldn't get stuck, he drove the truck forward, then backed it up, then went forward again, then backed up again.
"You might want to put some of this on your fields," Carol said.
His son had the truck right where he wanted it.
"I could use it. But I don't have a manure spreader. Just a five gallon bucket."
Carol pulled the rear latch and sent his index finger skyward. His son raised the bed and and the load started to slide out.
"A manure spreader," Carol said. "The only tool that Sears won't stand behind."
He said that three more times until I got it.
His son lowered the bed and pulled forward, then backed up and then pulled forward again.
"Well," Carol said. "We'll be right back with another load."
They'd wintered their cattle in a field just up the Creek from me, and had just brought them back to their place. Carol and his son were cleaning up the feeding area - a huge steel ring that hay is dumped into. The cattle can eat the hay but they can't walk all over it. They were scooping up the spilled and dropped hay, all well mixed with cattle droppings, so that grass could grow in that spot.
"We were just gonna dump it in the creek," Carol said. "Then we thought: Hell, those boys could use this sh*t."
They came back about a half an hour later and dumped my load on the opposite side of the road.
I side-dressed the blueberries with it that afternoon. Then, today, decided to side-dress the anise hyssop. (My little anise hyssop stand is getting stronger and stronger each year. This year it is really coming back with verve, and I am inclined to pamper it.)
I used what I call a "rock sled." Not really a sled, it's a flat platform on the back of the tractor. I can lower it and raise it. It's most common use, as you may have eponymously guessed, is to get rocks out of the field. Today I used it to move sh*tty hay. I got uphill of the pile, put the tractor in reverse, built up a little speed, and slammed into the pile. The rock sled sunk in about two feet before the wheels started spinning, and I lifted up what I could and started to take it to the anise hysop. That's when I noticed the steam. Coming out of the pile. At a vigorous rate. I walked over to the pile and held my hand up. It was hot! Very hot. Like, really, really hot.
There's a potato in the middle of it right now, all wrapped up in foil and baking nicely. I don't exactly know that I'm going to eat it; I just want to say that I did it. As for the anise hyssop, it is very happy.

Seeds

2010-04-10T20:00:00.003-04:00

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,	..
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

Eliot, Prufrock

The greenhouse is filling up, emptying out, and filling up once again. Plastic trays get filled with potting soil, and a single seed gets placed, one at a time, into each cell. Then on to the next tray. The trays stack up next to my table, and then spread out in the greenhouse. The little seeds emerge from the dark soil one at a time, and open themselves to the sun. They grow and grow, and get transplanted into the fields, one at a time, down long straight rows.
Other plants will be brought to market, and sold to customers, one to this person, and one to this person. Every plant now on the greenhouse tables will find a home, one customer selecting one plastic pot, over and over.
Greenhouse days can be long. I start early and keep seeding until everything on that day's list is done. And that is sometimes long after dark - the whole day spent, one seed at a time.
I start to associate the conditions of a given day with the seeds that are started: I look at the kale and remember a cold and windy day, seated inside. I started the thyme outside, the table set up in the sun, the day marked by a rising stack of trays and the number of Cannonball Adderley CDs I worked through. The peppers I associate with Democracy Now! reporting about something from the Mid-East. I potted on the lettuce while Isiah watched "Ice Age."
I can measure out a day with basil seeds. The pace of a season is marked by plastic trays. The years are marked by the names of the interns.

Twelve

2010-04-07T20:16:00.003-04:00

I've put this off long enough. It's never been possible to write about the spring plowing because so many aspects of the process have changed so quickly they don't make sense except for the half day after the fact. And then everything changes again.
The state of the soil is not so good. It was turned the first time in early March, and the lingering effects of last year's heavy rains was immediately apparent. As I turned furrows I was turning up weed stalks from last year, untouched and undecomposed, sometimes with leaf veination still visible. The bacterial life in the soil last year suffered greatly - all the little guys suffocated, basically. The soil went anaerobic, meaning there was not enough oxygen to support healthy microbial life. Another type of bacteria flourished, the deep, deep underground kind that need no oxygen. As I plowed, the smells that greeted me were not the rich spring soil smell, the garden smell, the plant lots of things and be happy! smell, rather it was the construction site basement excavation smell. The netherworld smell. The subduction smell. The Virgil, why did you lead me here? smell.
I took solace in the amount of little spiders scurrying across the turned dirt - they must have something to eat. And those things must have something to eat. And those things ....
The garden bacteria will recolonise, of that I have no doubt. Bacteria get to where they want to be. But, it will be slow, and I need them there now, munching down the fertizer I've been spreading and making little bacterial excrement compounds that are available to plant rootlets.
Hurry up! Eat! Shit! Die!
That's what the plants need the bacteria to do.
The warm dry spell we're in has got me weeding my early planting already. (I've never needed to weed this early. Sometimes it needn't be done until May.) I went up and down the rows with a hoe yesterday, and still got the occasional whiff of anaerobic creatures. It's not over yet.
The wet last year led to a wet cold winter, of course. Too wet to plow early, as everyone noticed. I seized the first opportunity I got, and plowed in borderline conditions. Just a bit too wet, in fact, but I plowed before another rainy period settled in. Had we a freeze or two since then, it wouldn't have made a big deal, as the soil clods would have frozen and expanded and frozen again and expanded and fallen into tidy little aggregates. But no, not only did the soil not freeze, and not only are we beyond all chance of a hard freeze, but it is now baking in a record setting heat wave. The field is cloddy, and will be for the rest of the year. I've disked and disked and disked again, and gotten it so that I can at least work it, but again to the detriment of our invisible little friends. There are years when the soil rides up the moldboard like potting mix, and lays down flat and smooth with one pass of the disk. Not this year.
Does anyone now remember the ten straight days it did not get above freezing? Does anyone now remember soggy driveways and muddy shoes? I've irrigated twice this year. Sometimes I don't set the pipes up until June.
I could use a little help with knowing the future.
If it's gonna continue to be this dry, I'll turn the summer fields at the first opportunity, so to not risk the ground getting so hard it will not take a plow point. And kill the cover crop and leave bare soil exposed much longer than I'd like to. If we're going to get rain that even approaches a normal amount, I'll let the rye grow and let the microbes mate and turn the field when I need to.
It's just so hard to figure out what's normal anymore.

Maybe It'll Be ... Um ... Paul Dirac

2010-04-02T22:17:00.002-04:00

I thought today how distressing it is that I have faith in nothing. I thought about how much fun it would be to share with everyone in their holidays, in their celebratory banquets and their ritual gatherings. United, everyone, with a single purpose and I single faith! There is an intense loneliness in being a non-believer. I don't want rich costumes and special effects; I want to believe that he parted the Red Sea. I don't want a bunch of psychological mumbo-jumbo and some well-researched thesis about ancient peoples morphing their cultures together, I want to believe in the cave and the rock and the ascension. I no longer want to be on Barnabas' side. I want to liturg.
I began to reflect on the things I do believe in, and they didn't seem like a lot of fun. Darwin? Soil science? Genetic determinism of cultivated plants? People don't have holidays for that kind of stuff. There are no songs nor holiday specials. And while many people may actually believe in those things, most don't care. People don't crawl for days on end to Mendel's birthplace. People don't go live in caves because nitrite reforms into nitrate. Requiems are not inspired by potassium cations.
I believe in a few more prosaic things. Equality of sexes and races. Opportunity for all. Aid to the underprivileged. Noble ideas, perhaps, but they do not inspire cathedrals. And while those things l are rare, perhaps non-existent, a continued belief in them does not put one on ar with, say, Job.
I want to be among the flock, but I just can't seem to manage it. There's got to be something out there. Not the Holy Trinity, perhaps, but something that will make me want to roll eggs across a lawn for reasons other than childhood nostalgia. Something that will make me gather with my brethren on a Sunday morn. Someone who will welcome me into Heaven.

Bald Tale, Spikey Teeth

2010-03-28T09:18:00.001-04:00

The Possum used to have a long, bushy tail, and was so proud of it that he combed it out every morning and sang about it at the dance, until the Rabbit, who had had no tail since the Bear pulled it out, became very jealous and made up his mind to play the Possum a trick.

There was to be a great council and a dance at which all the animals were to be present. It was the Rabbit's business to send out the news, so as he was passing the Possum's place he stopped to ask him if he intended to be there. The Possum said he would come if he could have a special seat, "because I have such a handsome tail that I ought to sit where everybody can see me." The Rabbit promised to attend to it and to send some one besides to comb and dress the Possum's tail for the dance, so the Possum was very much pleased and agreed to come.

Then the Rabbit went over to the Cricket, who is such an expert hair cutter that the Indians call him the barber, and told him to go next morning and dress the Possum's tail for the dance that night. He told the Cricket just what to do and then went on about some other mischief.

In the morning the Cricket went to the Possum's house and said he had come to get him ready for the dance. So the Possum stretched himself out and shut his eyes while the Cricket combed out his tail and wrapped a red string around it to keep it smooth until night. But all this time, as he wound the string around, he was clipping off the hair close to the roots, and the Possum never knew it.

When it was night the Possum went to the townhouse where the dance was to be and found the best seat ready for him, just as the Rabbit had promised. When his turn came in the dance he loosened the string from his tail and stepped into the middle of the floor. The drummers began to drum and the Possum began to sing, "See my beautiful tail." Everybody shouted and he danced around the circle and sang again, "See what a fine color it has." They shouted again and he danced around another time, singing, "See how it sweeps the ground." The animals shouted more loudly than ever, and the Possum was delighted. He danced around again and sang, "See how fine the fur is."

Then everybody laughed so long that the Possum wondered what they meant. He looked around the circle of animals and they were all laughing at him. Then he looked down at his beautiful tail and saw that there was not a hair left upon it, but that it was as bare as the tail of a lizard. He was so much astonished and ashamed that he could not say a word, but rolled over helpless on the ground and grinned, as the Possum does to this day when taken by surprise.

'Myths of the Cherokee,' by James Mooney
Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1897-98, Part I. [1900]

Bragging on the Nephew, Once Again

2010-03-15T23:04:00.004-04:00

Researchers first assessed brand recognition levels in 38 children aged three to five years old. Mainstream brand logos, like Lego and Coca-Cola, were presented to children on a card. The children’s recognition rates were as high as 92 percent for some of the 50 brands tested across 16 product categories. The most commonly recognized brand was McDonald’s, followed closely by other brands of fast food, soda and toys.
from the University of Michigan
School of Kinesiology

I'd promised a St Johnswort plant to a customer last year, only to find I'd sold out of every one. Or nearly so. Julie and I were in the greenhouse, loading up for market the next week, and I said, "If you see a St. Johnswort, toss it in the van. There's gotta be at least in here." A few minutes later, a tiny voice from beneath the tables says: "There's one. It's right on top of me."
Moreso, he has the uncanny knack, and has since he was about three, of crawling through the weed jungle outside the greenhouse, the tangle of overgrown grass where we usually toss extra starts that don't get planted, and emerging munching on a newly discovered kale plant or collard plant, tossed aside and left to grow in the mess for months.
This morning I couldn't figure out why the cat went insane. She's normally quite docile and mild-mannered, but this morning she was wound up like a meth-head.
"She found the catnip," Isiah said.
"No, it's too cold. The catnip hasn't sprouted yet."
He comes back ten seconds later, with a freshly picked leaf.
Should scholars from the U. of Michigan find this of interest, we can arrange to ship him up there for study. But we'll need him back soon. We can't get any work done without him.

From the Annals of Gardening

2010-03-10T22:11:00.001-05:00

we find this

Peel Me A Grape

2010-03-09T20:43:00.002-05:00

Ever wonder where your food comes from?
Me neither.

More News From Appalachia

2010-03-08T07:29:00.002-05:00

These are tough times for children. Unemployed parents are in the house all day. Threats of foreclosure loom on the horizon, cars are being repossessed and trips to the ice cream shop are few and far between. Classroom failure is a constant, and success is defined as conformation to a statistic. Their lone pleasure comes from electronic gadgets, and for this adults criticize them. Flak jackets and condoms are standard issue in any lunch box. The world is unfeeling and unjust and just plain mean if you're small and weak. Their reality is a world in which, as the good Doctor said, "Rain is poison and sex is death." And now vultures vomit on them when they go to the playground.
It's starting off slow. It's isolated to a few places in Greeneville. Tennessee. It'll spread. It'll spread like the locusts and the frogs did in days of yore. It'll spread like a plague through London. Like white men in the new world. Kids don't get a break even in the best of times, and in days like these, every one of them is bound to be hit by projectile digested road kill just for playing spud. And the cure is worse than the disease. The Federal Government, in the guise of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, has recommended hanging dead vultures from the swingsets. Their carcasses, dripping maggots, are bound to scare off the other vultures, the reasoning goes. (Ignorant farmer that I am, it was my impression that dead things attracted vultures.)
The point remains that the playgrounds are not safe. There's broken glass and bullies and sexual predators. They now fear even birds. There is no refuge. Nature itself has now turned on the children, and the grown-ups are powerless to help.

Anthocyanin

2010-03-07T08:38:00.002-05:00

The days are warming up. The soil is drying out. The plants are starting to wake up and grow. In some parts, they call it Spring.
There is the slightest hint of growth at the base of some of the perennial flowers. Future flowers curled up in tiny little baby bundles just below the mulch line and slowly stretching up toward the sun. Anise hyssop, lupine, angelica and columbine all ready to return for another year, along with dock and a dozen other unwelcome weeds. At this stage they are all purples and reds, with just a suggestion of green, usually down near the stem.
The poor little things are cold and they're hungry for any little scrap of heat available, and red leaves absorb more heat than green. They're trying their best to balance the red and the green, the heat and the food, doling out their budget ever so cautiously to cover the basic necessities. Chlorophyll takes back seat to a few other compounds this time of year, to make room for more antho- and caro- and xanthos. With a subsequent shift in hue. It's autumn in reverse. The leaves will become increasingly more green as the days warm - color as thermometer - and these tiny little buds now struggling so hard to stay warm will provide shade.

My Greenhouse Management Technique Borrows a lot From Cezanne.

