Day 86, August 12, 2010

As I schlep my wares to and from the area's better eateries, I'm starting to understand the diverse nature of the chefs I've been meeting. The way they go about their work is not unlike a painter or a photographer.

Consider, if you will, the selection of tomatoes. Chef Dan at the Spa at Norwich Inn (http://www.thespaatnorwichinn.com/) does not like to use Brandywine Tomatoes with rough tops. He's looking for a more perfect tomato, like, for example, my Beefsteak. On the other hand, The chefs at The Ocean House (http://www.oceanhouseri.com/index-alt.php), whom I have yet to meet, have welcomed my Brandywines... at least the first twenty pounds. "We'll take the splits, and we'll use them for soups and sauces, " says Pam Stone, Food Forager. And so it goes with cuisine: painters and chefs are artists, and no two artists see exactly the same way.

Regardless of what one chef may decree, I know that the Brandywine tomatoes coming from the farm, are perfect beyond description, and yet their tops are rough. I normally slice this portion off, and the balance of the tomato is pure summer sublime. I find that some chefs also do this, and some don't. What I have learned is that it is important to be versatile, and to have more than one solution in hand. Listen. Be helpful.

What I have also learned is that although I am selling pathetically small dollar amounts of product to these establishments, I am developing a good rapport with my customers, and it all feels suspiciously like my earliest days with Mystic Chips. I guess that it all depends on what I choose to do once the garden has died down, and there are no cucumbers and bush beans to wrestle with.

Part of listening is followup. When Chef Dan mentions the cosmetic aspect of the brandywine tomatoes, I visit Malerba's Farm and speak with one of their growers. I learn that uneven watering can cause cracking. Although they don't refer specifically to the top of the tomato, it makes sense, and for the second half of the

season I am going to try to water more consistently.

So, here I am, my days are full, working the remains of my company, trying to grow it where I can. Every spare hour is dedicated to growing my garden, peddling produce and building a new base of customers. Seems if I have something good to sell, they'll buy.

Life is funny that way!

P.S. I received the nicest comment from http://www.gardenersanonymous.com/ yesterday. I return the compliment by recommending her gardening blog, thank you Chigiy!

Copyright 2010, Ben Greenfield, All Rights Reserved

day 83, August 9, 2010

As a fledgling farmer, I'm starting to feel oddly self-conscious about who I am becoming. Ever since I first sunk a shovel into this earthbound incarnation, I have noticed a change in my appearance. The tidy J. Crew shorts, vacation and regatta T's I wore last summer are now faded, frayed and shabby... with the shmutzy stains of the blood of beetles, cukes and tomatoes. There is soil and chlorophyll goop embedded in the skin covering my fingers. Debbie insists I need a manicure.

Although I am still passionate about my mission, I wonder if I've been on a three-month acid trip. The field has started to talk to me. Of course, there are the hawks and their bottle rocket whistles. Then there are the yellow finches feeding on thistles, bathing in the dusty,diffused afternoon sunlight, chattily chirping. These are the sounds that lull me into the land. Once there I enjoy a deeper dialogue with my garden.

Like a good friend, this garden is a great listener.

This afternoon, I was crawling through the cucumbers, picking and piling them until I couldn't stand it. There are skeletal remains of turkey parts in the field. Farmer Brown raises the tasty gobblers for Thanksgiving. The seasonal production creates a wonderful mulch. I have found the mummified remains of many turkey feet and heads during the course of my farming apprenticeship. Debbie calls the feet "mojos." I usually toss them to the side, and over the wall when I can.

Sometimes this field tells to me to be careful. It warns me not to go beyond the wall, that giant stone wall that separates this small field from a woodland swamp. The entrance to the swamp is a tangled wall of bittersweet and giant weeds whose broad leaves mimic our friendly sunflowers.

I meant to ask the field where all of the toads have gone. Might they have been eaten by our resident black rat snake, all of seven feet in june? How big is that snake now, and could it come to me in the barn basement, as a giant serpent, as I attempt to turn on the water? We talkin' Garden of Eden?

The field warns me that there is terror in the pumpkin patch. This impenetrable system has revealed only one gourd, a big one which started coloring today. Where are all of the other pumpkins, and why do the looming vines and their creepy tendrils choose to crush my gentle cosmos? Why, in this peaceful environment, must they crowd my corn and convert two rows of bush beans into has beens?

