| November is a fine month on our vegetable farm. In November, both our Farmers' Market and our CSA harvest days are over for the season, and we revel in the feeling of so much time. Now we have time to finish putting up the last of the vegetables for winter eating, and time to put the machinery away, and time to return our draft horses to their winter paddock. We even have a little time to bask by the wood stove with our stripey kitty, Cricket, who stretches out on the rug and chirps occasionally at us. Cricket is a fine kitty, and we give her lots of pets, both for her own sake, and for the sake of other fine cats, such as our scratchy-bitey black kitty, who, at twenty years old, left us this past summer. It was the end of an era here on our farm. Our black kitty has been with us longer than our New Hampshire farm and our draft horses and our daughter. We, along with friends, relatives, neighbors, and CSA members, all have funny stories about our scratchy-bitey kitty. Most of them, of course, involve scratching and biting. Happily, as our kitty got on in years, he did mellow a bit, tending towards hissing, spitting and violent cursing rather than scratching and biting. He also developed several fine-old-kitty quirks. This last summer, for example, he only wanted to lie on hard surfaces, such as the table or the counter top or the pile of cucumbers we were getting ready to pickle. The day we found him curled up in the frying pan on the stove top was the day we instituted the spray bottle. Our black kitty did not like the spray bottle at all. He would glare balefully at the spray bottle and at the person waving it in his direction, and then leap down. In a few minutes he would be right back again, moving from counter top to stove to sink, looking for the ideal resting spot. He had a strong will, our kitty. In fact, as our kitty got older, he exerted his will on the household by refusing to drink out of any ordinary vessel, be it glass, ceramic, metal, wooden, or plastic. No, he wanted to drink out of the sink. Or he wanted to lick the tiny drops of water on newly washed supper vegetables. Or he wanted to drink from the shower floor, especially when a person was mid-shower, and didn't especially want a cat to hover in the shower curtain, letting the cold air in and the water out. But our black kitty's favorite was the water that he liberated by tipping over vases of flowers on the kitchen table. We tried various vase tricks, such as weighting the vases with rocks, or jamming several vases into a big basket to make them kitty-proof. With the determination of the strong-willed, our kitty knocked over the entire basket of many vases. Then he had a lot of water. We learned to enjoy our vases of flowers displayed on the top of the refrigerator. Our scratchy-bitey kitty was looking pretty rough his last few months, thin and bony, his coat a mess, despite our efforts with brush and comb, and despite many treats of eggs and nutritional yeast and other savories. Like many very old cats, he was partially blind, and completely deaf, and had an enormous howling yowl to express his opinions at odd moments. If it wasn't the crashing vases that woke us up at midnight, it was the ear-splitting yell, which he kept practicing until the end. We never could tell what he was saying, but he said it good and loud, as he made his way around and in and out of the house. His whole life, our black kitty spent a lot of time outdoors, and this last summer was no exception. Our daughter, who was born into the household of the Scratchy-Bitey Kitty, was the last to see him. “I gave him some cream,” she said, “and four different bowls of water, and he drank a little out of every one.” Sometime in the night our kitty let himself out of the screen door, a talent he had perfected. We think he must have found himself a good spot to die, in the woods or the fields, and we think of him often. We think of him, and are glad he lived with us, and glad for his help in our sustainable-farming-rodent-control program, and glad he had a good, long, healthy kitty life. We can keep our vases of flowers on the table again now. But we miss our scratchy-bitey kitty. He sure did love that rug in front of the wood stove on a cold November day. He defended it tooth and claw. Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Nov 23 - Nov 29, 2016 |
The Good Taste of No Waste
It's potato season here on our New Hampshire vegetable farm. Most everybody loves potatoes, and our CSA members are no exception. They head for the potato crate with glee. Members study the contents of the crate, finding the perfect potato size for the menu that week – big bakers, medium or small size boilers.
“Look at this,” a member might laugh, holding up a potato the size of a marble between two fingers. “You don't waste anything!”
We farmers laugh too. Heck, no, we don't want to waste a thing, especially the produce that we've labored over these many months. And if no CSA member is energized by the idea of picking out, weighing, and cooking up their weekly fall potato share in the form of marble size potatoes, why, the marbles will find their way into the farm kitchen, and the farmers will cook them up. Potatoes are so darned good, why waste one?
Of course, the same holds true for the many other vegetables we grow. We can't bear to waste any, whether they are perfect specimens or a little troubled. There's always a few tomatoes with small troubles or the odd squash that's grown too large, so we pile them up in our Surplus and Sharing Tray.
The tray is primarily for CSA members to trade vegetables and customize their shares. But we also put our troubled vegetables there, and any member with time or inclination is welcome to scoop up some and take 'em home, along with the regular share of trouble-free vegetables. And if any vegetables are left at the end of the CSA pick-up? There's always the farm kitchen, and hungry farmers to feed.
Recently, the hungry farmers took a break from the farm and the farm kitchen to visit another farm, one of the largest retail and wholesale fruit and vegetable growers in New Hampshire. While not a huge farm by national standards, the place was giant compared to our little acreage. As we drove around (drove, not walked!) the fields, we were taken aback, for example, by the “finished” squash and cucumber section. To our tiny-farm eyes, there were mountains of vegetables still left in the beds, sadly overripe by then. We asked the farmer, and he told us that at some point, when a crop has passed its peak, it's no longer efficient to send in the labor to harvest the rest.