2010-03-05T22:35:00.005-05:00

We're getting down to business here at Let It Grow. It's seed starting time, time for seed starting and starting seeds we are. A bit late this year, well, a lot late this year, but this train is finally starting and it will not be stopped. The incubation house is full of trays and the tables in the greenhouse are filling up. We're starting the usual spring transformation from swaths of brown potting soil to swaths of green seedlings. It's the colors I mostly focus on, and then the shapes.
The UPS truck is showing up just in time this year - I'm walking from the driveway to the greenhouse tables and emptying the box, searching for the right packet and doling out the seeds into their assigned little cells in one continuous motion. I'm patching holes in the plastic as I set trays and repairing heaters as I need them. It's going to be a just in time kind of a year. But God is smiling on us. Yes, we're late getting things started, but we choose the coldest year since the demise of the mastodons to be late. Had I gotten everything fired up when I usually do, I'd had already spent more on greenhouse heat than I did in all of last year. All these disasters disast for a reason, is one thing this farm proves over and over again. I may not want to be in the midst of twisted and unusable greenhouses, nor want the fields to be saturated beyond hope, but it's all pointing me to a place where I need to be. I stopped fighting it long ago - buy the ticket, take the ride. This year its been more challenging then most to stay on the path. I've been close to cashing everything in more than once. But I remind myself to enjoy the ride. I've inherited more than twenty thousand seed trays, and they all must be filled.
Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks. William Carlos Williams said that.
I'll start seeds as they arrive in the mail and plow the soil as it dries out. I'm getting the better of the deer. Most of the equipment works.
The greenhouse is atop a muted gray gravel. The tables are brown and angular, pointing up and
aside at the same time. The brown swath is feeling kinds good right now. It'll turn to green.

Agriculture

2010-02-23T10:06:00.006-05:00

“You don’t go into farming for the money. You must have something in your heart and keep at it. You have to love the land.”
Shorter, Alabama farmer Al Hooks, after being fucked by the United States Government

These are tough times for the poor and the marginalized. For the unrepresented and the down-trodden. For those who are alone or abandoned. But dreams die hard.
The robins are back. I moved some landscape fabric the other day and then watched the night crawlers and the rolly pollys that had been exposed underneath. The trees are starting to bud, ever so slightly. I walked the deer fence up on the ridge yesterday, and thought about the bloodroot that grows on that hillside in summer. Seeds are ordered and plastic trays are organized. I'm about to fire this thing up once again, and there's nothing that can stop me. The sight of the robins on the field in February is enough to make me put up with everything else that falls upon me through the course of a year. Communion with the bloodroot offsets the poverty and the hardship. The promise in the green of a newly sprouted seed is enough to get me to spend twelve straight hours in a cold greenhouse.
... a leaf of grass in no less than the journey-work of the stars. Whitman
I get hit and hit hard by no dearth of tribulations. But I continue. I am sustained by the sight of rows of trays in a greenhouse, or the feel of a hoe underneath ragweed, or the smell of diesel, or the stick and the grit of tomato sap, and I know not why. This is what I do, and I'm doing it again. I fix things that are broken and I pick up things that fall down. It's hard. I don't have it as hard as some. I keep at it.

Little Blue Flowers in the Upper Field, But Still I Worry

2010-02-19T08:37:00.000-05:00

It didn’t take long. The morning started off fair and warm, the first time in weeks, and the bees left their hives as soon as the sun stirred them from their sleep. There’s the tiniest bit of chickweed mixed in with the rye, the faintest promise of Spring after days and days of constant flurries.
The bees have been through hell this winter, all because of my own lame-ass management, and they have proven themselves to be survivors. The lids of two of the hives blew off when I was in Texas – oh, that’s why the old-timers put cinder blocks on top of their hives – and the soil got too wet and soft under one last week when I was on the Outer Banks and it tilted over. They were all clustered inside when I got back. Sideways and no doubt confused, but all there and in a tight little cluster. They all might make it through the winter yet if I don’t screw up anything else.
These are tough times for bees, and they don’t need me making it any tougher for them. There are mites and viruses and unknown metaphysical syndromes lurking everywhere, wiping out entire colonies left and right and leaving the rest frightened. Winter is hardest for them, but the days are getting longer and the plants are coming back to life. The forecast is for another few warm days, and they’ll get to spread their wings a few more times. The queens will start laying soon. We’re not through this long cold winter yet, but the end is in sight.
Stay tuned for more exciting news from the world of Apis melliflora!

We Won't Be Growing Perilla After All

2010-02-18T09:59:00.002-05:00

The snow on the landscape notwithstanding, we're geared up for another season. Goals are small for this year. We're making a conservative effort at conservative results, with the idea of just keeping our heads above water for one more year. Recent events have knocked us back about five years, and production goals are back to where the were five years ago.
We're limiting the fields to what we know works, an austerity measure that while making for rather dull fields should allow us to regroup from recent set-backs.
The greenhouses are a bit late getting fired up, and the seeds are a bit late getting started, but I've been a migrant worker lately. I've been on the eastern edge of the continent, working at various tasks that are (slowly) refilling the coffers. All the while contemplating the perennial issue, the dilemma I manage to duck every year: is any of this even possible? A sustainable organic farm? C'mon.
We've dodged fate for many years now, and kept the illusion somewhat believable, but the clock is ticking. It's moments to midnight, the palace is miles away and there's not a pumpkin chariot in sight. I fully expect to dive across the threshold in the nick of time, I'm just not quite sure how I'm going to get there.

Nevermind That The French Smoke Like Chimneys

2010-01-31T23:45:00.003-05:00

The study shows that by applying widely accepted criteria for causality, scientists were able to identify exposure to the systemic insecticide imidacloprid (a neonicotinoid used in plant protection products such as Guacho and Admire) as the main cause for honeybee decline in the sunflower and maize areas in France.
-Jeroen van der Sluijs
Utrecht University

Everything's bad for the environment these days. You can't even use nicotine to kill insects without someone whining about it. First you can't smoke 'cause it's bad for you, then you can't use tobacco to kill bugs because it kills bugs.
This is just the beginning. Disgustingly bitter coffee served in shot glasses will be tied to the whipping post next, and don't even think about sharing any with your livestock. Smelly cheese is causing global warming no doubt, and rich sauces with names you can't pronounce is killing the health care bill.
How appropriate that this comes to light on the heels of Salinger's death. Just try to get through a page of Salinger without someone lighting a cigarette. Everything's connected.
Apology to readers: I know this is a silly post, and is hardly worthy of your time. I just wanted to say Jeroen van der Sluijs.

Parsing Excel

2010-01-26T21:50:00.003-05:00

The seed order is going to be late this year. Or, late relative to years gone by. It will be right on time for this year. And it will be much reduced relative to years gone by. We're shrinking.
The fat is going to have to be cut around here, and I will do so without mercy. Fewer crops, fewer varieties, less acreage. These are tough times, and they call for tough measures. I'm measuring out every bit of fat that's trimmed, and then trimming some more. That ride to California with the mattress tied to the roof of the car is only one small disaster away, and, around here, disaster lurks around every corner.
We're going back to our roots, back to the early days of the farm, when we got by with less than nothing. It worked then and it will work now.
The new van (parked in the driveway, glowing in the starlight, not unlike a beacon of hope) signals a new paradigm. In many ways. It is clean and stark and white. Minimal. That's the course this year will have to take. Nothing extraneous. No curves, no swirls. Nothing symbolic of the past or the future. Nothing symbolic of the glory days of General Motors. No bumper stickers and no handmade signs. No skulls, no roses.
The van is a tabla rasa, a minimalist billboard, the bare necessities.
Thai okra? Gone. A dozen varieties of winter squash? One will do. Greens a staple of the Peruvian diet? Leave them there. Things that reputedly did well for Jefferson? He had slaves. Centerpieces from Sissinghurst or Hidcote? For sissies. Not even any squash with funny sounding French names.
The winter's been bad enough; now I hear there's a stomach flu going around. I've had all I can take. The thought of people around me throwing up is unbearable. It just can't get any worse.

Please, Sound Melodramatic

2010-01-24T14:42:00.000-05:00

Freewill Astrology
....
Taurus (April 20-May 20)
I don't mean to sound melodramatic, and I certainly don't want to
encourage you to do something foolish, but if you've been pondering
the possibility of storming the castle, this would be a good time to
do so. What exactly am I implying with the phrase "storming the
castle"? Well, anything that involves a brave effort to fight your way
into the command center of the empire . . . or a heroic attempt to
take back the sanctuary you were exiled from . . . or a playful
adventure in which you work your way into the heart of the king or
queen.

The Invertebrates Thrive

2010-01-22T21:53:00.004-05:00

When you got nothin', you got nothin' to lose

The fence is back up around the back forty, but there are still gaps up on the ridge and down at the bottom of the hill. I still don't know what happened to it; I got back from Texas and it was in shreds. Wires popped loose, fence posts leaning at an angle, steel pipes bent into organic curves, rebar doubled over. Blizzard? Ice? Marauding deer? Time and solitude have swallowed the answer. It'll be another few days before I've got it all back up, and until then the deer graze at will. There were twelve in the field this morning.
The greenhouse formed part of the fence along the road, until the snow collapsed the greenhouse. It, also, is a mess of twisted metal. Some of the bows are smushed squat, like the hand of a giant snow beast pushed them into the ground. Some are peeled back on themselves like a huge wind got inside and blew straight up. Supporting beams are twisted and bent like they're going nowhere in particular. I sorted through it all the day I got back and couldn't figure out, for the longest time, what used to be what. It was a hundred feet long. I'll sort through it all and save as much as I can, and rebuild it at fifty feet long. I'll have half the space and thus half the production and get off to a half-assed start, but it's better than no start at all.
The pipes were frozen and the refrigerator died and the front yard is flooded. And the van died and is somewhere beside a highway in Alabama.
But the earthworms are thriving. I left them in two bins, piled high with cow manure, and they have had a good winter, blissfully unaware of storms and freezing weather and general destruction. They munch and they cast. They require little more, and keep munching and casting though the world falls apart around them.
The bees, though clustered into tight little balls right now, have spent the last few days flying around, presumably relieving themselves after long confinement in the hives, but also, apparently, looking for nectar. There was one dandelion blooming near the raspberries.
The storms had not treated the bees well, either, but they survived. I got back to find two of the hives roofless, the bees soggy and clustered inside. By all rights, they should have perished. It was a week since the blizzard, a month since the worst of the winds, and I did not know how long the hives had been open. They should have frozen. They should have drowned. They should have absconded. They stayed right were they were, and they survived.
I've seen hives with cement blocks on top of them, and it always seemed excessive to me. It gets windy here on the farm, damn windy, but I've never lost the cover of a bee hive. Why bother with one more thing to lift? I know now. The old-timers, as usual, are right again. Keep a weight on top. You never know when a gales gonna blow up, a gale that will bend a fence or twist a greenhouse or lift the cover off a bee hive.
There's a lot of cleaning up to do. There's a lot to replace. It's not all gonna get done. A lot won't get done. We've been hit and we've been hit hard and we might not be able to make it back from this one. I haven't frozen and I haven't drowned and I won't abscond. There's gotta be at least one dandelion out there.

Paint Sticks and Lost Turtles

2009-11-04T00:11:00.003-05:00

It was wet and rainy earlier in the summer, and the bee hives were moist. The little girls were spending a lot of time outside their hives, on the outer walls, drying out. A friend called for advice, remarking that she'd read that if the roofs of the hives were lifted a bit there would be better ventilation.
"They recommended putting paint sticks on the top of the hive and setting the roof down on top of that. I'm going to buy some tomorrow. What do you think?"
I think a stick would be fine, a few odd pieces of wood or anything else you had laying around. But there aren't things laying around for a lot of people. They find themselves in the quite sorry ass state of affairs of having only prefabricated crap laying around, in which case, paint sticks would be fine. Don't use them to stir paint. Buy them special as scrap wood.
The idea of paint sticks as a metaphor as objects of a particular dimension that can be used to improvise to reach a certain goal is lost, and paint sticks become the focal point.
This only bothers me because of a classified ad I saw in the Mountain Express, our local liberal free weekly. A kind citizen had placed the following ad: Box turtle found in West Asheville. Call if you've lost a box turtle.
They don't exist in the wild, it seems. If there's a box turtle, it must've broken out of someone's terrarium. We can do as we wish to ourselves, and only have ourselves to blame. When we suburbanize the insects and the reptiles, we've gone too far.

CSA Newsletter 9-23-09

2009-09-26T23:29:00.000-04:00

Some friends from over Leicester way paid us a visit a few days ago, remarking on how harlequin bugs had nearly wiped out their fall crops and asking us how we kept the harlequins at bay.
I haven’t the slightest idea. They’re just not real big problem for us this fall. I hazard no guess as to why.
We interplant radishes between our kale and our cabbage, which may act as a deterrent. We let the edges of the fields grow up wild, full of nectar producing flowering plants that keep the predatory wasps healthy. There’s always a thick mat of weeds somewhere, providing good spider habitat. We plant our brassicaceae in a different part of the farm every year, hoping to confuse subsequent generations of bugs. All of these things or none of these things are why we have no harlequin bugs right now. I can offer no better explanation, though its tempting to play the farming expert and pontificate on the goldenrod allowed to grow along the fencerow, to look at the spiders and wasps and assassin bugs there-on, and to claim it all as part of my integrated pest management program. Someone would probably invite me to present at a workshop, somewhere. All I can say is that harlequins aren’t bothering us this year, and neither are bean beetles. Imported cabbage worms are creeping around in greater numbers than I’d like, but haven’t killed anything. A caterpillar I haven’t identified yet is making holes in the Swiss Chard, and I wish they’d go away, but we’re having a better Swiss Chard harvest than we’ve had in years. We threw away quite a few Hakerei turnips because of cabbage root maggot holes, but, on the whole, not that many.
The fields allowed to find their own form of balance seem to find that balance and equal everything out. This happens without a tremendous amount of planning from me. I just allow what is already there to express itself. We take action on things that are especially troublesome. Squash vine borers would wipe us out if they had the chance. We spray young squash plants with Bacillus theringiensis, a dried and dessicated bacteria that clogs the gut of a vine borer larvae and kills it. B.t. does the same thing to imported cabbage worm, though we’re yet to use it. If the damage to the fall cabbage gets any worse, we’ll spray with B.t. Once. Maybe. And always on the shelf sits a bottle of Py-Ganic, a certified organic insecticide made from pyrethrum flowers. We haven’t opened it this year, and probably won’t. We just keep it in reserve if it looks we’re going to loose a whole crop. Sometimes I think: we’re just keeping it in reserve in case Nature lets us down. In eleven years of doing this, Nature has never let us down. Everything balances itself out, and we have fun watching it.
Tiny purple fall asters are in bloom right now, and bugs are all over the blooms. We’ve a few sunflowers left in the fields, also, and they host whole insect communities. Wolf spiders scurry across the walking paths as we approach, or await in prey under low-growing leaves. On a far more mystical note, it is proven that a plant, under stress from an insect, can produce pheromones that mimic attractants of bugs that feed on the original bug. The plant, unable to fight off a bug by itself, has learned to lure bugs that eat the bugs that eat it.
Is that why we’ve no harlequin bugs on our arugula right now? I would not be so presumptive as to state yes or no. I merely mention that we keep our habitat diverse, dare I say natural, and let the plants and the bugs work it out for themselves.