This field, this sharecropper's paradise is shrouded in deep mystery. Perhaps the turkey compost is the cause of the tomato blossom end rot... too much nitrogen in the soil. Hmmm... Maybe the reason for my whimsical ruminations.

The field tells me, repeatedly, that I am here for a reason. It is up to me, of course, to figure it all out. In my daydreams, every split tomato can be an alien embryo, and sometimes when I cannot stand another end-rot tomato, I throw it to the ground. As it smashes, I fully expect to hear the hiss of poisonous gas. While I'm at it, maybe encounter a giant tomato worm. As I prepare to do battle, or run like hell, a giant wasp chooses this ugly worm, with its toxic horn, as an incubator.

I have come to believe that this garden is paradise. It is a heavenly shelter, beyond biblical proportion. Like life incarnate, this task is worth the ardor, the travail, the constant heartache.

Seems there's a magical measure of fantasy in this plot. If truth be the antithesis of fantasy, then let this be fantastic.

Acid test? Far out!

Day 81, August 7, 2010

Friday dawns calmer and brighter, but it is a day of contrasts. Early morning doctor's appointment in New Haven. Dash back to Noank in the hope that I can find a few extra hours on the farm before taking Elizabeth to New London for her dental appointment.

Sad fact. There will be no time at the farm until Elizabeth's teeth are clean and she's been deposited at her friend's house by three-o-clock. It's sleepover season!

As I approach Wychwood Farm, it is close to four-o-clock. The sky is blackening. Large drops of rain begin to fall as a dry front approaches. Screw the rain! I'm determined to make it into the field, and something tells me that this is not lasting rain. Correct! All the same, I want to run home. I am alone in a field that could use at least four pickers. The Bush Beans are large and ready-to-pick. The cucumber patch is ridiculously overgrown and in need of harvesting and weeding. There is general grooming and weeding to do, and beautiful tomatoes ripen daily.

Window into Ben? He's pensive. Reflective. Hates his cucumber patch because they just keep coming. Can't sell them all fast enough. The spiky leaves and spines do not like, and therefore mock, Ben's hands and forearms. When the day is done, and the cukes have been handled more than sanity warrants, folks are paying less than a half-a-dollar a pound.

Window into the moment? There's about 150 pounds of cukes I'd love to give away. Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center? Do they take fresh produce? Any picklers among their clientele? All I can do is leave a message for Vicky Anderson on a sunny Saturday, and hope she calls back before I donate them to the dumpster.

The bush beans.... there are so many of them, and the forager from The Ocean House needs to return my call. Anxiety? I don't have a nice walk-in chiller, just a couple of crummy refrigerators, so it makes sense for me to pick to order.

Customers? Prospects? I remember, weeks ago, when the cukes were first

blossoms, Walter at Water Street Cafe telling me that he can take lots of cukes. He tells me about the fabulous soups and salads he makes. Yet, when I greet him, flat on his denim back, on wet terra cotta tile, at 7:30 early this morning, he's sawing pvc pipe under his clogged two-bay sink. He growls at me, and I feel like a common nuisance. Therefore, while I'm in nuisance mode I remind him that he wants to take all my cukes and tomatoes. My friend of twenty years sends me packing, my timing lacking.

Noah's, on the other hand, is busy with smartly-dressed breakfast folk, fresh from matching, air-conditioned suvs. The manager on duty is prettier, and at the moment, more cheerful than Walter. She recounts a college writing course she'd taken with my oldest son, Sam.

A smile. A lead. Call back after three. I agree!

On my way back to the car, I check with Theresa at Theresa's and she wants to sell some of my produce at her deli. She's talking tomatoes, but I'm thinking she needs some of those damn cukes, a few jalapenos, and a good slug of beans! We shall see.

Finally, Milagro! Tiny, wonderful, busy Authentic Mexican restaurant across from Water Street Cafe. Closed. This is the building where Walter got his start, so many years ago. This is the spot where a talented chef and wife partner introduced their magical fare to the borough nearly thirty years ago. It's a lucky location for any new-comer, as has been the case for Milagro and owner-chef, Martine.

You see, a garden takes so much physical energy, and the stimulant that creates exigency is simply demand... from customers, friends, whomever. I feel sad and annoyed when I sense that food is about to be wasted. On the other hand, I get a thrill out of selling seven dollars worth of peppers and cukes, feel like a boy on a paper route. I have decided that I have always been a peddler. There's a beautiful simplicity in sourcing or creating a product and taking it out to waiting customers. There's even a thrill in rejection, in regrouping and going at it again... or simply going to the next waiting prospect.

