Darlin came to visit this weekend! It had been a few months since she's seen the state of the farm, so I took her on an eating tour of the fields. Without more blabbing, let's get to it:
(all photo credit goes to Darlin, she took every picture posted today)
It was one sunny summer Saturday, so we hopped across the street to see two of the horses out grazing. It's a shame the horse lady doesn't ride these fellas, I'd love to get up in the saddle.
The berries are forming on the blackberry canes-- harvest won't begin until mid/late August. The time is getting close.
Mullen. Weed to some, herb to others. Darlin is getting into the final weeks of an Herbalism course in the city. If I ever get serious about cutting the cigarette habit, this is a good plant to latch onto. Darlin said its dried leaves can be tossed in with tea and soothes weary/damaged lungs. Apparently you can chop it up and smoke it too, but I'd imagine that would cut back on its lung-healing effects.
Here's a smarmy asshole if I've ever seen one. I ain't half as photogenic as the berries. This field is directly across from the store and even weeks of pick-your-own and the crews haven't cleared out the blueberry tonnage left on the bushes. Most of the bushes on this end of the field have more berries than leaves, it's a race to pull the blueberries before their weight snaps the branches. Stretch, NYU, Newport and I were working on this field for most of last Friday. But, the blueberries have hit their high point-- things are due to trickle down to nothing over the next few weeks.
The staggered fruit of the day-neutral strawberry rows. They might not taste as good as the seasonal variety, but hey-- they're still fruiting and it's August. Not too bad.
Here is the raspberry field at the far end of the lower field-- you can see the trellis posts I bashed in this spring. The string line is still keeping things orderly, even though the berries have long since quit here. If you have the time/hands to do the work, I'd highly recommend this string setup to any grower. With the canes lifted, there was a much greater surface area for berries to form. Picking was much easier and very few berries were lost to dirt/rain damage.
The view from the far side of the lower fields. On the right are the day-neutral strawberry rows, a standard-small-water-gun irrigation line and then the last planting of sweet corn. The corn was planted just a week or so ago. In Spring/Early-Summer the snap peas/shelling peas/fava beans were here. But once they'd played out, the foreman rolled over the fields with the tiller and then harrowed all the soil/plant matter flat. We let the space sit a few weeks as the plants rotted into the soil, then seeded the corn in. Harvest for these guys wont be until mid/end of September.
Turn left from the last photo and here you are. The view across the lower fields over to the sweet corn we're currently harvesting.
The long bed of swiss chard (located somewhere midway in the lower fields). This was picked over last Wednesday/Thursday/Friday, but already its back up and thick. Now that the stalk and roots are firmly established, the chard can handle heavy picking like a champ.
We didn't pick this middle section last week and look at the size of 'em. This is the bright lights variety of swiss chard, they've been cross breed to have the variety of colors (red/yellow/purple/white). Normal chard's stalks are only whitish/greenish (same color as bok choi stems), but as NYU said-- whoever thought to cross breed the color into the chard is a marketing genius.
Right next to the chard (though only takes up 1/2 a long row) is the kale. The purple palm trees are the red boar kale variety. It's pretty funky looking stuff. Down the row, off in the distance, you can see where the bluish/green leaved dinosaur kale starts (its kinda boring to be honest). But both will continue throwing out leaves for the rest of summer.
Beet rows. If you look into the shadows you can see the rim of a beet-bulb. We pulled most of the hefty, big beets last week so this is all just demonstration-- so there you go. 3 rows of beets in a bed located next to the kale and chard.
The corn has grown high and mighty. We waltzed on over to the side of the lower fields to sample an ear fresh from the stalk-- which looks like this:
We grow a providence variety of butter-sugar sweet corn. As the boss taught me-- there's only one way to get a sense for the taste/quality of corn and that's to eat it raw. Preferably right after ripping it off. That's kinda the secret to all this regional small farming-- stuff this good (like tomatoes, berries, peppers, squash, etc) can't survive long distance shipping. So if people want good food, it's not gonna come by plane/train/truck. It's gonna come from small farmers planting good seeds-- so they better have ready customers (otherwise they're probably out of business already). This sweet corn is good for a day, maybe 2, after picking. We only pick what we can sell each day-- which, fortunately for us, means anywhere from 5-18 bags (60 ears apiece) depending on the markets/CSA/weather on a given day.
I think Darlin would agree with me saying-- why bother boiling the hell out of this stuff when it's better as it is.
Darlin snaps some great shots. This is one of our honey bees on a wild mustard weed at the edge of the cornfield. They're an Italian breed of honey bee, one that hasn't been genetically Frankensteined (many, many, many honey bees have been genetically engineered. Chances are, if you're eating honey, it came from engineered bees). The boss loves these little guys, as he says-- like Italians, they're lovers not fighters.