Weed of the Week
Burdock! Big, fat American burdock. Tall, towering, big leaved burdock. It’s big leaved, it’s big rooted and it’s a pain in the ass! It’s big fat American burdock! Arctium lappa! And most of you can thank big fat American burdock every time you fasten your shoes! Burdock has, as I say, big leaves. Big enough to completely shadow out anything under it. Big enough to fan a sultan, if you so desired. We cut these big fat leaves in late Spring and mix them into our compost. They’re so big and fat, they must be full of nitrogen and other good stuff. The big fat stems can’t be pulled up. Our garden pruners have a hard time with them and we sometimes resort to a bow saw. The big fat root goes way, waaaaay deep, like I don’t think I’ve ever pulled one up all the way, or even plowed one to it’s fullest bottom of its big fat root depth. And it makes big fat seed pods that stick to everything – your socks, your shirt, your dog, everything. Go outside and find the biggest, fattest weed you can see – that’s burdock. Take a close look at the barbs atop its seed pod. Yes, they inspired Velcro. A poor, embittered, exhausted mad scientist somewhere, after hours and hours of pulling these things from his poor little dog’s coat, hit upon that rare Eureka! moment and book bags and sneakers have not been the same since.

The greens are looking nice and healthy with all this rain. All the greens this week are good raw or cooked. We like to chop up a variety of greens and radish slices, and let it sit in a marinade over night. Then, once again, eaten raw or cooked.
The long red peppers, once again, are sweet roasting peppers. Cut longwise into thirds and roasted, then topped with cheese and arugula is pretty goshdarn good.

The Rye is Green Like the Promise of Spring

2009-09-26T22:53:00.001-04:00

The season is winding down like it started: wet.
It’s rained for ten days strait. The fields are soggy. The road is a river. We clear the drainage ditches and then we clear them again. And the road is still a river. There’s mold on everything. Everything. Mushrooms have sprung up in the most unlikely of places. Trees have fallen down. Frogs are everywhere.
We can’t plant. We can’t even walk in the fields. What’s in the fields already are succumbing to fungus. The leaves get black spots and then they get gooey.
That’s been the theme this year. I could have dated the above paragraph at any randomly selected timed over the past year and it would have been apropos. But the rye and some winter pea got seeded last Tuesday, the day before the rain came. It sprouted three days later, and is growing fast and green and lush. It’s growing like it doesn’t know that winter is coming. It’s growing like it’s getting plenty of water and doesn’t has a care in the world.
That’s a far cry from the past few years. In the past few years it’s taken ten days to get the winter rye to come up, and then it just sits there, barely above the soil, little red sproutlets waiting for water. It hasn’t put on any growth by the time it gets cold, and it just sits there, gradually dieing off until March when t puts on a pitiful little growth spurt. Not this year. This year it’s thick like the Everglades.. We’ll need it. We need to feed the soil this year like we never have before. The fields have been so wet and so waterlogged our bacteria drowned in the spring. The muddy soil became host to evil anaerobic bacteria, and the fields smelled like a sewer. I kid you not. A sewer. We dried out a bit in July/August, enough to turn the soil, enough to provide something of an environment for the desired aerobic bacteria, but the recolonization can be a slow process. We can’t do anything but provide some foodstuff, and that the rain is helping us do. The rye could very well be knee-high by Halloween. There’s a new alternative mantra for you. We’re puttin’ up hay for the actinomycetes and the earthworms. We’re layin’ in stores for the hyphochytriomycota and the oomycota. The rains came and the livestock got fed. It’s time to rest.

Newsletter 9-16-09

2009-09-16T21:44:00.002-04:00

Our corn is ready, well after the summer picnic season but well ahead of the Harvest Moon. The same, I suppose, could be said of the salsa fixin’s we gave you last week. Both events are icons of this cool, wet year. Those events, and the rain I hear falling outside right now. (It’s Wednesday again.) We started to spread cover crops yesterday, and tomorrow we’ll plant our strawberries. The next day, our garlic. This is the first year we harvested corn at the same time we planted our over-wintering crops, another interesting symbol of this year.
In sadder news, we bid farewell to our tomatoes this week. The cool weather and the fungi associated with all this rain finally got the better of them, and they gave up. They sank into the ground in a mushy, pulpy mess and said: See ya next year. While we’re sad to see them go, we’re surprised that we had tomatoes at all this year. The whole year has been cold and wet – anathema to tomatoes – and our attitude all along has been: We’ll take what we can get.
As I said, we’ll get our strawberries and garlic into the ground this week. While those two items would make an incongruous salad, they are fall planted crops, enjoying a long fall of root development and an early spring of greening up. In another few weeks, we’ll plant some spinach. More evidence that farming is not a seasonal or annual phenomena, but a continuum that provides an illusion of yearly divisions.
All the same, we’re starting to think about next “year.” We keep tweaking the way the fields are arranged. More cilantro. More chard, less arugula. More peppers. The same amount of eggplant? Maybe a bit more. Should we give up on winter squash, and use that same space for something else? Like more sunflowers? Or will the deer get it all? The considerations that go into every crop we grow are: profitability, time consumed cultivating and harvesting, market gluts and shortages, and, perhaps most importantly, how it looks in the box. I’ve often thought someone could come up with an elaborate equation – like, one with fractions and slanty lines and xs and ys and all kinds of fancy Einstein symbols – that dictated the profitability of what we grow: The cost is this per linear foot, and the profit is this per linear foot, though it takes this much time to plant and this much time to weed. It costs this much to irrigate – well, you get the idea.
Yes, that is extreme. I used to think about what color everything was, and design the fields so they were giant mandalas. That was a bit extreme, too. That's where we live here at Let It Grow - somewhere between Einstein equations and giant mandalas.

Weed of the Week
I didn’t want to do this, but it seems as though I gave no choice. I offer this week horse weed, sometimes called giant ragweed, our friend Artemesia trifola. I don’t usually consider it to be a weed – it grows along roadside and in the rougher areas at the edges of the farm, but never becomes too much of a problem in the fields. We leave it along the road; the bees love it. It’s a great nectar/pollen crop in late summer. We leave some in the chicken coop. It grows tall and leafy and strong and provides a bit of shade for the chickens.
It can get up to fifteen feet tall if it gets plenty of water, and a six year old and gather a lot of it and make a teepee. Or a six year old of any age, for that matter.
Alas, though, I now consider it to be a weed. We’ve got it all over our field on Meadow Fork, growing in the potatoes and giving the corn a run for its money. It’s a new field over there, and we should get the horse weed under control in a year or two, when we’ll take away it’s weed designation. Whatever we call it, it has it’s place in the equation. Weed of the Week
I didn’t want to do this, but it seems as though I gave no choice. I offer this week horse weed, sometimes called giant ragweed, our friend Artemesia trifola. I don’t usually consider it to be a weed – it grows along roadside and in the rougher areas at the edges of the farm, but never becomes too much of a problem in the fields. We leave it along the road; the bees love it. It’s a great nectar/pollen crop in late summer. We leave some in the chicken coop. It grows tall and leafy and strong and provides a bit of shade for the chickens.
It can get up to fifteen feet tall if it gets plenty of water, and a six year old and gather a lot of it and make a teepee. Or a six year old of any age, for that matter.
Alas, though, I now consider it to be a weed. We’ve got it all over our field on Meadow Fork, growing in the potatoes and giving the corn a run for its money. It’s a new field over there, and we should get the horse weed under control in a year or two, when we’ll take away it’s weed designation. Whatever we call it, it has it’s place in the equation.

In the Box
Corn
Lettuce Mix
Peppers
Cute Baby Squash
Tomato
Chard
Malabar Spinach
Hakurei Turnips

Why is my corn decapitated?
Every year of organic sweet corn is guaranteed to come with a corn ear worm. The eggs are laid at the top of the ear, and when it hatches the larvae starts to eat down the ear. We’ve thoughtfully removed them all for you, with one swift cut.

Newsletter 9-9-09

2009-09-10T06:56:00.001-04:00

If you’ve never bush-hogged a bed of basil, you don’t know what you’re missing.
We mowed down our first basil planting yesterday. The plants had flowered and growth had slowed and the bed was weedy, and our second planting is ready to be picked. We fired up the bush-hog and cut the basil right down to the ground. It’s like riding the tractor through a food processor making pesto.
Our third squash planting is also ready to be picked, just as our second planting is tapering off. Our fall greens are looking stronger and stronger every day, just as our summer crops are beginning to look kind of haggardly.
This business hinges on successful succession planting. We need to keep a variety of vegetables available at all times, both to fill your box with different things every week and to keep our table diverse at our farmer’s market. If we fail, we must give you the same old things every week, like the year we choked everybody with nothing but eggplant and leeks. We go to market with just a few things to offer, and our customers ask where this is and when are we going to have that.
When we time everything right, we’re able to provide you with a diverse selection every week and keep our table full of different colors and shapes. Timing everything right depends on the weather cooperating enough that we can get the equipment into the fields to prepare a new bed. It depends on the equipment not being broken. It depends on an absence of other various catastrophes so that we have time to get the new planting in. In other words, the odds are stacked against us. It’s a lot easier to screw up than to do it right. One bed of green beans peters out and there’s a two week gap before the next bed comes on…. We have way too many sunflowers for a while and then we don’t have any ….
It all starts out in the winter with a nominal plan of what gets planted where and when and in what quantity. We start plowing in March and immediately throw the plan out the window. The carrots were supposed to go here, but it’s too wet so I need to plant them a bit higher up. The lettuce was supposed to go here, but I haven’t had time to get the irrigation set up in that area, so I’ll just stick the lettuce there. The cabbage has got to get out of the greenhouse and into the ground, but the disk is broken and I’m waiting on parts and I’ve got enough room to put the cabbage here.
Into this equation we must throw the concept of crop rotation - we can’t plant the same crop in the same place two years in a row. We try to get crops that mature at the same time in the same irrigation zone – that way we’re never running an irrigation line just to water one row.
Our daily and weekly work schedule must be just as malleable. We start every day and every week with set goals, but our priorities end up changing several times a day. We really need to weed the lettuce but the fields are too wet. We need to plant some arugula, but if we don’t weed the kale now we’ll lose it. We were supposed to trellis the tomatoes today, but a possum got into the chicken coop and we have to drop everything and patch a hole in the fence. It rains for three days straight and so we busy ourselves in the greenhouse and then try to do a week’s worth of field work in two days. I end up driving the interns crazy because they never know what’s coming next, but I never know what’s coming next because the key to keeping the successions coming requires dancing around weather and catastrophes and constantly reprioritizing.
Perhaps you can better understand now why mowing one bed of basil just as another bed is ready for harvest is cause for celebration.

In the Box
Green Beans Lettuce Mix
Cute Baby Squash Arugula
Tomatoes Peppers
Mizuna Dandelion Greens
Tomatillos Cilantro
Hot Peppers

Weed of the Week
We are pleased to welcome nut sedge (Cyperus esculentus) to our humble little farm. We’ve been free of this scourge, but now it’s here and it’s everywhere. I must admit it’s an attractive little plant, tight and concise with little pom pom-like flowers at the top. But it’s evil. It spreads by underground runners, and they run everywhere. It’s about impossible to pull up, and any little bit left behind will regrow. When plowed or disked it gets cut up into innumerable little pieces that get spread across the field and pop up when they’re good and ready. It’s a heavy feeder, robbing nutrients from other plants. And perhaps worst of all, it has what are called allelopathic effects, which means that it exudes compounds that retard the growth of plants around it. Thus we are pleased to join the ranks of farmers world wide who must deal with this little plant, and realize we’ve had it easy up until now. Our friends in the chemical industry have come up with a substance that will kill nut sedge, reportedly after numerous applications. We’ve never used a chemical herbicide and never will, but we’re tempted to use this one if only because it has such a wonderful name: Sedge Hammer.

Let’s talk about your food.I have to start with the dandelion greens and the mizuna. Both can be eaten raw, by themselves or mixed with salad greens. They can be braised or sautéed. Best, though, is to sautéed some onions and garlic in plenty of olive oil, then drizzle the mixture over the cold, raw greens. Better yet, drizzle hot bacon grease over them.
Most salsa recipes are a variation of throw everything in a blender. The tomatillos are better cooked first – roasted, grilled, or even quartered and boiled – until soft. Mix into a blender with tomato, cilantro, hot pepper and sweet pepper and garlic and there you go …. Mix in anything else you like – mango or pineapple are popular these days, just use your imagination.
The little peppers are hot! Mildest are the big orange banana peppers, followed by the somewhat tame Black Hungarians. The little bright red ones are getting dangerous and the round orange Habaneros are lethal.
Green beans are good steamed and covered in butter. They go well with cold pasta or potato salads. We like to pickle a few green beans every year : half vinegar and half water in a jar, a bit of sugar and salt, and any herb you can think of: thyme is good, so is dill. Some folks like a clove/nutmeg theme. How about Habenero pepper! There’s no need for water bath or pressure cooker; it will last for six months, at least, in the fridge.
Speaking of which, if you don’t use all your peppers in a salsa mix, try cutting just a few into slivers and dropping them into the bottom of a bottle of red wine vinegar. It won’t make the vinegar hot, just add a little zest to your salad dressings and cooking.