Alone at the farm, hopeful at my new produce prospects in Stonington Borough, I approach the field with renewed purpose and a four stroke weed whacker. It's a little past nine, Debbie's working until noon, and her mom and dad are coming by to pick cukes for a personal pickling project. I decide to clean the field up, make a path around the corn patch. For over an hour, the weed whacker growls and whips the weeds into green confetti. Harvesting and weeding in the cucumber patch continues to annoy me, and after an hour, I decide to go home for lunch and a break from my agricultural agony.

When I return, I walk the field, picking tomatoes, considering each for its beauty and perfection, and leaving them in a shallow box at the edge of the patch. Soon, Debbie arrives with her mom and dad. Meet May and Dick. They both seem a little overwhelmed at the scope of our endeavor, but I assure them that every good, successful, venture I have undertaken has seemed insane at the outset. Seemingly satisfied by my disingenuous excuse for an obvious breach in my career, they set out to the cucumber patch. My little hollow of horrors.

May and Dick are each 75. Watching them in the cucumber patch has made this project worth every hour. May has done this before. She finds a cucumber, calls to Dick who stands, wiping his brow, at the edge. "Here's one," she calls. She mixes her tosses like a major league pitcher. After 54 years of marriage, one would wonder what sort of emotion is behind each toss.

"Here, I got it," Dick cries, and the large slicing cucumber finds its way into his palm.

May is waiting, with two more. One she tosses to me, which I grab in mid-air, and the other goes to Dick.

"Ow!" This one finds Dick's chest and bounces awkwardly to the ground.

"Hey, don't bruise them!" Debbie laughs.

After cucumbers, they take some tomatoes, and May picks a beautiful kitchen bouquet of zinnias, snapdragons and cosmos. Once they are gone, Deb picks green beans until she can pick no more. I speak to the chef at Noah's, walking through the field, convincing him, hopefully, that we are not prima donna farmers. I am told to call next week! So, in the end, we clean up, walk around the field, play in the corn rows and come home. Later that evening, we throw away a prodigious amount of cucumbers. Sadly, they were suitable only for compost, hogs, or chickens. I do not yet have such a network. We stop at Milagro for a drink, but it is too busy for us, but it was nice to meet Martine, to see his appreciation for tomatillos and jalapeno peppers.

Day 79, August 5, 2010

It's 8:20. Everyone in the house should be up, but no one really is. I let our feral cat, Lilly Hinckley, in and I can feel the heavy, saturated August air. The sky rumbles ten miles away. It feels, and sounds, like a distant Shakespearean premonition. A dark and dangerous day dawns.

"You working today," I ask Jay.

"What time is it?" he whispers into his pillow as thunder crashes into our house. Rafters and joists rattle. Big drops of rain start to pour

in a cinematic blur.

"About 8:20. You going to take the van? Looks snotty outside," I explain to my sailing instructor son. I use my most embarrassing nautical lingo. Jay expects nothing less from me.

"I'll take the Whaler... likelihood of getting zapped is practically nil." Savoring his hubris, I'm wondering whether on-water safety is part of the curriculum that Jay teaches at Masons Island.

Jay leaves, seemingly washed from our front step, down Front Street fifty yards, and dropped into his eleven-foot Boston Whaler. In the meantime, incredulous at Jay's actuarial threat assessment prowess, I retreat to my computer. A massive lightening strike triggers a utility circuit and the lights go out, along with my computer. As the power returns seconds later, I hear a moaning siren.

As the siren grows louder, it feels like it is coming from inside the house. It's a troubling sound, and I want to find a logical explanation. The dryer vent? A utility alarm in one of the boxes on the poles outside? I step out, draping one of Elizabeth's coats over my head. The rain feels good on my feet,but the siren spooks me. It is everywhere, like light, and I think of Cormac McCarthy's book, "The Road." Yes, it's a pre-apocalyptic feeling.

As much as I am thrilled at the rain, what it does for my crops at the farm, there's a deep lump in my throat, and a feeling of being totally powerless to locate the siren. The prospect of a sudden hot flash of light, and nuclear oblivion, is all too real. Especially with this phantom soundtrack blaring and scaring.

In the end, as the morning plays out, I learn that Jay decided against the stormy river crossing.

"Really? What changed your mind?"