On the other side of the sweet corn. This is the tractor road that separates the corn from the pumpkin patch.
The pumpkin patch. If you zoom in and look into the leaves' shadows you can see the flowers out in full bloom. We really over did it this year, the patch rolls down the field's slope to the woods edge and then down the length of the corn field. At this stage I couldn't tell ya one pumpkin variety apart from another-- but somewhere in here we have: many sugar pumpkins (mostly for use in the farm kitchen for pumpkin pie, but we offer 'em for sale too), over-sized ornamentals, big whites and then some giant novelty varieties (for the kids).
It's a working farm. That it is. Last time Darlin came, if you remember, I touched the camera and screwed all the colors into some apocalyptic gradient. Happy to say-- I'd enough sense this time to leave the camera work to Darlin.
The view of the forest field from the van/tractor road. The squashes managed to survive the vermin and have flourished into something monstrous.
The summer squash.
The zucchini.
The patty pan squash. (Oo, pretty decent sized one too.)
The kousa squash. We've been cutting this stuff too big, people like it small-- so small they'll get. The kousa just above the flower is at the ideal size-- indian/middle east (i think they use it too?) recipes stuff kousa with
lamb and all sorts of good stuff.
The cucumbers. Hard to see, but there's a decently sized fella lying right in the center.
Field cooking a pickling cuke. Step 1-- take out knife.
Step 2-- put away knife and just bite the damn thing whole. As far as cucumbers go, they all sort of taste the same to me-- only the type/thickness of the skin really varies. That said, the picking cukes are a lot sweeter/fewer seeds than your average garden salad variety.
Darlin found the pow-wow/break circle Newport, NYU, Stretch and I left on the east edge of the field (shadiest spot there is in the morning). Judging from how we typically spend breaks-- I'd imagine we were arguing, over a few cigarettes, about who could throw their knife into the dirt best.
Peppers on the way. Nothing (except tomatoes) are as finicky, delicate and susceptible to pests as peppers.
The cantaloupes are coming!
The four rows of cantaloupes have completely taken over their stretch of field-- get ready, 'cause here they come.
Long rows worth of basil-- this is the second planting-- two more basil rows are just off camera to the left. We figured that another row would make weekly cuttings easier/more fruitful, by rotating between rows.
Walking down the woods path from the forest field...
Leads down to the corner of the tomato fields.
The trellised cherry tomatoes are getting ripe.
The big tomato field-- it is so overgrown that the travel rows don't matter anymore. It's just a matter of jumping in and wading through the sea of green.
Walked around the store and followed the road along the horse pond up to the hill top.
The view of (part of) the hilltop fields. Cauliflower/broccoli/cabbage on the right edge leading off camera. Late summer/fall tomatoes in the middle and then more sweet corn rounds on the left.
A handful of arugula leaves from the sad remainders of the hill top greens patch between the corn/stone wall/raspberries. Matured to the point of spicy.
Photo of the winter squash field. Hard to see but if you zoom in-- up close are the 12 rows we've already weeded. The wall of green running to the woods edge are another 8+ rows that have yet to be cleared.
Pulling potatoes. Ehehe, I gave Darlin a little demonstration-- it gets me every time. There isn't much more fun than yanking out red gold. And that concludes the farm photos! We continued around the hill top to munch on raspberries, before heading across to the blueberry fields by the cow pasture. Good day, great day. Darlin and I stopped to talk with the boss, Jockey and Viking. The boss gave us a dozen corn on the house-- ehehe what a sweetheart. We headed out the rest of the day to a big (and free) folk festival near the state capital. Bands were fantastic and food was just as good-- but there was a Zydeco band. Which means one thing-- we danced Zydeco for the rest of the night. What a weekend!
(If you've managed to make it this far, you might as well keep on through the end)
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2 Days in 1
Weather split the day in two. The morning started clear and sunny-- temperature in the upper 80Fs to low 90Fs. The afternoon saw a major front sweep over-- low dark clouds, thunder in the distance, chances of hail/tornadoes-- temperature fell to low 70Fs.
This morning was, finally, the kick off into high season. I met Stretch, Newport and the foreman out behind the store. We grabbed 1/2 buckets (you'll understand why soon) and waded out into the tomato fields. The first rush of Purple Cherokees and Moskvich are ready for picking. We pick tomatoes at 'the break point'-- where the green hue has faded whiter and the tints of red are starting to flush through the bottom. That's the ideal moment to pick-- when 95% of the tomatoes flavor is in the fruit, but you have some ripening lee-way for markets/CSA/farm store/local wholesale. The Moskvich are a pretty straight forward red tomato, so its easy to gauge where their fruits' ripeness stands. Cherokee's are a different matter entirely. Even at full ripeness they remain green around the stem connector, only the bottom/sides take on a deep maroon color. So we picked everything we could-- 'break point' tomatoes were the ideal, but we took anything full ripe/overripe too. The foreman also had us take all ripe/near-ripe but damaged tomatoes-- for the kitchen to make salsas/tomato sauce depending on the stage of fruit trauma. (We pick with 1/2 sized buckets because otherwise the weight of a full bucket would crush the tomatoes at the bottom)
After the Cherokees/Moskvich, Stretch and the foreman went through the striped romans while Newport and I picked a few buckets of plum-cherry tomatoes. We got everything that was good to go-- but there is a ton almost there. We finished the field just in time for lunch.