The Child Is Gone

2009-09-07T22:50:00.003-04:00

This is no business for the weak or the meek. It's a business that will rip your heart out and stomp it flat in a minute, and laugh while it walks away.
We're coming back from what was our best market in years, both financially and in the volume we put on the table. Customers were lined up three or four deep, and its a good thing I brought both my interns cause I needed them and more to handle the throngs. It was exhilarating and confidence building; it provided a deep satisfaction. It lasted from the time we looked at all the boxes we had stacked in the walk-in on Friday afternoon through the time we unloaded them all from the van Saturday morning right through to the end of market, when we neatly stacked all the empty boxes in the van and headed home.
But when you get right down to it, we really didn't have that much. No, we had what should have been an average amount, a fair but not too spectacular showing for early September. It was that we have had such piss poor offerings all year, and for the past few years, really, that made Saturday's offerings seem so abundant - for there was no real abundance in what we had.
It's been a tough few years of broken shoulders and burnt up tractors and inconceivable deer devastation that made this week's harvest glow, and that realization brings no satisfaction. It brings with it the thud you feel when your head snaps back on the floor after you've fallen all the way down and after you feel yourself begin to fall and after someone gives that rug a good hard yank.
I can still, if I want to, fool myself into thinking we really rocked it this week, and perhaps I will, after I settle down, but, at this point, our harvest this week only serves to amplify our short coming of the past few years. Perhaps it's either half full or half empty, or perhaps the whole full/empty dichotomy is a distraction. We want neither riches nor glory, just enough of a harvest that can be monetized into paid bills and repaired equipment and perhaps tucked away toward heating oil. We rarely get either, but we do get, on occasion, a glimpse of the possibilies. A distant ship's smoke on the horizon. A taste of what could be if everything was different.

For Those Of You Who Want To Go Back To The Land

2009-09-05T15:51:00.002-04:00

There's bats in the attic and possums in the basement.
The bathroom floor is rotting and about to collapse.
Daily, I sweep my topsoil off the living room floor and fling the dustpan out the window.
The chickens are out again.
There's flies on the monitor.
The greenhouse needs to be watered.
The truck doesn't start.
Daily, I dust my topsoil off the kitchen counter and shake it into the front yard.
Ragweed's flowered.
Tomatoes need to be canned.
Compost stinks.
Daily, I wash my topsoil from my body and watch it swirl down the drain.
Drain's backed up.

Newsletter 9-2-09

2009-09-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

Fortunately we have been blessed with a disaster free week thus far. Not that we really anticipated otherwise, but when you’re caretaking the culmination of someone else’s life work, the thought that chaos might ensue looms within a dark alley of the mind. The form of chaos we fret is not so much a loss of order but more along the lines of a barefoot being chewed by the tines of the tiller as we attempt to make weed free paths between rows, no longer being able to find any eggs because a chicken uprising resulted in all wild chickens, or the deer no longer nibbling here and there but hosting weekly potlucks on Tuesday nights in the fields.
Yes, we gave up on being oppressed by order long ago, we still feel somewhat organized though. We know where everything is, except maybe one of the shovels. Time for us is not a linear concept, but cyclical by nature.
To the outside observer our approach to organic farming may seem wild or radical to a degree, but its what makes sense to us. We had friends pay us a surprise visit over the weekend. It’s always good to see old friends but even better when you could use some extra hands harvesting cute baby squash. Needless to say, we put them to work, gave them a crash course in organic agriculture and kept their bellies full. One of our friends couldn’t quite grasp the winter squash growing wildly in between raspberry rows. He thought, “wouldn’t they do better planted in the fields.” And before I could offer any rebuttal, another friend chimed in, “…the name isn’t make it grow, man, its’ let it grow…” This statement pretty much sums up the nature of things here on the farm.
Frank’s absence has kept us on our toes. Harvesting begins much earlier because we can’t pick quite as quick just yet. Weeding isn’t so much a tedious task for us anymore, but a thoughtful meditation. It seems we’ve been meditating more over the weeds lately, in efforts of getting things nice and neat before Frank’s arrival home. Hell, we found ourselves weed eating for fun; well maybe it was just me. Nonetheless, we have been making an earnest effort to keep it together here on the farm. The fall greens are weed free (mostly) and breathing clearly. We thought we would weed the beans too but upon picking them, realized they’re doing just fine the way they are. In making our what to weed list for the days we found ourselves ranting off just about everything growing now. We wanted to show Frank what we could when in charge. However, we had to remind ourselves to not get carried away into obsessive organization. Although we want him to be pleased with our work, we also want him to feel at home upon his arrival.
In The Box:
Head Lettuce
Celery
Heirloom Tomatoes
Malabar Spinach
Stuffing Squash
Leeks
Provider Beans
Hakurei Turnips
Bell Peppers

The unusual green in your box this week is known as Malabar spinach. Technically it is not even spinach as it is in a different family, but it can be cooked in much the same fashion. It is native to India and we love it because it is very heat tolerant, where as we had some trouble with the germination of our traditional spinach. Malabar is traditionally cooked with lentils in many Dal recipes in Indian culture. We love it sautéed with mushrooms & garlic or raw with salads.
The stuffing squash can be stuffed in any fashion. We like to cut them in halves or just remove the tops, scoop out the pulp. Sautee some onions, garlic, leeks, and then add the pulp and spices. Once hot we add a beaten egg, breadcrumbs, and grated cheese. Stuff the squash shells with the mix and bake in the oven.
*The celery in your box is a cooking celery. It’s not your typical ranch dipping kind. Much tastier, in fact.
We hope you enjoy this week’s harvest and just a reminder we sure would appreciate any old CSA boxes that you have lying around. You can bring them to your pick up location. Thanks again!
Be Well…
-Joe & Krystal

They Were Playing Freebird When They Stuck The Needle In My Arm

2009-08-01T17:00:00.002-04:00

The Red Cross came 'round again, and they wanted blood. Dutiful citizens that we are, we schlepped down to the Community Center and bared our forearms. It was a bit like going to church, nobody quite sure what they were doing there but everyone happy to see their neighbors and feeling like they were doing something good. We all waited and waited for it to start, and then waited for it to be over. And we exchanged gossip, or, I should say, community news. One of the nurses had brought her laptop and opened up Itunes. The Muzak was a liturgy at its most twisted - white noise to distract you from what you were certain would be painful but were equally certain was something you should be doing. An intangible and unseen benefit would result, one off at a distance and in the future. A car accident? A liver transplant? Tonsils? What I'm doing is gonna help someone in an almost mythical world beyond my ken. I'm here because of a promise of an unseen reward. Several times, sitting in the waiting chair with my overactive imagination, I wanted to run screaming from the building, but knew I would never live it down. The anonymity of urban life does have its benefits - benefits not available to us bumpkins. I got moved into the donor chair, waited some more, got swabbed with some iodine, and waited some more. Skynard came on the Muzak, and my courage bolstered. Come on! my mind pleaded with the nurse. I can take that needle now, but only now! Stick me with two! Three! I'm ready! My courage will last only as long as the guitar solo, so you better get your ass in gear! She came over and unwrapped some plastic things, and then unwrapped some other plastic things. And then she had the needle in her hand. I looked away, and there it was, the slight, inconsequential ping in my arm, and the blood flowed through the tube and it was all over.
You have, like me, I know, wondered why Freebird goes on so long. You may still wonder, but as for me, I know.

Weed of the Week

2009-07-22T21:47:00.001-04:00

This week’s Weed of the Week feature is an ecological diatribe is disguise. We feature stickweed, the famous Verbesina occidentalis, an interesting creature found not so much in the fields but around the edges of the farm. We have quite a bit around the pond, up and down the fence-lines and along ditches, bare, unkept places that get full sun. The stickweed is a tall fellow, sometimes to eight feet, with a small yellow flower up top and distinctive wings along its stem. A brief examination of stickweed or any late summer weed reveals an entire universe: ants crawling up and down the stem, bees, wasps and butterflies feeding from the flowers, assassin bugs mating on the leaves, and deeper and greater mysteries that go unnoticed. Beneficial bacteria may be co-existing with underground exudates, forming complex communities with-in the root system. In short, there’s a hell of a lot more going on here than on a tidily mown front lawn.
We keep the areas around the field as wild as we can, letting the natural world express itself in any way it wants to and providing the appropriate niche for many different creatures. There’s no telling how this benefits the garden – did a beneficial wasp feeding on that flower then parasitize a caterpillar on a tomato vine? Are the wildflowers attracting aphids that would otherwise be on a vegetable? Do the wildflowers provide a home for assassin bugs that then prey on veggie pests? The answer is yes, yes and more, but none of these little creatures work in a planned or predictable way. Rather, we maintain a healthy environment that can sustain all kinds of wildlife, and then let the ecosystem evolve in its own way. We take care of it and it takes care of us.

CSA Newsletter 7-22-09

2009-07-22T21:45:00.001-04:00

It’s the wee small hours, and though it’s late July, I’m huddled in front of the monitor with a hoodie and a cup of tea. I went outside a moment ago, still dark, stood between Venus and Jupiter and looked for signs of morning. There’s just a bit of orange over the mountains to the east of us. I’m just sitting here waiting for it to get warm.
Our summer vegetables seem to be in the same fix. Most of them are of South American origin and have only grudgingly taken root in the northern hemisphere. They’re used to the tropics and are confused by our weather patterns, and spend most of their time, this year especially, wondering where the heat is. The tomato vines are sprawling, and have small green tomatoes hanging from them, but we’re yet to see signs of ripening. The pepper plants are laden with blossoms, and the peppers that have formed are looking happy, they’re just not in a hurry to get any bigger. Ditto the eggplant, though they seem to be ahead of everything else. Squash and beans form healthy looking dark green rows in the fields, remarkably free of weeds, but have about as much energy as I do right now. These cool, wet nights have been great for sleeping, but the plants, much like I, don’t really want to get up in the morning.
The cool-loving plants, on the other hand, have all petered out. Our large leafy green stuff – the kales and collards, the broccolis – have decided that indeed summer is here and they’re going to stop growing and lay there in wait for the bugs. We’ve plowed them all under and will plant something else in their place. Thus, we’re feeling the box a bit skimpy this week, but rest assured, there’s bounty on the horizon that awaits nothing but warmer temperatures.

In Your Box:
Leeks
Potatoes
Eggplant
Cabbage
Carrots
Basil
Mint
Boc Choi
Thyme

We grow eggplant of many kinds and colors. All the eggplant we offer this can be treated like, well, eggplant. Make a parmesan, grill or roast them, fry them in bread crumbs, or whatever you like. We’re pleased to announce the return of our leeks (!) and have thoughtfully added some potatoes for leek potato soup. If that doesn’t catch your fancy, use leeks like you would an onion, or have them by themselves, sautéed or grilled. We selected thyme this week because we figure it will go with a lot of what we offer – spuds, eggplant, cabbage …. Try sautéed carrots with thyme and coriander. We use mint in iced tea, juleps, or with vanilla ice cream.

In sadder news, we bid farewell this week to Saba, farm worker extraordinaire, bus painter, photo-journalist, drummer, ghetto gang leader and all around good egg. Saba arrived six weeks ago and began immediate contributions to the farm with her hard work, good humor and positive attitude. She leaves a legacy of photo archives and a mandala corn circle that brings blessings to the farm every day.

Can I Have Your Attention, Please

2009-07-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

Death comes quickly in the middle of the night, signaled by the pained cry of a chicken caught in a possum’s mouth. No, this is not what I want to be writing about now; I’d rather write about the eggplant waiting to be picked, the brassica fields mowed and about to be plowed, the beans and the lettuce mix that we actually hoed, but death is what stands out on this rainy, moonless evening.
They climb the fence without difficulty, negotiate around logs and weeds and get to the unclosed, forgotten door and grab a chicken from the roosting pole in the middle of the night. They’re heartless and evil, and my mind won’t be changed about that because they have long snouts and spiny, scary teeth. And they represent more than anything else forgetfulness and neglect and even lethargy and those will be tolerated even less that the possums. An unweeded field lies unnoticed, increasing in mess so incrementally as to not be noticed. Ungerminating peas have no danger signal, just rows of nothingness that may sprout up tomorrow or the next day. Overlooked squash triple in size under broad flat leaves and when discovered cause laughter. Uncoppered tomatoes and un-b.t.ed cabbage provide no immediate signs of distress. An unclosed chicken coop door wakes you up in the night with the pitiful howl of a bird hanging on to life and quickly loosing its grasp in a tragic attack that I could have prevented with less than a minute of my time.

CSA Newsltter June 10, 2009

2009-06-11T07:48:00.000-04:00

The big excitement around the farm lately has been the rain, or, the lack thereof. This has been, it seems, the longest dry period we’ve had all season, and we’ve been able to get a lot done. All of our summer crops are now out: tall, gangly, sprawling little plants that have spent entirely too much time in the greenhouse. (The time it takes to water the greenhouse is now thankfully reduced.) We’ve even been able to get a cover crop sown, a small field of buckwheat on the upper part of the farm that has already germinated into a broad green blanket covering the soil. The buckwheat prevents or at least slows wind and rain erosion, and will be plowed back under to enrich the soil. Between now and then it will make little white flowers atop each plants, flowers that wave merrily with each little breeze and make the bees very, very happy.
I got the bright idea, one year, to intersow buckwheat into a squash bed. The idea was to use the buckwheat to smother out weeds and feed the soil between the squash rows. It was all a very good idea, though I neglected to think about what it would be like to pick squash amidst a few thousand stinging insects intent on gathering nectar. We wore long sleeves and didn’t get stung too often.
The bees seem to have an affinity for squash here at Let It Grow, but then, so do we. Squash blossoms always seem to have a bumble bee or two inside (or three or four or five). Part of the fun of picking squash blossoms is gently shaking the little girls out of the flower, only to have them return, get shaken out again, and return. The challenge is to get all the bees out of each blossom and get the blossoms packed up before the bees can return – I couldn’t bear to have one trapped inside and released at our market in Asheville.
I’ll continue with the bug theme. It’s our second favorite subject, next to the weather. We’ve been fortunate this year in our ability to co-exist with the insect world. Aphids have been unkind to a few plants in the greenhouse, but not many. The pale edges you see on some of the kale leaves is a result of harlequin bugs, beautifully colored but very evil little guys that ravish anything in the cabbage family. There’s really nothing we can do about them but go through the rows and pick them off one by one. (It occurs to me that the reading of this newsletter will be the way that Krystal and Joe find out this task lies in their near future. It’ll be all right; fill up a whole jar and I’ll buy you some ice cream.) Squash vine borers can be a problem for us, but we seem to have them under control. And no doubt or potatoes are covered with Colorado potato beetle, but they’re in a field we lease up Meadow Fork, out of sight, out of mind.
Butterflies abound. They’re everywhere. On the trees and on the flowers and in the house and on the trucks and one even landed on the dog’s ear. Lady bugs turn up everywhere. They glow their shiny shiny red but seem such understated little creatures just the same. We find them on just about every crop we have, in theory patrolling for other bugs to feed on, though more often it seems like they’re just walking back and forth having a good time. They’re fun to watch crawl all the waaaaay up a loooong blade of grass, and then turn around and walk back down.
Don’t get me started on the spiders.

