Box of Buzz

My fellow farmer had a great idea this year for our poor cucurbits, which are always getting chewed on by the zippy little cucumber beetles, and the big hungry squash bugs.

Usually we protect the plants with hoops and floating row cover until they’re big enough to withstand the bug pressure. Once the plants are flowering, we remove the cover, so the pollinators can get busy, feeding themselves, and helping feed us.

This year, we invested in some bug netting, primarily because the row cover is effective but not durable, and we hate ripping it and we hate throwing it away. The new bug netting is more heavy duty, and saves us some work. Instead of covering each bed of plants individually, we attached the netting to the open sides and doors of the greenhouse.

Well, our cuke, zuke, and summer squish plants never looked better: vibrant green, chest high, and completely unbitten. Our bug netting was working great!

Except for one tiny detail. The bug netting keeps out the chompers, but it also keeps out the pollinators. Oh, we knew this, and over the winter, we had talked about getting a hive of bumblebees to release in the greenhouse as pollinators, which is a common practice. But somehow, in the unceasing rush of spring work, this little detail fell straight out of our minds.

But we sure did remember it when our plants produced beautiful flowers, but not much in the way of fruit, most of which was rotting, tiny, or deformed, not exactly ideal characteristics for produce.

My fellow quickly ordered a hive of bumblebees, but, alas, a hive of bumblebees does not arrive overnight. The bumblebee company needs at least a week, and if you miss the Wednesday noon ordering deadline that you didn’t know about by say, two hours, you will need even longer.

Thus our great idea turned into a sweltering hot, miserable period of hand pollinating, made more miserable by our giant plants and tight spacing in the greenhouse. To be truthful, it started out kind of fun – we had never hand pollinated before, and it is a fascinating process. First we identified and snapped off the male flower, and then rubbed the pollen onto a female flower. The flowers are beautiful! We are helping grow great cukes, zukes, and squish!

But wow, is it hot in the greenhouse. And wow, it takes a long time to hand pollinate three hundred-foot rows of squash. (We didn’t even bother with the cukes, as they seemed to be doing all right, perhaps being pollinated by some other nice little bugs.) 

Plus we were supposed to hand pollinate every day, and we couldn’t find the time, so every other day we would tackle the squash, and sweat, and whimper, and long for bumblebees. Oh, how we longed. Either that, or we longed for the days before the great idea of bug netting. 

“We could just take the netting down,” suggested my red-faced fellow, and then looked sad. “But our plants look so beautiful. Maybe the bees will get here soon? Can we wait just a few more days?”

“Uhhh,” I groaned, stooped over a squash flower. But we waited, and finally a cardboard box of buzz arrived, and we opened the box up in the greenhouse. 

In a few minutes a brave bumble emerged. And then another, and another. We cheered the bumbles on, and left them alone to acclimate.

The next morning, I was out early clipping the giant weeds out of the giant squash, and there was nary a bumble or a buzz. Oh, shucks. What had we done wrong? Did the bumbles (the $200 worth of bumbles, I might add) not like the accommodations? Had they all absconded, or died?

Downcast, I kept weeding and listening, and at last, once the sun hit the greenhouse, I heard that sweet buzzing sound. A bumble on the cukes! And then a bumble on the nasturtiums! And finally on the squash! Oh bumbles, we love you!
 

Originally published in The Monadnock Shopper News, July 27 -- Aug 2, 2022

The Farmer, the Urologist, and the Teacher

Twenty some years ago, when we farmers were young and foolish, our farm fantasies mainly revolved around finding a farm of our own. We had apprenticed for five years on several vegetable farms in the Northeast, and we had all kinds of opinions on how we would go about things on our own farm.

Our opinions were quickly humbled, pretty much the moment we stepped onto our new place. Not quite as easy as it looks, this vegetable farming.

Now, as older, humbler, if not less foolish farmers, we find that our farm fantasies are mainly about other people’s farms.

Wouldn’t it be fun, we say, to join someone else’s CSA garden? Imagine being a CSA member, and going once a week to pick up your freshly harvested and washed produce, and not having done a lick of work?