"I guess I got scared when a boat on a mooring, about a hundred feet away got struck by lightning." Jay says he closed his eyes because he wasn't sure if he was being electrocuted. "Driving through the storm was fun, until I got a flat tire."

Deb's sister, Sue, calls, just as the storm is ending. She wants to know if there had been any tornado activity in our area. Apparently our civil servants had activated the early warning alarms, and the reverse 911 call came in after the storm had blown over. In hind sight, it all makes sense, but the terror of the alarms will live with me, can never leave.

It's hard to tell how much rain we got at the farm. Hours later, I can feel the wetness of the ripe cherry tomatoes. I harvested a bunch of tomatoes today, and delivered the lot to Frankie at The Universal in Noank. The field is so oppressively wet and hot that it is tough to work. The bees are all about, and I guess the corn has reached a pubescent stage. From each gangly stalk, ears are developing, each with an awkward shock of golden silk.

Everything in the garden is growing at breakneck speed. Our cantaloupes are big and round, solid and sound. Although I cannot tell how many pumpkins are in the large field, I know we have a few very large green ones.

It has been a strange day. Yet, in a way, it is equally pleasurable to follow the development of a garden, from seed to harvest. I hope we never experience the sirens that lead to blinding white nuclear light. If we do, I think I'd like to be somewhere in the garden, far from warning.

I'd rather be tending to a life incapable of such mischief.

Day 77, August 3, 2010

Debbie is likely among the millions of uninsured Americans. Professionally, she's a Dental Hygienist (Think, "Have you been flossing?"). She lost her job after breaking her arm in a skiing accident. It was then she learned that the job security and benefits she'd enjoyed for twenty years had vanished along with most of our 401K's and home equity values.

Lately, she has been feeling a tingling sensation in her right hand, After a bout of self-diagnosis, she has determined that she might have some form of carpal tunnel syndrome. She says that the tingling goes away after a while.

"Think it might be work-related?"

"No, it would have happened years ago, and my work is not repetitive in that way."

"Think it might be the farm?"

"Maybe the weeding."

"You think so? After only two months? After only one or two days a week?"

"I don't know.... Oh, look! Yoga for carpal tunnel syndrome!!"

She shows a picture, on her IPhone, of a brunette yogini in reverse namaste, my least favorite pose.

"Try it, Deb," I cheer, and she obliges. "You can do it better than I can," I admit. Looks like we both have short tendons, which makes certain poses more awkward than others.

"Aw, come on.... I can do anything you can do better." Deb laughs.

"No, Anything you can do, I can do better!" I smile, waiting for the band to strike up from "Annie Get Your Gun."

Next, she tries Eagle arms, and I'm starting to miss yoga, and its reputation as a panacea, a logical tonic for all of life's ills. In fact, shortly after I met Deb, I convinced her to try yoga, and she tried it... says she liked it.

So, when Debbie gets home, I think we need to send in the information that the miserable health insurance company requested. We have both found that attempting to purchase health insurance as healthy, middle-aged adults, outside of a group plan, is an essentially impossible task.

Perhaps Debbie's right about trying Chiropractic or other alternative treatments. Maybe, if nothing, this will distract her from the present sensations and symptoms. Maybe she'll survive a virus or pinched shoulder nerve while she hopes... and waits... for conventional health insurance, and the subsequent ability to consult with a traditional medicine man or woman. This could be a trip to the Land of Oz, we only recently took for granted.

Perhaps we can grow herbs, or maybe pumpkins big enough to use as Pilates props. We could clean up the garden paths and hold vegetable harvesting, weeding, and meditative yoga classes. "Get Grounded at a Real Health Club! The Farmer Ben Method!"

Ah, who am I kidding? It's probably already being done!

Day 76, August 2, 2010

She appears as a funky, whimsical horticultural ocean liner. Upside down on a Brandywine leaf, she's dead in the water. For a garden pest, she's a behemoth, unsinkable, I'd say. Carrying over one hundred passengers, dressed in cocoons, she is the Titanic, and this cruise is over. Death stalls this caterpillar, like so many others I have seen in the garden. In fact, I have yet to see a plain green horned tomato worm without its parasitic entourage. They are all playing host to the wasps. I leave this poor, dying worm alone, waiting the wasps to hatch and do it all over again.