All right, I know what you’re thinking: What am I supposed to do with these collard greens?!? Relax, we don’t expect you to boil them for hours with pig’s feet. No, not when you can make collard chips!
That’s right, it’s the latest rage in haute cuisine, and all of you know it’s our mission to keep you appraised of the latest food trends.

Coat the collard leaves in olive oil, place on a cookie sheet, bake at 325 for ten or twelve minutes. Until they’re crispy. Oh my goodness, that’s good!

We also like to use collard leaves in place of tortillas. Steam them lightly - you want them pliable but still a bit sturdy. Fill with your favorite rice/bean/veggie mix and roll.
In your box this week:

Collard Greens
Kale Mix
Beets
Lettuce Mix
Psychedelic Carrots
Broccoli
Oregano

Ever dig up a Queen Anne’s Lace? I didn’t think so. Queen Anne’s Lace is a distant relative of the carrot, with a not very tasteful (though carrot-esque) white root. The first carrots thought to be domesticated had white roots, over the eons evolving into purple, red and orange. Our yellow and purple carrots are open pollinated heirlooms, rare species whose seeds have been saved by smaller farmers and seed savers, despite the mega-industries choosing orange as the official carrot color.
For more information on seed saving and the importance of biodiversity, please visit www.seedsavers.org.
Frank, Krystal and Joe

Yes, That Was "Estimated Prophet" Blaring From the Greenhouse

2009-05-22T21:44:00.002-04:00

There's been a hundred feet of armored cable in the old Volkswagen for about three years now. It's for when I put a light bulb in the packing shed. I'll get to it soon. The bus isn't going anywhere, so the cable is safe where it is.
The bus has many functions, the storage of electrical cable being just one. We've put interns into it in the past, and used it to store chicken feed, and sometimes think we will someday turn it into a chicken coop. But mostly it just reminds us that we're an organic farm.
We got a visit from the government the other day. They're always welcome here. We visit the government often enough, whether it's at the post office or the tax collector's office or the driver's licence office; it was nice to host them, for once. It was a surprise visit, making us feel not unlike Grenada, but the outcome was peaceful. Two people from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture dropped in, gladhanding and talking about CSAs. They were friendly and cheerful and attentive, like government officials in a school film strip. They said they wanted to know how they could help small farms, especially with CSAs. It seems to be the latest manifestation of the Obama Administration - the people who used to be helping the hog mega-farms and now thrashing their way through my weeds. Well, it's about time.
They listened, and that made the whole thing worthwhile. And then I listened, and I hope they noticed. Whether the state bureaucracy can help small farms with CSAs or not I do not know, but it was nice to hear that they want to help. And it was nice to know that they were willing to listen, and didn't come by to tell us what to do. Or what we were doing wrong. This new face of the government is welcome, but we wonder how it effects our outsider status. Is the broken down Volkswagen now cache? Will my barefoot interns inspire next spring's fashion designs? Or, will we ourselves be usurped into the mainstream? Will the bus become an eyesore? Will we buy shoes? Will we attend local Soil Conservation Service meetings, our collars buttoned down and our hair slicked like the kids in the film strips? Will we become the old guard?
We had no time for these weighty ponderables, because we had too many zinnias to plant. It nags at me, though, and I get self-conscious every time I eat some sprouts.

We Forgot Our Straws

2009-03-18T07:16:00.002-04:00

Things are beginning to look promising. There are hints of tiny green rows in the lower field - the radishes are coming up. Green rows are always more encouraging then random green things spread around the fields. Rows means you planted it and meant it to be there.
Tomatoes are up in the greenhouse. In the incubation house, they germinated in a bit more than 48 hours. It's all about the incubation house.
Carol Lynn came by yesterday to get her plants. She was all fired up to get them right into the ground. I sort of tried to talk her into holding off a bit, then second thought it and decided it would be alright to get the brassicas out. Then I decided she should wait.
She won't.
We took Isiah to Grits for dinner. I told Isiah about orchard mason bees, non-social, non-honey making, pollinating hymenopteras that can be attracted to the garden. They lay eggs in sap-sucker holes or worm holes in trees, holes that can be simulated with soda straws. We decided we'd save our straws and bundle them together and hang them in an apple tree and wait for the bees to be born.
Then we talked about Spring, and how you can plot sunrise times on a graph, and how it's snowing in Calgary and how they're setting tomatoes out in Texas. Carol Lynn went back to her farm, and Isiah and I left for ours. We got back only to realize that we for got our straws. Isiah solved the problem immediately. Tonight, we're going to have to go back to Grits for more dessert.

A Veritable Frenzy of Activity, Followed by a Period of House Cleaning

2009-03-16T08:09:00.000-04:00

It was warm and dry last week, a rare, extended warm and dry for March, I readied the ground I will need for Spring planting, and then I readied some more. It's fertilized and disked, and dragged out nice and smooth. And there were warm and dry days after that, so I started to seed. Carrots are in the ground, and beets and lettuce and radishes and bok choi and spinach and probably some other things, too.
The internet was telling me that rain would be likely tomorrow, and then it was tomorrow. I was determined to get as much done as possible before the wetness. I plowed my neighbor's garden for her, then dissked it, then disked it again. I graded our road. I raked up the area in front of the intern house, and then I mowed (!). I mulched the raspberries.
And then the rain came. It came gentle and slow, settling on and around the little seeds and soaking into their little seed coatings. And it rained the day after that and it's forecast to rain for the rest of the week. I've been in the house picking things up and putting them back down. The back room where the washing machine is actually has a floor, and the foyer no longer looks like Vikings camped there. My desk may actually be organised by the time the sun sets tonight, and if the rain continues, I may takle the potting shed.

We Become Increasingly Gentrified, or At Least Placticized

2009-03-09T07:56:00.002-04:00

It dried out quite nicely last week, enough to disk the lower fields and get some fertilizer spread. And there was nothing left to do by yesterday but to put seeds in the ground. This may be a new early mark - March 8th - but all the conditions have come together just right. The internet said this warm spell should last all week, maybe with a few showers. Just what I need for everything to germinate.
I dusted off the stupid fucking plastic thing, though I did not have high hopes. I figured I'd use it just until I got incredibly frustrated, then throw the thing across the field, and then put all the seeds into the ground by hand, like I always do. But the stupid fucking plastic thing actually came through, rolling across the ground and dropping seeds into the ground with premeasured regularity just like it's designed to do. It was a new day for the farm, and for my relationship with the stupid fucking plastic thing.
The stupid fucking plastic thing usually falls apart halfway down a row, or just doesn't drop any seeds at all, or drops them all in the same place, or falls apart again, or whatever. Yesterday, it came through. It entered that rarefied arena of plastic things that actually work.
I'm all excited about it. If this works, there are other things out there that will work. I'm combing through all the fancy catalogs, now, and I'm going to buy everything cheap plastic thing they have to offer. Someday, I vow, we're going to become a real organic farm

Fun With Wildlife

2009-03-06T07:29:00.002-05:00

I had wondered why the birds have been so voracious lately, and then I happened to glance out the window late one night to see a deer, tapping at the bird feeder with its nose and knocking the seeds down onto the ground. It's the latest in a long string of events that prompt me to say: Now it's gone too far.
The surround the farm at ten feet fence is finished, but for the gates and a small stretch between the greenhouses. Oh, and a small gap in the upper field, where I brought the fence over a small dip but didn't hug the ground as close as I should have. I ran the bottom wire twelve inches above the ground, and they crawl under. I have a feeling the learning curve is just beginning.
Next, I'll start to deal with the crows.

We Continue to Investigate Crop Circles

2009-03-03T07:23:00.001-05:00

Eleven

2009-03-02T11:04:00.002-05:00

I turned over the first garden patch a few days ago. About a third of the lower field, getting ready for peas and potatoes and onions and radishes.
The soil turned easily and neatly, following the moldboard up and over and back down again, where it layed down smooth and flat. That means I hit it, for once. Not too wet, and not too dry.
The margin is slim in February - you get maybe three days when you can plow. That's ten per cent. Seems like an adequate margin, until you look at everything else that needs to get done. It would be, of course, ludicrous to think that I can hit better than ten per cent on a regular basis. I did it this year, though, and the field dissolved into its little aggregates and rolled along the moldboard and fell back down into a field again. Just in time for a few nights in the teens. It's just what you ask for.
I walk the fields before and after I plow. I pick up a rock, a dried tomato stalk or a shred of reemay. I'll pick up and earthworm, afterward, or lunge for a ground beetle. I'll cup the soil in my hand and press it into a ball. Then I'll rub it between two hands and let it fall through my fingers. It's just this little moment of communion that we have, and I like it.

Teeny Tiny Green Things

2009-02-25T06:38:00.002-05:00

The transformation has begun.
The flat brown surface in the greenhouse, the one caused by the trays and trays filled with potting soil, is slowly turning green.
It starts with a tiny little spot right in the center of each plastic square. The dot gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger. You walk into the greenhouse one day and all pf the sudden the flat brown surface is multi-textured, green and alive.

Fences

2009-02-20T07:24:00.002-05:00

I've become a deer fence consultant. I advise budding young farmers, Buddhists monks and growers of fine wine.
What I've neglected to tell all these people is that my deer fence is built of industrial salvage - old pipes, cable and wires, greenhouse pieces. Junk I've picked up out of the great American scrap pile.

In other junk news, the incubation chamber is doing fantastically. It's an old bakery rack, like a foot and a half by two feet, and about five feet tall. It's got sidewalls made of horizontal bars, so you can put your trays of muffins at whatever height you want. I wrapped the whole thing in an old remnant of greenhouse plastic and put a hot plate on the bottom (yes, they still make hot plates.) So I've got a pot of water simmering at the bottom of the rack all the time, and it stays about 70 degrees and moist inside the plastic wrapping. I put plug trays on the shelves and the seeds germinate in less time and in a greater percentage than they did in the old put it on a table in the greenhouse method. I can fit thousands of seeds inside the chamber at any time.
Some seeds are placed on a moist paper towel and put inside a plastic baggie and then set on a shelf. Then you just look through the plastic every day and look for something sprouting.

And Don't Forget To Put Roses On My Grave

2009-02-18T07:50:00.002-05:00

Winter is lingering like a lion, and yet it is going out like a lamb, and yet it is lingering like a lion.
Jack and I cut down a walnut tree about a week ago. Relax - it was a wild walnut off on the edge of the fields. Jack's gonna turn bowls. The sap had already started to rise, and the next day there was a puddle around the stump.
In more exciting news, the multi-flora roses is leafing out. And out and out.
And there's times when you disturb some grass, like you're doing some work and you crush the blades and the like, when, if the wind's just right, you get the faintest whiff of chlorophyll.
But the night before last it got down to 18 degrees, a bit colder than the greenhouses can handle and I lost a few trays of marigolds.
The maples are starting to look like they're about to do something, and the chickens are started to lay again, but winter lingers in the form of a few trays of dead flowers.

It's the Big Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-02-11T22:16:00.002-05:00

That's a picture of the Beagle.
It's Darwin's birthday.
I'm trying really hard to evolve.

That First Comma Is An Important One

2009-02-11T08:37:00.002-05:00

It would have been two hundred years ago at about ... now ... that Darwin's mother would have felt the first pangs of labor.
Let us also reflect on Darwin's father, who gave these words of encouragement to his adolescent son:

You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching and you will be a disgrace to you and your family.

It's Getting Worse

2009-02-10T20:17:00.005-05:00

Okay, he hates bankers, his daughters are cute, and he's gonna save the world, but that's no reason to appoint Vilsack as Secretary of Ag.
Or did Mr Obama not anticipate remarks like these, delivered to the National Association of Wheat Growers and quoted on the somewhat hopefully named Farm Futures:
Vilsack called on farmers to accept the political reality that

U.S.

farm program direct payments are under fire both at home and abroad and therefore farmers should develop other sources of income. In his remarks to the groups he said he intends to promote a far more diversified income base for the farm sector, saying that windmills and biofuels should definitely be part of the income mix and that organic agriculture will also play an increasing role.
I hope all of you are happy. We're in for four long years of fresh fruits and vegetables. And, if Vilsack has his way, organic fruits and vegetables.
Me, I'm stocking up Chef Boyardee and Coca Cola.

In other news, people the world over are rejoicing at the bicentenary of Darwin's birth. This is a good time to recognize the great man's many experiments with worms, conducted he said, to learn "how much mental power they displayed."

Economics, Evolution's Much Maligned Sister Science

2009-02-09T02:54:00.002-05:00

In honor of Darwin's bicentenary, I am quoting a famous Catholic:

Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
Bobby Kennedy

Duh

2009-02-08T09:09:00.001-05:00

In honor of Darwin's bicentenary, I offer the words of the big guy himself:

We will suppose the letters A to L to represent allied genera existing during the Silurian epoch, and descended from some still earlier form. In three of these genera (A, F, and I), a species has transmitted modified descendants to the present day, represented by the fifteen genera (a14 to z14) on the uppermost horizontal line. Now all these modified descendants from a single species, are related in blood or descent in the same degree; they may metaphorically be called cousins to the same millionth degree; yet they differ widely and in different degrees from each other. The forms descended from A, now broken up into two or three families, constitute a distinct order from those descended from I, also broken up into two families. Nor can the existing species, descended from A, be ranked in the same genus with the parent A; or those from I, with the parent I. But the existing genus f14 may be supposed to have been but slightly modified; and it will then rank with the parent-genus F; just as some few still living organisms belong to Silurian genera. So that the comparative value of the differences between these organic beings, which are all related to each other in the same degree in blood, has come to be widely different. Nevertheless their genealogical arrangement remains strictly true, not only at the present time, but at each successive period of descent. All modified descendants from A will have inherited something in common from their common parent, as will all the descendants from I; so will it be with each subordinate branch of descendants, at each successive stage. If, however, we suppose any descendant of A, or of I, to have become so much modified as to have lost all traces of its parentage, in this case, its place in the natural system will be lost, as seems to have occurred with some few existing organisms. All the descendants of the genus F, along its whole line of descent, are supposed to have been but little modified, and they form a single genus. But this genus, though much isolated, will still occupy its proper intermediate position.