After lunch we began the post tomato ritual-- we gathered all the buckets under the back awning, stacked flat cardboard boxes, moistened up some rags and started shining up the tomatoes. Of course dead leaves/dirt/imperfections/juice/seeds cake onto the tomatoes and shining cleans that all off. But the real point to shining tomatoes is to sort them out after into their different classes:
--damaged/unsellables go into the kitchen bucket
--2nds (lightly damaged/horrendously ugly/very ripe tomatoes)-- people always come to the farm asking to buy seconds, but they really shouldn't bother. 2nds either go to the kitchen (if they're running desperately low) or to us. The boss brings them home for dinner, he fills bags with 'em for the crew or gives 'em to friends who make sauce. 2nds are a sacred right of farm work, we're never just gonna give them away (or sell 'em, that's what 1sts are for).
We make 2 subclasses for our 1sts
-- 1sts (not readies)-- these are perfect tomatoes (faint damage to unmarred) that have a ways to go before reaching full ripeness.
--1sts (ready)-- the perfect tomatoes, full/near ripe that can go to the store front/marketplace and is ready to sell immediately. Working on this farm has made all the hands into tomato snobs, so finding firsts has a very easy equation-- would you (mr. farmhand) pay money for this tomato? When you think like a picky customer you please the picky customer.
After all the staggered heat and rain the first picking (so the oldest tomatoes so far) were in tough shape. After the ragging was done we had: 5 full buckets for the kitchen, 7 trays of seconds, 4 trays of 1sts (not readies) and 3 trays of 1sts (ready). We pack the wiped down tomatoes real carefully onto cardboard trays, careful so that no tomato is touching another (touching tomatoes rot quickly, or bruise, or spread mold like wildfire if one happens to break in a clumsy transportation accident). So we only pack each tray 1 layer deep. It may not be the most efficient use of space, but the resulting tomato retains that peak quality.
One of the big things we looked for were juicers-- tomatoes whose skin has cracked enough to seep or spill their insides. With all the fluctuations this summer between heat and rain the tomatoes have many cracks, but that's not necessarily a problem. Cracks form when the inside of the tomato grows at a faster rate (due to sudden rain or a hot/sunny day following a rainy day) than the outside skin. Depending on the severity of the crack, most tomatoes will scar over and be fine-- others will crack too deep and become juicers. Purple Cherokees are very susceptible to cracking, but typically scar over without problem. Striped Germans (a very big tomato) also scars easily, but isn't able (due to its size) to scar over as easily.
So we dealt with all the tomatoes.
Next up-- the foreman got tied into tractor work, so the boss, Stretch, Newport and I headed down to the lower fields with buckets. We hit the string beans and picked the entire field length. It was mid-way through that the dark clouds started to cover the horizons and the weather front's cool winds picked up. The boss work right along side us. His daughters, wife and the farm girls have been driving him crazy-- so he was happy to be out with 'his boys.' Newport could get a stone to talk, so he found a ready conversation in the boss. The boss told us how he met his wife, the real and whole story-- from wild college to the west coast to letters to the farm and wedding. He told us about how her parents/family hated him because he wasn't jewish-- about how he didn't care and they eventually got over it. He told us boys about his marriage and all sorts of things an older man realizes-- we just kept picking along and listening to him.
We brought back the beans, packed up the van and headed out again. It was just us and the boss-- we cut zucchini, kousa squash, patty pan and egg plant (large variety/long oriental/fairy tale). We dropped off the catch, grabbed buckets/bags and got back in the van-- up to the hill top. We pulled four buckets of potatoes while the boss wandered out and picked 2 bags worth of corn. The thunder was sounding in the distance, but no lightning so no worries. We brought the buckets and corn back to the farm store, then loaded everything we got today into the cooler (tomatoes stay outside or in the barn, they are never refrigerated).
The weather above looked grim, but the boss said no worries. He had an inkling that all the trouble would blow south of us. Closing time was here, so we waved off and went on our way. Jockey ran out and tossed a cookie for me through the car window-- over the weekend he nearly cut his hand in 2, so it was bandaged up big time (don't know how he managed to throw that cookie). Took my leave and home.
Lots of writing here, so read up and take it easy. King summer is here. More tomorrow.
So get to it.
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