Huh. We mulled that over. It makes sense on one level, but all that wasted food! It was painful to see. We came away from our visit and the extensive acres, irrigation, buildings, machinery, and many employees, feeling very clear indeed that our tiny farm was just what we wanted.
We like our little walkable fields. We like our four draft horses. We like the fellow farmers on our Mom and Pop farm. We like our CSA members, and knowing their names and where they live and if their grandchildren are visiting or their toddler just sampled her first winter squash, grown on our farm. And we love not wasting food, and harvesting every possible edible vegetable from a crop.
This year, though the summer drought gave us beautiful and abundant broccoli and beet greens, it also meant we couldn't germinate the fall turnips, carrots, and rutabagas, despite valiant attempts at irrigation. We are also theorizing that the drought, followed at last by rain, caused many of our fall cabbages to split. What does a non-wasting, use everything, eat everything tiny-farm farmer do with twenty or thirty split cabbages?
Well, we dithered. We like to give out the loveliest of vegetables to our CSA members. But we might not have enough heads of cabbage for everyone without the split heads. And even an ambitious farm kitchen can't absorb that much cabbage, despite how well cabbage pairs with marble size potatoes. Plus the cabbage is perfectly delicious, even though it won't store well.
In the end we decided to give out the split cabbage heads to our fine, flexible, good-natured CSA members. We couldn't stand the thought all of that fresh, local, sustainably raised food going to waste. Our members took up the split cabbage challenge willingly, entering fully into the spirit of non-wasteful farming. No waste here: just good food, gobbled up. Now that leaves a good taste in a vegetable farmer's mouth.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Oct 26 - Nov 1, 2016
Farmers Have So Much Fun
How do New Hampshire farmers amuse themselves? Oh, many ways. We might stand a while watching our draft horses kick and gallop and buck in the new pasture, wishing that we too had the pep to kick and gallop and buck in the fall, when we are still in high production season.
Or we might sit a while, which is more fitting to our autumnal energy level, watching the wild turkeys out the kitchen window. We have a picnic table down by our pond, and one day not long ago there were five big turkeys sitting, lying, grooming, and chatting there in the sunshine. This was quite amusing: turkeys on the picnic table! “It's a good thing we're vegetarian!” we called to those big old turkeys.
We farmers also amuse ourselves by paying the farm bills. “Oh ha ha!” we say, “Look at this enormous bill! Ha ha ha!” Sometimes we are having such a good time paying the bills that we invite our kitty to help. We wad up various pieces of bills and throw them around the room, and our kitty has a fine time chasing them down. It sure is nice to see the kitty attacking the bills, and it brings a whole new spirit of joie de vivre to the process.
Of course, as New Hampshire vegetable farmers, we also amuse ourselves with vegetables, and all the interesting ways vegetables can grow: the conjoined-twins summer squash, the mother-and-child eggplant, the monster-from-the-deep-sea green pepper.
We are not the only ones who find vegetables entertaining. Over at the Guilford Fair in Vermont, there is the Richard D. Blazej Humorous Vegetable Contest. I did not know Mr. Blazej, but he must have been a fine fellow. Even the name of his contest is funny: What is a Humorous Vegetable? Why, it must be one that tells jokes.
Thus our country-fair-farmer-amusement began. Our first humorous vegetable was a tomato, a fine ripe plump tomato, with a fine ripe bulbous nose. That year we were also growing wonderberries, a tiny odd purple fruit in the same family as tomatoes, and we used the wonderberries to make eyes for our tomato. Two green beans for arms, a toothpick and cardboard sign, and voila! Our humorous vegetable told a funny joke: “Why did the tomato blush?” “Because it saw the Russian dressing!” (Thanks to Sandwichery: Sandwich Recipes and Riddles, a very silly book by Patricia and Talivaldis Stubbles.)
The next year we were equally amused by a lovely little leek with seed eyes, reclining in a tiny wooden canoe, about ten inches long, and two inches wide, perfect for a seafaring leek. Of course, the leek had a sign: “What's the only vegetable you don't want to take in a boat?” “A leek!” (A leak! Get it? Thanks to our funny six year old friend Charlie.)
This year we outdid ourselves. We had a tomato drawstring purse, with carrot top handles, and carrot coins. We had a little white cucumber that looked just like an egg, in a cabbage leaf nest. But our piece de resistance was composed of carrots. Carrots are also very humorous vegetables, in case you didn't know.
First there were two carrot children, with their own naturally (organically!) grown legs, and with carved eyes and happy smiles, added by the farmers. The children rested on a pillow, with a sign: “Tell us a story, Grandmaw!”
Nearby was a rocking chair, made of clothespins, and there sat Grandmaw, a grandmother carrot perfectly folded in her growing to sit in a rocking chair. Her sign read: “Once upon a time there was a pair of sweethearts . . . ”
Then there were two more carrots, passionately entwined (well, actually one was passionately entwined, with carrot arms clasping for all it was worth; the other carrot looked a little startled by all that passion.) Their sign read, “Do you carrot all for me?”