Dark Days for Agriculture

2009-02-07T08:33:00.004-05:00

"This [USDA] is a department that intersects the lives of Americans two to three times a day. Every single American. So I absolutely see the constituency of this department as broader than those who produce our food -- it extends to those who consume it."
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
The Washington Post
February 5, 2009

I predicted in these pages long ago that the Obama Administration would signal the end of civilization as we knew it, but even I did not know it would come so fast.
This is a tough business even in the best of times. There have been many occasions, be sure, when I and my brethren, when looking up at a cloudless sky, when ducking swarms of incoming locusts, when wading through rows of fungus infected tomatoes or turning our collar up against the chill of a late frost, have taken solace in the fact that at least the government is on our side.
Now, we don't even have that. Now, it seems, we are expected to grow food that is safe, hygienic and palatable. Next, they're gonna tell us we can't sell food with salmonella on it!
And if all of this were not enough, get this, another disturbing quote from that same imposter of a secretary of ag:
"We want to make a better connection between what kids eat and knowing where it comes from. I've seen it in my own family. If you educate kids at an early age, you can have a tremendous impact."
Mr Obama seems to believe he was elected with a mandate to improve health and nutrition. It would appear he wants to educate the youth. Well, by my count, this will only last another 1,142 days.

I Moved the Table To Where I Could See the Song Sparrows

2009-02-05T18:28:00.004-05:00

An arctic blast descended with savage fury on us poor mountain folk and dumped almost two inches (!) of snow. Night time temperatures plunged to nine degrees, and yes, that's Fahrenheit. It was the perfect time to start some seeds!
I've been inside since the mercury plummeted, warm and snug in a house full of plastic potting materials, potting soil, seeds packets, and more plastic potting materials.
As I sorted through my vast collection of plastic potting materials, I reflected on this early February ritual: seed starting. More than ten years now, that's what I do in early February.
What felt different this year was the pleasure I took in the routine: these are my plastic potting materials, these are my seeds, this is my list, this is my little radio next to my table playing the latest country and western hits.
I seem to have entered a point where the seed starting procedure is a routine, an act that follows a yearly check-list, and is no longer a new and exciting adventure on which I am about to embark. When I made this transition I do not know, and I am even more clueless as to how I feel about it. It is not, I assure you, a feeling accompanied by a sense of expertise. Nor is it accompanied by a sense of tedium.
I do feel a longing for the of awe and giddiness that accompanied every act during my first few years. I miss the discovery and the wonder that every day held.
The newness has not been replaced by a sense of maturity. I am no veteran capable of advising the youth, nor do I feel in any way any more proficient at this now than I was years ago.
In fact, I still feel that every day is a learning experience, and that if I keep at this some more, some day I'll get good at it. It's just that I know how to start all the seeds now.
I've done it before, and I welcome it as it rolls 'round again.
Wait til Groundhog Day. Wait til it's closer to equinox than to solstice. Start the seeds you have. Start the ones you don't have when they arrive. Don't start them by following a schedule. Start them when you have time to start them. They're all going to come up. They're all going to get bigger. Bless every seed. Listen to music. Drink tea. Put the table near the window. It's fun to watch the sparrows.

Dana A, Dana B, Dana C,

2009-02-05T18:20:00.005-05:00

I haven't been able to update my blogroll lately. Anyway, here's a shout out to Dana, her blog, and her all-American way of life.

Could Be Worse, I Could Live in Moose Jaw

2009-02-03T07:55:00.002-05:00

I confess to utter confusion about the weather, but I'm preparing for the worst.
I drove down to Haywood County yesterday, and snow was piling up on Betsy's Gap as I came back. Thick on the branches of the trees, sticking to the road. I came down into the valley again and the ground was clear. It was a bit disapppointing.
I wake up this morning to find that schools are closed all over, but there's nothing on the ground here at the farm. I suppose it's coming.
The cold is coming, too. Single digits tomorrow night, according to the radio. I'll be fine, but it'll be rough on the chickens. Bees might shiver a bit, too. Maybe I'll give them a blanket.
The tarragon is my main concern, greenhouse-wise. There are five trays in the greenhouse, and I usually bring them inside during the single digit nights. And I'll light the heaters in the greenhouse, just to keep them in the, oh, low twenties.

Seeds Arrived, But They Forgot My Mug

2009-01-31T11:24:00.001-05:00

The shiny little Fed Ex truck came rumbling up the driveway yesterday, and the man inside stepped down and handed me a large heavy box.
E & R Seeds of Monroe, Indiana has been one of my favorite companies for several years now. They’ve a wide selection and the best prices around for most varieties. They’re catalog is a low-key newsprint affair infused with Mid-Western wholesomeness. They’ve pages and pages of corn, and even more on beans. And lately, they have features more and more organic seeds. I get so much from them that my order drags over onto a second page. Two pages that I faxed to their office – they don’t take online orders.
I poured the contents of the box out onto the floor and sorted my little seed envelopes into their appropriate family. And came across the paring knife.
You get something free with every order – a paring knife, a coffee mug, a Farmer’s Almanac, jelly jars, just something they send out to you. You just have to check the box for the gift you want. I always go for the coffee mug. That’s the box I check. For the coffee mug.
It seems the fax pages got mixed up somewhere along the line, and page one became page three, or something. They never saw my check.
I went through the little envelopes again, madly tossed the little styrofoam peanuts across the room. I turned the box upside down. I stared at the paring knife in disbelief.
They tried to guess at what I would really want and they failed. I will farm this year without my complimentary mug. I hope this isn’t an omen.

Cuckoo

2009-01-28T18:48:00.004-05:00

In observance of Darwin's bicentenary, I am posting an image of a small tree finch.

In Other Good News, We Live in a Democracy Again

2009-01-24T20:49:00.000-05:00

and these folks are doing good work.

Put That Rag On the Floor, Dear, It'll Help Keep the Draft Out

2009-01-22T17:46:00.002-05:00

Another in our History of Appalachia series

The shop was the first farm building that I was going to do right. I had it all planned out. Made some blueprints and everything. I'd spent about a year gathering materials. A logger across the ridge who I used to do occasional work for had saved me some locust logs. Big ones. More than a foot in diameter. Sam and I had milled the beams. We planned on using 6x6s. A lot of 'em. (At one point during the process, Sam said, "Are we overbuilding it?"
Perhaps.
But I had all this stuff that just kind fell towards me, and I planned on using it. Even bought brand new roofing tin. And all the while, feeling so proud that at last I wasn't just slapping something together. I was building something sturdy, something that would last, and I'd see it through from start to, ah, finish.
Well, that was seven years ago, and it still isn't quite complete. But that's alright. What's there is finished.
One of the shop's more striking feature is the tool board, where, on neatly spaced nails, I hang my shovels, hoes, rakes and other implements of destruction. And it comes about every year that it is time to treat the handles of these tools, to oil them, waterproof them, keep them shiny and nice.
My gunk of choice is boiled linseed oil. A small dose rubbed vigorously into a handle will keep the wood from splitting, cracking or rotting. Once a year is good. Some do more, some less.
I usually apply the oil with an old rag, one that can be sacrificed for the cause because the stuff will not wash out, and because it solidifies and hardens when it dries out.
Take an old rag, pour a dollop of linseed oil onto it, rub down a rake handle, then set the rag down and look at it the next day. It's stiff as a burned tortilla. Oh, it's a bit pliable, but not much. It's reminiscent of, well, a rag soaked in linseed oil is reminiscent of linoleum. And the early settlers, after caring for the handles of their tools, would lay the rags down on the floors of their cabins and it would keep the cold air and snakes at bay. After a few years, the entirety of the cabin would be covered.
Fancy easterners travelling through the area, usually to establish a missionary school or something, saw these floors and had to have them for themselves. Thus, what was common sense to any Appalachian dirt farmer became the latest fashion in the big cities.
Don't be fooled if some cursory fact-checking appears to disprove this theory. I know its true.

2009-01-19T21:48:00.003-05:00

It's coming down hard out there, but I'm well stocked with provisions. Plenty of flour in the pantry, and plenty of green beans in the freezer. I've cans of tomatoes on the shelves, and braids of garlic hanging from the rafters. Let it snow. Let it pile up to my waist and let the drifts cover the vehicles and the outhouses. I'll survive.

My mind is in a far-away place, though my corporeal form is sitting at this desk, in two sweaters, watching the snow come down. Half-way around the world the sun shines on dry, coastal mountains, and there grow a myriad nasturtium species. Blossoms of every color, leaves of every shape. Growing gently on the hill-sides, waiting for butterflies. They fear not the frost, for the frost never comes.

I'll be growing a few more nasturtium varieties this year, including, if I can find seed, the elusive T. polyphylla. The collection grows and grows every year. Diversity is the cornerstone of organic farming.

I'm trying a few new tomatoes varieties, based on recommendations from friend, will be growing more turnips (believe it or not) because of customer requests, am giving up on an eggplant that sucks, and will by trying a new variety of cantaloupe, because the picture in the catalog was really cute. Thus we forge ahead.

I’m trellising the peas the way I always have, ditto the tomatoes. I’ll stake the peppers a bit differently, and plant the winter squash earlier. Live and learn.

It's the nasturtiums that I'm most happy about. I'm happy because I've got new colors. I've got a subtle refinement on what I've done in the past, one that makes me warmer.

2009-01-17T22:40:00.000-05:00

Pfizer Lays Off Scientists

It’s getting bad out there. My options lessen with every news cycle. The bail-out plan, the oh shit plan, to turn when the farm finally went under was to join the rat race. Banking seemed choice. I would join the legions of out-of-work farmers eking out a living on Wall Street. The option, it is now clear, has been cruelly removed from my plate. The back-up was to retreat to a laboratory. I would invent things. Or, better yet, research things. This still seems to be a possibility, but it’s not looking good. Scientists are showing up in bread lines in astonishing numbers. They’ve probably put it into an equation.
More and more, it is becoming clear that this farm has to make it. That means I have to make at least as much as I spend. And sometimes I have to make more than I spend. And no where, from Virgil’s Georgics to The Grapes of Wrath to the oeuvre of Micheal Pollen do I find an example. No matter. It’s not the first time I’ve been thrust into the lead. I’m no stranger to blazing the trail.
It’s only January and I’m in the hole three figures. Seed, potting soil, fertilizer. Odds and ends. It’s the odds and ends that get you. A new shovel. A case of oil. A new tire. It adds up.
CSA money should start trickling in soon, and that will defray some of it. Markets start in April….
I calculate the season’s expenses with the case of lettuce method and it does not look good. I need to grow five cases of lettuce to pay for this, twelve cases to pay for this, eight cases for that. I run out of field space before I pay for the necessities. I run out of time to take care of all the stuff I need to grow just to pay for the stuff I need.
A new business model is evolving. The form is still nebulous and undefined, but it is starting to take shape and its encouraging. Out of the ashes of the economic meltdown rises the bird of a new agriculture. It’s going to happen here. Need a case of lettuce?

The Latest in Yard art

2009-01-13T00:09:00.003-05:00

The larva of the fly is a power in this world. To give back to life, with all speed, the remains of that which has lived, it macerates and condenses corpses, distilling them into an essence wherewith the earth, the plant's foster-mother, may be nourished and enriched...
The Life of the Fly
J Henri LaFabre
Professor of Philospohy

I draw the line at hanging carrion from the branches of trees.

Nonetheless, I enjoy fresh foods and can only assume that my chickens do, also.
I’ve been stymied, though, in my recent attempts to provide the hens with a better diet. When they’re cooped up, they tear up the grass and consume all the bugs in their pen pretty quickly, and when they’re loose, well, they eat better but they get into mischief. They thus stay cooped up. Fine accommodations, I must say, but they ground inside the coop does not have the species diversity it once did.

Traditional cultures, once again, have the answer.
You hang some carrion from the branch of a tree, it seems. Flies lay their eggs in the decrepit meat, and maggots start swarming around in no time. In due course, the maggots start falling onto the ground and the hens take care of it from there.
Yes, disgustingly brilliant.
Alternatively, one can spread kitchen scraps across the back yard. Leave them there a few days, let the flies impregnate all of it. Then gather it all up and let it sit in a barrel for a few days. Let all the maggots hatch and really start crawling around. Then throw the whole mess into the chicken coop.
One trusts all of this is more appealing than the extruded industrial by-products that come in the 50 pounds sacks at the farm store. It’s more appealing to me, at least, to produce the chicken food locally than to purchase 50 pound sacks from the farm store. The smells gonna be different, but I think I can get used to it.

2009-01-10T19:43:00.002-05:00

Here we go again.
The deer are eating the rye in the back field, the rain is sitting upon the chickweed in the front.
The greenhouses are still standing. They're busy overwintering potted herbs. One still clings to the remains of some hot peppers that wee supposed to be planted out last May.
My driveway is lined with the bones of yet another greenhouse. It awaits resurrection.
The shop is packed full of equipment. Some of it works.
The chickens are bathing in the mud. The bees alternate between hibernation and short-tempered nectar gathering forays.
Seed is ordered.
This is a time for assessment. It is a time to reflect on all that lies before, all that has been built in my years here, all that I have that I use to feed people. the view is pretty good here, at mud level. The soil is rich and ready to be warmed. The tools are ready to be worked. I await Spring.

The Road Is Smooth, The Pipes Are Empty

2008-11-11T22:49:00.000-05:00

And I am on my way to Texas. I have been proudly checking items off my To-Do list for days now, putting the farm asleep for a while so I can seek my fortune near the Brazos. I vacillated between that There’s-So-Much-To-Do freakout and that self-satisfied Hey-This-Is-Starting-To-Look-Pretty-Good conceit. I exist now somewhere between the two, which is the only reason I’m able to post.
The Greenhouse On The Other Side Of the Creek saga continues. I brought over some fans and some shelving units today, significant because that clears out the middle of the field and the area around Sam’s barn. It makes the whole area look a bit more manageable, instead of the jumbled mess it’s been the last few years. Only a hundred more trips.
I’ve graded my neighbor’s road for them, and it will hopefully stay in fairly decent shape until I return. I went up that road in a friend’s Jeep the other day and it jarred my bones but good. My twenty year old Toyota gives a smoother ride. Jeeps are good if you’re a prospector, I guess.
Heat lamps are on in the well house. I’ve layed in a good supply of chicken food. All the equipment is in the shed. With the batteries disconnected. Pipes are drained in the house.
This farm is ready for sub-zero temperatures.
I had set Nov. 1 as the get ready to go date. I was going to tie up all my loose ends starting the first of the month, get them out of the way, and then coast the last few days before I departed.
Hah!
One day turned into the next, which turned into the next, and there I was rushing around at the last moment. And I shouldn’t have expected any different, but I did. This year, I’ll be organized, I said.
And maybe I am. Tardy, but organized.
There’s a difference.