Oh hee, hee, hee. This kind of thinking helps us get through one of our most intense times of year, during the end of May and early June. Not only do we need to transplant every crop that is not yet in the ground, from winter squash to leeks to tomatillos, but the haying weather begins. Though we are not ready yet to hay, we worry steadily about not haying. Plus the weeds are coming on strong, and our lofty goal of having not a single weed in the garden by June 1st seems rather laughable. 

But the biggest effort is the start of CSA vegetable distribution. First there are the hours organizing pick-up schedules, and clearing out the vegetable distribution shed from a winter’s worth of projects. 

Then there is the actual harvest: suddenly it is as if two whole days have disappeared from our week. Instead of transplanting and weeding and worrying about not haying, we are swallowed up in harvesting for our CSA members, from 4:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., followed by warmly welcoming said members, from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., two days a week.

Oh, those 14 hour days: fourteen hours of transplants languishing in their pots, wanting to be in the ground, and of weeds growing into trees, perfectly happy to stay in the ground, and of hay going to seed. All that work we’re not getting done!

But then there’s the bright side: oh, yes, the first harvests! Oh, right, this is what all this work is for: the delicious produce! Oh, the lettuce, oh, the bok choy, the salad turnips and salad greens, the beets and basil and kohlrabi! The kale! The chard! The peas! The strawberries! 

Wow, we say, we are lucky to have all these delicious strawberries coming so early out of the greenhouse. And wow, we say, the spinach! So very much spinach! In fact, it has been taking three farmers three hours (5 a.m. to 8 a.m., to be precise) to harvest, process, and wash all that spinach, which is a perfect time to indulge in farm fantasies.

Wouldn’t it be fun, we say, to join someone else’s CSA garden? Imagine being a CSA member, and going once a week to pick up your freshly harvested and washed produce, and not having done a lick of work? Doesn’t that sound great?

It must sound pretty good, at least, since when our CSA members come they say wow, too. The spinach! The strawberries! The everything else! 

So much work! they say. 

Then, “I feel kind of guilty!” one even says.

“No, no,” says another member, “The farmers don’t feel guilty about you being a urologist, or me being a teacher.”

“No, I sure don’t,” this farmer answers. I am delighted not to be a urologist; in fact, I am so delighted not to be a urologist that being a CSA farmer on my own farm seems like quite a fine thing. What could be nicer than growing good produce for all the good urologists and teachers of the world?

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, June 29th - July 5th, 2022

The Auction, the Market, and the Big Nap

My fellow farmer has been wanting to go to the Green Mountain Draft Horse Association auction for years. Unfortunately, the auction is always held on a Saturday morning in May, which is exactly when our Farmers’ Market happens. 

Also unfortunately for my fellow farmer, his fellow farmer, i.e., me, finds the market both highly stimulating and exhausting, so I rarely go, which means he never gets to the auction.

But this year? This year I came up with a great idea to improve our farm efficiency. Since every horse-drawn implement requires both a neck yoke and an evener, and since we’ve never had enough of either, we are always running up to the hayfield to get the neck yoke and evener from the hay rake to use on the disc, or vice-versa, times ten implements. It is a lot of running back and forth, just getting ready to accomplish the thing you are trying to accomplish.

“What if,” I said to my fellow last winter, “we had a neck yoke and an evener for every single implement? We wouldn’t have to chase any down, or find the wrench to loosen the bolt to switch them from one implement to another. Think of all the time and energy that would save.”

My fellow loved the idea. “I’ll go to the auction!” he said enthusiastically.

“But the market,” I said. “Suppose we ask around first, see if we can find any around here.” Well, we did ask around, and had no luck. 

Oh, I didn’t want to go to the market. But, oh, I love being more efficient. 

“I could go, I suppose . . .” I said reluctantly. Then I had another brilliant idea. Our daughter would be finished with her college classes and senior project, and would be free as a bird, in my estimation at least, until graduation day. Plus she likes to go out in the world, just as her father does.

“Sure!” my dear daughter said right away. Thus we all got up at five a.m. on auction day. 

One of us headed gleefully to northern Vermont. Another one of us, who had gone to bed after midnight, said, groaning, “What do we have to harvest?”

“Everything!” I answered.

Another, longer groan. “You mean I have to get up?”

My daughter and I harvested, washed, and bagged the vegetables, packed the car, and raced into town. We got our tent and table set up, thanks to the help of our nice neighboring vendor, who sells maple syrup and maple-lots-of-other-things. She surprised us with some maple cotton candy, which can cheer up even a worn-out imminently graduating college kid.