But this is not all. There was a fourth sign, identifying the fair exhibit: "The Carrot Tableau." The farmers looked up the word tableau beforehand just to make sure they were using it correctly. “A striking incidental scene, as of a picturesque group of people [or carrots],” is the American Heritage Dictionary definition (parenthetical remark added).
Have you ever heard anything so absolutely perfect? So very amusing? The Carrot Tableau? Oh ha ha ha! We might also mention here the equally absolute perfection of the dictionary definition of piece de resistance: “1.The principal dish of a meal. 2. An outstanding accomplishment.”
Yes indeed, an outstanding accomplishment, stunning in its humor! Farmers have so much fun.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Oct 19 - Oct 25, 2016
The Tomato Grafting Revolution
One day several years ago my farming fellow came back from his seed-saving group, saying, “Yeah, it was great! There were all these people growing their great great great grandmothers' heirloom open pollinated really rare varieties of corn and beans!”
“What did you say you were growing?” I asked him.
“I said I was grafting tomatoes! They all looked at me like I'm nuts!”
I thought my fellow was a little nuts myself, when he first talked about grafting tomatoes. People graft fruit trees, I said knowingly, not tomatoes.
“Look at this! It's fantastic!” was his answer. He showed a me a video clip of a hand, a razor blade, and two innocent tomato plants, each being sliced in half. Then the bottom of one was stuck to the top of the other, with the help of a silicone clip.
“Isn't that great?” he said. “I can't wait to try this!”
“But why?” I said. “It's so artificial, it's so forced, it's so not sustainable. And it's so not groovy!”
“I know,” he said enthusiastically, “but it doubles production, and the whole greenhouse is full of propane heaters and miles of plastic and irrigation and fans and everything else. It's all crazy and non-groovy. But since we have all these resources concentrated in this one area, we might as well get good production. That's a kind of sustainibility, too. And it's fantaaaastic production! Look at this! The plants are twice as big! Twice as many tomatoes!”
“But do we want twice as many tomatoes?”
“Yes!” said my fellow farmer.
Oh, he does love tomatoes, my fellow. Every year he grows a trillion different varieties, pink, yellow, white, purple, green, black, orange, and even red. He was ecstatic the year we were finally able to put all our tomatoes under cover, thanks to the addition of two new hoophouses. The outside, or “field” tomatoes, tasted mighty good, but they didn't always look so pretty. Now our tomatoes taste and look good, in the highly protected hoophouse environment.
The next big tomato step, after the hoophouse revolution, was the grafting revolution. My fellow plunged in, armed with a razor blade and a little pair of scissors. He sliced and trimmed and clipped, joining a sturdy Central American tomato root, highly tolerant of greenhouse conditions, to whatever heirloom or hybrid variety he was most enamored with at the moment. He tucked the tender grafties into the hospital, a darkened area under one of our propagation tables, for three days, misting them carefully twice a day. Then voila! There emerged the first batch of grafted tomatoes, each little plant either thoroughly dead or amazingly alive.
We transplanted the grafties carefully into our hoophouse beds, and soon they took off, and off, and off. They burst out of their silicone clips and grew and grew, twice the size of their non-grafted neighbors. We were in awe. We gazed high, at the hoophouse trusses, where the tomatoes were curling their leaves and twining their stems. That year was the first that my fellow had to start climbing a ladder to harvest tomatoes.
Ever since, my fellow has grafted, gazed in awe, and climbed the ladder. Over the years, he's worked his way through various grafting errors: plants too little, plants too big, plants in hospital too long, plants in hospital not long enough, plants too wet, plants too dry. Then one year my fellow had another brilliant idea: “Hey! How about grafting some cherry tomatoes?”
“Gee, I don't know,” I answered. “We've got an awful lot of cherry tomatoes already. It takes us three hours at a time, the two of us, just to pick them.”
“I'm going to try, just a couple. It'll be great. The plants will be huge!”
My fellow was right again. The plants were huge. They were monstrous. They were impenetrable. We would tunnel in, trying to reach the trillion before the overripening, the splitting, and then the rotting. We would tunnel in, and come out gasping for air.
“Never again,” I said. “Never again.”
“Never again,” agreed my fellow, “Never again.”
Now we laugh about it, as we spend our companionable three hours picking the lovely non-grafted cherry tomatoes twice a week together.
“Remember that year you grafted the cherry tomatoes?” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “Hee hee hee. That was a big mistake.”
“Hee hee hee,” I say. “That was funny. Remember how mad I used to get? I'd come out of there with all these leaves and cherry tomatoes caught on my head. I hated wasting all those tomatoes we couldn't reach.”
“Yeah,” he says again. “That makes this kind of picking seem easy, doesn't it?”
“It sure does,” I say.
“But it's a good thing I graft the big tomatoes,” he adds quickly. “Don't you think?”
“I sure do, “ I say. “I guess you're not completely nuts after all. You're more like completely tomatoes!”
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Aug 31 -- Sept 6, 2016