People Usually Update Their Blogs By Telling You What They Had For Lunch

2008-11-07T20:35:00.001-05:00

It was the nature of his profession that his experience with death
should be greater than for most and he said that while it was true
that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow
extinction of those loved ones from the heart's memory which is the
sole place of their abode then or now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize
them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their
names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of
every gift.

Cormac McCarthy
The Crossing

Ginger has convinced me that this tale is worthy of a post. Her title is: They Don’t Call It Troublesome Gap For Nothin’
It all started Tuesday, after I voted at the Spring Creek Senior Citizen’s Center. I was upstream of the farm, and had errands to do in Marshall, necessitating a drive down to Hot Springs and then over Walnut Mountain to Marshall. And I said to myself: It’s a beautiful fall day, and I’ll take the shortcut over Spring Creek Mountain. This is a road that starts out paved at the fork of Spring Creek and Baltimore Branch, goes straight up the mountain, turns to dirt, goes straighter up the mountain, to the summit at Troublesome Gap, and is still a dirt road to the North Fork of Pine Creek, where it’s paved down to the French Broad. It’s been so dry lately, that I thought the road would be fine. It’s after a few days of heavy rain that you want to avoid that road.
I was pretty close to the top when trouble started. The wheels of my little van were spinning and spinning, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I braked and stopped, and then started sliding backwards. Then I slid backwards some more. And came to a stop. I tried to ease it forward just a bit, but got nowhere. The wheels spun and spun but forward I did not go. I braked again and slid just a bit further down the hill. I gave up on making summit and decided I just had to try to ease it downhill, slowly, slowly, till I could turn around and abandon my mission. I put it in reverse and eased back, but was sliding faster than I really meant to go. And noticed that steering was no longer an applicable concept; the van pretty much just went where it wanted to go. That’s when I started to realize the extent of my problem. I couldn’t go up. I could go down, but not exactly down in quite the way I wanted to. Just down in whatever way the van felt like going. And the edge of the mountain was getting closer and closer.
I should mention that on one side of me, me left, was the dirt face where they had carved the road into the mountain. On my other side was the edge of the mountain, straight down further than I cared to think about. There was a little, bitty drainage ditch between the road and the dirt face of the mountain, full of leaves and snuff cans, but there nonetheless. I started to think that if I could get the wheels into that ditch, then the ditch would guide me downhill some. At least it would prevent me from sliding off the mountain.
Bit by bit, I guided the little van into the ditch, straight back into a rock, the only rock, I noticed, for as far as I could see, up and down, in the dirt face. I was stuck, but at least I wasn’t sliding. I was about to walk down the hill and ask for help, when I said to myself one of those things that selfs say to itself sometimes, and almost always presages trouble: Lemme try one more thing. I wedged myself between the van and the mountain, back against the van and feet against the dirt, and pushed.
And the van actually moved. An inch away from the rock, and six inches down the hill. And back into the rock. So I pushed again. And again, an inch away from the rock and six inches down the hill. And stuck again. And so, of course, I tried one more time. The back of the van slid away from the rock, the front of the van slid toward me, and all of us slid down the hill six inches. And I was pinned. I pivoted around sideways, put a shoulder into the van, and pushed just a bit, just enough to allow me to shimmy up the van and over the top.
I reconsidered this and that, then started the van up and put it in reverse. I drove, or, more like it, slid backwards, bit by bit, by bit. The brakes were useless, but I could control my speed by wiggling the front wheel in the ditch: straight went faster, turned slowed everything down. And down I went, until I ran out of ditch. I was back on the road, all four wheels, and sliding back slowly. I came to a stop after a while, and decided there was only one way out: Up. Reverse just made me slide, possibly somewhere I didn’t want to be.
I put it in drive and gunned it, one last all out attempt to get to the top. I avoided the middle of the road this time, where the gravel was loosest, and hugged the inside shoulder. I slipped and slided and spun a bit, but I kept going and made it. To the top. Troublesome Gap.
I looked around, and coasted down the other side.I’ve forgotten just what my errands were, and, somehow, they don’t seem quite so important now.

Countdown

2008-11-05T18:36:00.002-05:00

The race is on, the annual race to get this farm laid down for the winter before I take off for gainful employment. I've got a few more patches of land to turn over and cover crop, and a few more trailer loads of greenhouse paraphernalia to haul over from a neighbor's field. I've got a little plastic bag of goodies for the van: filters, plugs, etc. I've got to seal off the greenhouses and drain the pipes in the house. That's all that's on my list. I think.
It's, of course, the same list as last year. And the same list as the year before that ....
When I return, a bit after New Year, I'll fire up the greenhouses almost immediately. Build another greenhouse. Get another field ready - a field only about five miles from the house. And make the whole farm deer proof. There's probably a few things I'm forgetting, but those are the big things.
I'll do the CSA again next year, and my usual markets. The CSA is the big thing. I've been disappointed with the CSA the past two years - I just haven't been satisfied with the quality of the shares I've provided. I can do better. I also want to be a stronger presence at my markets. I've been, the past two years, the poor cousin down the way with not much on his table.
The way to get there is to have the infrastructure in place early to allow us to do the work that needs to be done. I need things set up so that when it's time to farm, I get to farm. I spend too much time fixing broken stuff.
All this is possible, barring unforeseen catastrophe. It's the unforeseen catastrophe that gets me every time.

What the Dormouse Said

2008-11-04T18:19:00.003-05:00

Axl Rose and I agree on many things, and this has long been a comfort to me during my more trying times. I have recently discovered, however, much to my dismay, that Mr. Rose sits on the other side of the aisle from me on the issue of electro-magnetic waves.
This message comes to you, like all my posts, via my dail-up internet service. That is all that is available in this particular corner of the boonies. The FCC votes today on legislation that may/may not open certain part of the air waves to internet service. I, personally, find myself a firm for regarding any issue that may improve my internet speed. Mr. Rose seems concerned that his wireless mike may inadvertantly broadcast one of my posts instead of a live rendition of Sweet Child of Mine.
After all the posts I have written while listening to Sweet Child of Mine! How many times have I been tried during this dark night of the soul, only to find myself bouyed by the melody of Welcome to the Jungle!
You will not be surprised to learn that I was humming some of Mr. Rose's more upbeat tunes just the other day, as I opened an email from our local ISP. The email contained the email addresses of each and every one of my legislators, and contained a form email I could forward urging them to "do the right thing." I had to click on a link to one of my elected officials, click on a send button, and then repeat the process, from my US senators right down to the county dog catcher. Twenty minutes later I had sent messages to both my senators. The sun was quite a bit higher when I'd contacted my congressional representative. It was getting late in the day and I'd worked through a few of my state officials. That's when I gave up.
Such is life for rural America. You don't have the internet capability to demand better internet capability. Sounds like a good theme for a Guns'n'Roses song. Only, I won't be able to download it.

Season Ending CSA Letter

2008-11-02T22:59:00.001-05:00

We’ve woke up to frost on the ground for more than a week now. The mountain behind Mr Hunter’s farm, across the creek, is ablaze in color. It’s especially magnificent late in the evening, when the sun’s set on our place but is still shining on the mountain. Rye has a tenuous hold in the upper field. I’m pulling up tomato stakes and bundling miles of twine. Orion’s up overhead when I first get up and stagger out into the darkness. What all this means is that it’s autumn. Furthermore, it means that our season’s ended, and our CSA deliveries have stopped.
I want to thank all of you for being a part of what we do this year. We did our best week after week to provide a diverse and nourishing box, sometimes surprising ourselves with what we were able to pick and sometimes sheepishly dropping off boxes that seemed, to us, paltry or repetitive. The box loading every Wednesday morning is joyous and nerve wracking. We wonder if we’ve provided you with the fixin’s for many fine meals, or if you take one look inside and then run down to Ingle’s.
We had a great tomato season this year. They were not only abundant but tasty. We kept our lettuce mix going all summer, no easy feat, and brought the broccoli in early. Our Mokum and Chantenney carrots made us happy, as they always do. As one of my market customers says, “You have the best carrots. They’re ugly, but they’re good.” We kept the deer out of the green beans, so were able to give you some in mid-summer. We managed to keep them out of the squash more often than not. They got the cucumbers, the okra and most of the winter squash, including Isiah’s pumpkins. We lost all of our onions due to an over-zealous neighbor mulching them while I was away last winter. It’s the same neighbor who helps us grow our garlic, so perhaps we came out even. Anyway, we try to provide some kind of allium every week – kinda hard when all the onions died. Sorry about all the leeks.
We had planned to grow potatoes and sweet corn on a leased field in the next valley over, a plan we had to abandon after the tractor inferno. We can’t grow good potatoes here due to a fungus, aptly, named Carolina potato wilt.
Speaking of the tractor inferno, it seemed to be the characterizing catastrophe for the year. It was ugly, as anyone driving past at the time can attest to, and, due to some quick thinking and heroics on my part, there was no loss of life. I still remember my initial reaction: “Thank God, at least we saved the livestock!”
Nonetheless, it put a tremendous burden on all of us this year. All ground was prepared late, things were planted late and some things weren’t planted at all. Several succession plantings were made on ground that was prepared by hand, or with a rototiller. It sometimes took us a day and a half to prepare beds that would otherwise have taken 45 minutes. A number of smart-aleck friends have said that it was good practice for when the oil eventually runs out, but, on the whole, I’d have rather had the tractor. We’ve been through a lot, that tractor and me, and neither of us will quit. It’s running now, in it’s own sputtering little way, and I’m going to give it a complete rebuild this winter. (Truth is, for years I’ve been saying, “Just get me through this year, and I’ll rebuild you. But I need to get through this year!”
Other fun news this year was our ongoing troubling relationship with the deer. They hit us harder and harder every year. My first few years here, I rarely saw one. And then they began to nibble. Then devour. It’s getting a bit out of hand. As of today, we lack a few gates and a few short runs of fencing between the greenhouses, but, other than that, there’s a fence, ten feet high and a bit more than two thousand feet long, surrounding the farm. And, it seems to be working. It had better. If the deer pressure continues as it has the past few years, we will be unable to continue growing food. We can’t continue to let them have the bulk of it, give you the rest, and have none left over. Not to worry. The fence is holding.
Our CSA venture proves to be the most rewarding aspect of farming. I started it after eight years of growing for and selling at farmer’s markets, exclusively. I dared not start a CSA until I was confident the farm had grown to the degree that we would be able to provide adequate shares. I sometimes think I jumped the gun. Many of you have told me I did not. The thanks we receive from you, week after week, is somehow more meaningful than the thanks we receive from market customers. Perhaps because you’re in it for the long haul with us. Perhaps because you have the right to complain but don’t.
Many of you joined because it’s the easiest way for you to get fresh veggies. Others joined because you don’t want to support the corporate food chain. Others joined because you believe in keeping farms part of your community and part of your landscape. Every year it is driven home to me, harder and harder, how valid all of these reasons are, and how important all of these issues are to our small community and to the world at large. We’re going to keep doing what we do, and we’re happy that you’re along with us. We never expected it to be easy. We just sometimes wish it was a little less hard. This farm is here because we sell vegetables, and for no other reason. We have no other sources of income. That’s rare, both in Asheville and across the country. All to often, sustainable agriculture is sustained by capitol from somewhere else. We‘re not doing it that way. We’re doing it with old equipment and second hand tools. The scrap yard is my favorite parts store. And we’re having a blast doing it and we’re going to keep on turning over ground and coaxing vegetables to grow and somehow or another filling boxes every week. Your CSA membership is a vote for self-control of your food system. It’s a vote for small-scale, family oriented businesses of every kind.
The bottom line, however, for you, is whether you got your money’s worth or not. We sincerely hope you were happy with your involvement with us this year, and will be with us next year. That’s for you to decide.
We’re in a two year drought, but there’s still water every time I fill my glass at the kitchen sink. Gas is expensive, but I can still buy it whenever I need to, pour a bit in the pump, and spray some water on my fields. I complain about the age and the condition of our equipment, but I can keep it running, and can always scrape together enough cash for the necessary tools. The corporations take a greater and greater role in our food supply every year, but we have just as many CSA members as want and our markets are full of people every week-end. It’s bitter, icy cold every morning, but the sun still comes up. We’re blessed to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Not a day goes by that I don’t say that to myself, and not a day goes by that I don’t think about farmers the world over with no water at all, or with no choice of what to plant, or with no hope of keeping their farms. All in all, we’re pretty lucky.
The winter sees me completing the deer fence, rebuilding the tractor, and building another greenhouse. I’ll also help a friend sell some Christmas trees, and also help another friend with a habitat restoration project. That first sentence lists what should help make some money for next year. The second sentence should make enough to see me through the winter.
My friend Carolyn worked on an organic farm in Texas this year. This is her favorite joke: A farmer from Texas meets a farmer from North Carolina. The farmer from Texas says, “I can get in my truck in the morning and drive all day. Then I get up the next morning and I drive all day. Then I get up the next morning and I can drive all day and I still haven’t gotten to the other side of my farm.” And the farmer from North Carolina says, “Yep. I used to have a truck like that.”
Frank

Still Bitter, Still Clinging to My Guns

2008-10-25T15:37:00.001-04:00

The tractor’s down again, so I decided to clean up a bit.
I spent the day clearing brush from the fence along the back property line. The property line, in itself, is a bit of socialism: I share it with my neighbor, Jack, and the French Broad Electric Co-Operative. French Broad comes through every few years and clears it out for me, readying themselves for the day when a big wind just blows their power poles over and they’ll have to rush in there to restore electricity. But I decided to help them out a bit, this year. It’s an election year I decided there was no better way to celebrate than to get myself tangled up in a half acre of invasive thorns. A pound of sweat and a gallon of gas later, I’ve got everything looking pretty good. Rose briars are hacked up, right up to the power right of way, and locusts are cut at ground level. I left them willy nilly along the fence lines, sometimes leaning against each other, so the birds would have something to play on. Winter can be somewhat dull for a bird – even from a hundred feet the monochrome of the landscape can be kinda dull, and I want to encourage them to recreate.
The long term plan for the back fence is to get it clean enough to run two bush-hog swaths along it, keeping it mowed about ten feet out. I need to keep the briars from entangling themselves in the fence wires, and I need to keep the locust stumps from getting big enough to hurt the bush-hog. As it is now, I ignore it, and French Broad comes along every few years and obliterates everything with this riding lawn mower/assault vehicle thing they have. Pretty nifty: mows everything, including old tires. But I figure there’s a better way. So I want to keep it mowed and establish pasture. The birds probably have other preferences; the briar shoots and little locust and poplar are perfect for them. The high grass and the eventual goldenrod are perfect for something else. I like the scrubby side areas of the farm – or, I like what lives there. Less and less of the farm, every year, qualifies as scrubby. As I clean up, plant, build, etc. things neaten up. I’ve sort of re-established that kind of habitat: perennial shrubs, berries, fruit trees, but there’s nothing like a true opportunist. Raspberries planted in a strait row are a poor substitute for a multiflora rose thicket. Anise hyssop and Echinacea stalks are never as much fun as goldenrod and ironweed. The birds are just gonna have to be happy with what they’ve got. I’d prefer my surrounding more natural, also, but I compromise without bitterness. I need that fence to make a living, and I’m not going to build a fence and then fail to take care of it. You don’t do this year after year after insufferable year without some sense of purpose. You don't do it without clinging to hope.