Our neighbor vendor has known my enthusiastic fellow farmer for several years now, and she said to me, laughing, “You’re brave to send him off to the auction by himself!” 

I laughed too. “Well, he’s mostly excited about buying a bag of potato chips for lunch, so that seems like a nice low bar.”

Then the market started, and I went around to say hello to all the other nice vendors, whom I hadn’t seen for ages, while my daughter did all the work selling the vegetables. 

Then I talked to our neighboring vendor on the other side, another vegetable farmer, and commiserated about growing vegetables, while my daughter did all the work selling the vegetables. 

Then I had the pleasure of several market-goers saying how much they loved to read my Shopper articles, while my daughter did all the work selling the vegetables. 

Pretty soon the market was over. “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” I said to my daughter, as we packed things up.

“That’s because you didn’t do anything!” she said.

I laughed some more. “I’m going to have to take a big nap after all that talking. It might be years before I can manage another market.”

My dear daughter rolled her eyes.
 

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, June 1- June 7, 2022

Sometimes It's Good to Fall Down

Our friend Don, who has helped us with a million projects around the farm, including projects that knock him off his feet, said a few years ago to my fellow farmer, “It’s good to fall down once in a while.”

“What did he mean by that?’ I asked.

“I’m not sure exactly,” my fellow replied, but we both kind of knew what Don meant.

It’s good to fall down once in a while, so you remember what it’s like. Also, it’s good to make a foolish mistake once in a while, as we recently did, getting ready to plant the onions.

First, of course, we sowed the onions, March 1st, and watered them and warmed them in the greenhouse, until they were big enough to come out to the fields, about mid-April. They looked beautiful.

“These are the best-looking onions we’ve ever had,” said my fellow, pleased.

“They sure are,” I agreed, caressing the pretty onions.

Then we composted, disced, and harrowed a garden section, with the help of the horses. We marked the beds, also with the horses, and then the horses rested while we raked out the three onion beds. Actually, I rested then too, as I don’t like raking out beds, and my fellow does. Or probably I was working hard at some other important farming task.

Then we put out the irrigation lines, and finally laid what is called “plastic mulch.” It’s a big roll of plastic, which I stretch out along the bed, and hold taut, while my fellow shovels dirt on the sides to hold it.

For many years, the plastic we used really was plastic, and we had to roll it up and throw it away at the end of the season, which was painful. But onions do not tolerate the kind of weed pressure that some of our crops are sometimes asked to tolerate. We were having a hard time getting any onions, so we gave in to using plastic as a weed barrier.

Happily, a few years ago, we switched to a compostable “plastic,” made of corn or potato starch, that smells much nicer, and keeps the weeds at bay. The mulch gradually breaks down, and when the onions are harvested, we can just pull out the irrigation, and disc the mulch into the ground, which is very satisfying, and which brings me back to our foolish mistake.

Despite the fact that we have been 1) growing onions, 2) laying irrigation, and 3) rolling out the plastic, for nigh on twenty years, this year we forgot to lay the irrigation first. We had the plastic all taut and well-anchored, and were standing back admiring it. Then my fellow looked at me.

“We forgot the irrigation,” he said.

I looked back at him, somewhat confused. “How is that possible?”

“And there’s two of us,” he answered. “We both forgot.”

At least our mistake wasn’t impossible to fix, though a bit tedious, as we fished the irrigation line under the plastic, on our knees, reaching between the shovelfuls of dirt, and tugging the line along.

“That could have been a lot worse,” I said cheerfully, which would be a nice place to end this foolish mistake story.

But when we brought the flats of beautiful onions out, the wheelbarrow was not on level ground. I took off one flat of onions, and the whole shebang tipped over, flipping the other two flats completely on their heads onto the ground, crushing the plants. Then we swore, a lot, because this is a mistake we’ve definitely made before.

We swore, and then we got planting, and hoped for the best. “Sometimes it’s good to fall down,” we bolstered the onions, though falling down is considerably different than being crushed by a large foolish someone else. Still, maybe we’ll all be stronger for it? Or we’ll be wishing for onions come fall, one or the other.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, May 4-10, 2022