Speaking of ill-fated voyages, Debbie and I have planned on a mere, "three hour tour," in the garden on a gorgeous Sunday. Unfortunately, we become lost in a sea of unruly, and prolific tomato plants. Because there is so much fruit on the vines, we need to weed, locate each trailing vine, tie it as best we can and then use the stake as a center upon which to lift the fruit off of the ground. Of our hundred fifty tomato plants, we likely pruned and tie about forty. Our three hours turn into eight.

We spend another hour weeding and harvesting cucumbers. The cukes never seem to stop bearing. Debbie is upset because some of them have a little etching on the skin.

"Come on, we're not using pesticide."

"Your point?" she asks.

"Well, I think they're in great shape for field specimens."

"Your point?"

"People peel cucumbers. Our customers don't expect perfect waxed plastic!"

We harvest in silence for a few minutes, and then I find a cucumber that's in pretty bad shape.

"Josh?" I call to Debbie."

"Yes, Brent," she calls back. We joke a lot about Planet Green's latest reality show, "The Fabulous Beekman Boys," featuring ex-drag queen, Josh and his partner, Brent: doctor turned farmer.

"I cannot save this cucumber."

"Oh, don't cry, Brent," she says. "Farmer John will save it." Last week, Farmer John was seen crying, "She's my favorite goat," after he did a digital breech delivery on one of his star-power goats. Brent and Josh tend to cry uncontrollably when they have to witness the slaughter of, say, their hogs, "Porky and Bess."

Honestly, I would find it difficult to raise livestock for slaughter. Not sure how to be that kind of farmer.

As we're about to leave, I call to Deb, "Hey, look, Deb... the corn is growing antennas." Like kids in the park, we run over to the corn patch, and as I later learn, the corn is growing tassels. Tracy Deluca writes in Ehow.com that:

"A corn tassel is the male flower of the corn plant. The tassel is a group of stemmy flowers that grow at the apex, or top, of the corn stalk. These tassels are shades of yellow, green and purple. Each corn plant will grow this tassel on top after the major growing of the plant is complete and when it is time for the ears of corn to begin growing."

Tiring day. After we load the cucumbers and tomatoes into the car, we drive to Buttonwood Farm, ten mile up on Route 201 . There we enjoy an ice cream cone watching fifty head of beef cattle devour a sunflower field.

Day 75, August 1, 2010

The first of August! One can almost hear the rustling and groaning in the farm field. Tomatoes are stretching to popping. Cucumbers and pumpkins are wrestling the cosmos for space. Bees and butterflies are tipsy with pollen, and the zinnias are shining brighter and growing longer, getting better and more beautiful every day. In the back corner, Debbie's Sunflowers stand at attention. Their dinner plate blossoms a welcoming beacon to buddy and drone alike.

In the midst of all of this activity, we are celebrating our bounty by cooking and simple entertainment. Last night, our mutual friend, Christian, and his friend, Jill, along with her Schnoodle, Jenna, joined us for steaks on the deck. I decided to make guacamole and pico de gallo, which is a fresh version of a traditional salsa.... Salsa Fresca, if you will. Here's the recipe:

REALLY GOOD PICO DE GALLO

Printed from COOKS.COM

---

juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
2 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes, (romas are the best)
2 to 3 jalepenos, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt

The seeds can be removed from the jalapenos to reduce heat, if desired.

Mix all ingredients in bowl. Stir well to evenly distribute all flavors and then enjoy. It tastes so good!

Submitted by: Gloria From Texas

I did, in fact, chop all of the ingredients by hand. Everything, with the exception of garlic and lemon, came from the farm. I used 1 - 1/2 jalapenos because I either like to enjoy the food I prepare, or am a basic wimp. In spite of the hand chopping, I made a good call by pulsing the entire batch a couple of times in the food processor. A much more uniform result. Using common tortilla chips, we ate almost the entire batch. I also sliced a couple of tomatoes... a beautiful yellow heirloom and magnificent traditional red beefsteak, interlaced with fresh mozzarella, garden basic, and a sprinkling of common extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

This morning, Deb made an omelet that really honors the concept of left overs. First she sautes a big plantain, and then she pours egg in the omelet pan, lays a coating of guacamole inside, seals the omelet and spoons pico de gallo and a little sour cream on top. The plantain replaces the need for bread, and the entire experience is fantastico!

Today we plan to spend a few hours at the farm. A friend tells me that she wants to come and help, and I sure hope she does. The noise in the field keeps getting louder; The thousands of lives I have set in motion are crying for attention!