FROST

2008-10-19T20:40:00.001-04:00

Came last night. On cat’s feet on something. The eggplant’s leaves are all curly and the peppers are mushy. Some of the weeds got burned
Something has to mark the start and the end of the season. The seasons are in fact cyclical, never ending, always changing, fluid, but it helps my mind to stay organized if there’s a start and an end. So: first frost is the end. First time I start seeds in the greenhouse, that’s when the season starts. Everything in between is non-descript, it doesn’t have a name and that means I don’t have to worry about it.
I’m going to supply my CSA for two more weeks, am still seeding cover crops, and am still building deer fences and greenhouses, but, the year is over. I mean, there was frost last night. Now I’m goofing off.
The off season can be a little intimidating, in that manner. Like a page with no lines or a recipe with no measurements, seems kinda fun at first, and you congratulate yourself for being such a free-spirited motherfucker, but you really have to stay on top of things or else you make a big mess.
It depends on your mood.
The view from the window right now can be interpreted in two ways. I can look out on all that I’ve gotten done over the past ten years. I can remember what the place looked like when I got here and think about what I’ve gotten done. Or I can think about all the things I haven’t gotten done. The plans that are on hold. I can think about what the place looked like when I got here and think about what a mess I’ve made.
I’ve been on an upswing lately. A pretty good mood. Deer fence is almost finished and there’s a pretty good sense of organization. Still, I’ve been here all this time and I still don’t have a grip on the knotweed back behind the house. And the laundry room is full of pieces of a sculpture I’ve been working on for about eight years.
Frost.
It’s an end and a beginning!
That kinda works for me right now. It means, on one hand, that I’ve gotten through another year. And it means, on another, that I’m freed up for a while, and I can get caught up on all that need to be done before next year. I can get all the ducks in a row and start off the next growing season with everything in place. Because I can’t wait. Next year is gonna be really good.

Some Of You Are Going To Have To Leave

2008-10-19T19:58:00.002-04:00

I took a quiz today.
By answering a series of fairly simple questions, I found out just how many planets we would need if everyone acted like me.
While I find solace in having placed well below the national average, I was still disturbed to find that it would take 2.89 planets to provide for a world full of me-s.
I should have said I recycle more.

Deer Fence Haiku

2008-10-16T20:22:00.000-04:00

Dried poplar leaves
Swirl on high with delight
Above strung wire

Grasses bearing seed heads
So long neglected
Are trampled on one side

Pipes are straight as string
Pipes the color of dry leaves
Pipes up and down at field’s edge.

Good Times on the Farm

2008-10-07T20:54:00.003-04:00

I'm really wanted to post about all the wonderful and excited things I did today, but I'm having too much fun. I winnowing catnip seeds on the living room floor. I've got newpaper spread out, I've got dried catnip flowers, I've got seed packets, and I've got two very happy cats. Gotta go.

2008-10-06T23:49:00.001-04:00

Kiss Me, I’m Pathogen Free

I’m becoming fairly well updated on some rules to be imposed upon us by the unfeeling bureaucracy that we call government.
And that suggests an alternative though less fun title for this post: The USDA is Obsessed With Poop. Because it’s out there, everywhere, apparently, just waiting to infect the nation’s food supply. Its in the water, its in the air, its on leaves and in the dirt and can even be sucked through the skin of a cantaloupe. It’s traveling down stream at an alarming rate. It comes out of cows and pigs, out of deer, out of birds when they fly over your fields, and don’t think you don’t have any, either. And this poop would like nothing more than to infect the tomatoes you’re about to sell to someone who is going to back it in little Timmy’s lunch, who is going to share it with the whole class on the third grade field trip, and there, in one fell swoop, some poop wipes out fifty youngsters.

Co-operative Extension filled us in today on the steps vegetable growers will have to take to become compliant with some impending legislation. Hygiene standards are going to be set for the produce industry. GAP! is the Saturday morning buzzword they’ve chosen for these practices, in the manner that the US government mass communicates. Good Agricultural Practices. And, as noted, it all comes down to dealing with poop.
Not poop, obviously, but the salmonella and the e. coli and the etc. that so merrily resides and propagates in our intestines and in our poop. We’ll all be required to do things that we really should be doing anyway. Eliminating poop. Testing water. Streamlining harvest facilities.I’m up for the task. I’m going to catch all the stray chickens and keep them out of the fields. I’m going to find out exactly what kinds of coliform lurk in the pond. I’m going to reduce splashback onto leafy greens. I’m going to sanitize the packing area. I’m going to monitor the temperature in the cooler. Daunting tasks, maybe, but we’re up for it. We are, after all, professionals.

They've Cut Silage on Jonathan Creek

2008-10-02T23:21:00.003-04:00

It seems like it was just yesterday that I watched the guy plant that field. I suppose it must have been May. I can only conclude that it must be autumn. The sumac and the Virginia Creeper seem to agree. As does the political yard art.
Since last the sumac turned red on the side of the road, I've managed to burn and resurrect a tractor, watch most of my crops get eaten by deer, build a deer fence around (so far) about 80% of the farm, and pile up a mountain of greenhouse pieces in my front yard.
I stopped, months ago, telling people that it's been a a challenging year. I no longer delude myself so. No, it's been a year just about like any other. That's my conclusion as this growing season draws to a close: This is it. I cannot, indeed would be foolish to, expect anything better than this. It's always gonna be like this: broken equipment, ravished crops, and more projects started than completed. The question becomes: Can I accept that, or shall I forever battle against the present state of things and expect them to become my idea of better?
No, the guys were probably not thinking similar things when they were cutting that field, but they probably were hoping than none of the equipment broke and that the livestock made it through the winter. And they probably felt they couldn't be sure of either.
The perfect year is a dream of youth, and I am well beyond that. Weedless fields and bumper crops and hard-working employees and shiny equipment are elements of a fairy tale that I still, at times, wish that I lived with-in, but am slowly learning will never be.
This is as good as it gets, I say to myself as I stand near the barn and gaze out over my vast land holdings. And the true measure of my dementia is that that is fine and dandy with me. I'm just as happy here as anywhere else.
I'll watch them plant corn again on Jonathan Creek next year, and the equipment will be down or there will be a drought or a flood or a swarm of locusts or a tomato blight. Then they'll cut silage again and the sumac will decorate the sides of the roads. And then it'll all happen again the next year.
By next spring, I'll have another greenhouse built.

2008-09-29T17:19:00.003-04:00

Sam Kirkpatrick

Friend, Neighbor, Mentor

July 1, 1922

September 28, 2008

I Don't Weed; Science Backs Me Up

2008-09-28T23:10:00.004-04:00

This from:
Scale Dependent Dispersal and Distribution Patterns of Spiders in Agricultural Systems: A Review
Ferenc Samu. Keith D. Sunderland. Csaba Szinetar
The Journal of Arachnology 27:325–332.

Spider diversity in agroecosytems varies from being impoverished under intensive culture to being, under favorable agricultural management, even greater than in natural habitats.
Harvesting, plowing, pesticide spraying and forest clearcutting are likely to affect most micro-habitats within a given habitat; and they are known to cause severe reductions in spider populations. Conversely, disturbances of intermediate strength and frequency may actually increase the diversity of a spider community. This effect may operate by increasing the diversity of micro-habitats within a habitat.
Interspersed diversification is frequently attained by planting multiple crop species in one field. This in a number of instances resulted in spider densities greater than those found in monocultures, and an associated suppression of pest species. Reduced-tillage systems often provide a diversification of interspersed micro-habitats by engendering a rough or heterogeneous soil surface, plus structural complexity in the form of plant residues conserved from previous-year crops.
In a Swiss orchard, the density of spiders and their webs on the apple trees was greater in plots where weeds had been planted in strips below the trees, than in weed-free control plots. However, in many cases, spider density on and under crop plants is unaffected by strip management, perhaps because spiders aggregate in the favorable micro-habitats (such as weed and flower strips) and do not disperse out onto the crop plants.
The maintenance of grass habitats that are not demolished by crop rotation and the presence of set-aside fields significantly increased the viability of the modeled Lepthyphantes tenuis metapopulation. In asimulated linear landscape the inclusion of small amounts of grassland considerably increased overall spider population sizes.

I am nothing if not a friend to Lepthyphantes tenuis metapopulations.

I Take A Cue From the Soviets

2008-09-27T10:42:00.002-04:00

We farm in a heterogeneous landscape context. That much must be obvious. Thus our diversity of wildlife is enchanting.
Last night, the deer ate the hollyhocks. This follows the squash, beans, okra and watermelon. We’ve been trying to build fences as fast as they graze, but lately they’ve been ahead by a nose.
I started on the ridge to the South. That was in January. I was certain I’d be finished with the whole thing by the time I started planting. I was barely out of the woods. As the summer progressed, the fence did too, around the West end of the fields and around along base of Cemetery Hill. We’re about to close the circle, but it still may be a while. My goal is to have it closed by the one year anniversary. And the deer will weep.
They will be excluded by a linear sculpture of junk that circumnavigates the farm. It starts, as so many things often do, with old well pipe. Stuck in the ground every here and there and supported by salvaged fence posts. I was able to, and this was the real money saver, find several spools of wire at a local salvage yard. Not exactly fencing wire, but it serves the purpose. A few locust posts here and there. Some gas pipes from an old greenhouse. Some chicken wire…. And we will be safely enclosed. I can’t add up the amount the deer have eaten over the years. I can’t add up the amount of time I have spent with temporary measures. Or the amount of time I’ve spent building this fence. This should be the end of it. Maybe I’ll have time to farm.

Yet Another Snippet of Farm Life

2008-09-24T21:57:00.000-04:00

It’s lonely here at the farm tonight, just me and 8,000 strawberry plugs.
The plugs that aren’t supposed to be here, that I thought would never come, are on a spiffy aluminum table outside the greenhouse, homeless, unplanted.
We order them together, a group of us, every year, and have them delivered here. The others farmers come and pick them up, I make excuses for all the weeds, and that’s it until next year. It’s an early September tradition, and about the only one there is.
Our plug grower, up in New Jersey, wrote and said they’d be shipped out late this year. His excuse was the weather. Late September, he said. Or October. Whenever his greenhouses got enough sunlight to coax those little plugs into actually growing some roots. I said we’d wait.
Last Friday a huge truck pulled up the driveway, and I immediately figured out the sun had been shining on the Garden State. So we scrambled to get them unpacked and watered. I called the other farmers and each called was met with the same glum, unenthusiastic, “Oh. That’s, um, good.” They hadn’t prepared their fields, either.
Not to worry, I said. They’re looking good and they’re being watered. I can keep ‘em here until you’re ready for them.
The greenhouses have become such that an extra 8,000 plants to water does not phase me.
Only, they’re still here. All 8,000 of them. No body can get any gas, and when they can, they don’t want to use it to drive all the way out here. The poor little plants are stranded here, unclaimed, orphaned, because of our failed energy policy.
I’ll be by as soon as I can, people keep telling me. Our local station is supposed to get a shipment in a few days.
And still they sit. Cheerful enough, perky even, in their little plastic plug trays, waving every time the wind blows. They think this is their home, for all I know. They don’t realize it’s just a weigh station. A lay over.We’d better get same gas soon or the little guys are going to root to the table. They’ll be here all winter. They’ll flower and fruit right here, all of ‘em, right in front of my greenhouse, a tangled mass of stunted strawberries serving as testimony to our dependence on petroleum.

What Came First?

2008-09-19T19:29:00.000-04:00

I have been accumulating greenhouses as long as the chickens have been running around loose. Or, I have been accumulating greenhouses for longer than the chickens have been running loose. Or, the chickens have been running loose ….
My latest greenhouse acquisition came with bona fide greenhouse tables. Aluminum tables with grates on the top. Rust-proof. Don’t rot. Water flows through. Plenty of air circulation. My days of grabbing pallets out of dumpsters are over.
The greenhouse came with, ah, a lot of tables. More than I need. More than anyone needs.
Put end to end, these tables would serve a nice Thanksgiving dinner for everyone on Spring Creek. Twice. Lots of tables.
My dilemma is where to store them. Greenhouses are full of tables already. Barns full of other junk. Already have a table in the house.
So: I surrounded the chicken coop with greenhouse tables. Perfect. They’re way taller than a chicken and they have an escape proof roof. Light and rain can get in; chickens can’t get out. Walls? Many of the tables I managed to acquire had legs broken off them. They were just, sort of, table tops. So I stood them up on their sides and wired them to the already there table legs. Instant walls. Light and rain get in ….
Now, here’s where we learn a little something: The tables I used for the walls, they’re of a different dimension than the other tables. In a word, they’re two feet shorter. So after I stood them up to act as walls, I had to patch the remaining two feet. I built little patches out of old chicken wire and tobacco stakes. (And fence staples. Never be without fence staples.) The patches took about half and hour each to build. After I found the saw. The entire greenhouse table enclosure, meaning all of the greenhouse tables that I loaded off a wagon and put next to the chicken coop, took twenty minutes. Start to finish.
It was a modular design. All the tables were the same size. The all fit up against each other perfectly. The enclosure went together like an, um, assembly line. The patches, being hand made, took forever. They required measuring and cutting and, well, thought. And were a lot more fun to build.
So: what I have in my back yard, full of chickens, is a demonstration as to why the industrial world expands exponentially and the pre-industrial world cannot possibly compete. It’s all right there, right in front of you when you look at it. Come on by and see it if you don’t believe me. And get yourself a few eggs.