Thursday. Early morning. Our Chevy High Cube Van is partially loaded with three short pallets of potato chips. Make the deliveries quickly and then head out to a second generation saw mill in Hopkinton, Rhode Island to buy stakes for the tomato plants. As I drive up, I can see continuous streams of wood chips and saw dust pouring from the building's cock-eyed rusty rafters. It's a pre-apocolyptic setting, but friendly and businesslike. I believe I need five foot stakes, and they have only twelve of them. I decide to take these, see how they work, and come back for the additional 117 that I'll soon need.
After the saw mill, I drive to Malerba's, in Norwich. This is the coolest nursery I've ever been to. Their plants are healthy. So far. The people there are friendly, but not sycophantic. It's amazingly busy.
I'm looking for traditional cutting bed flowers. We already have the zinnias, and so Debbie and I decided to find cosmos and snap dragons as a beginning assortment.
I notice that Malerbas is running out of product. The green houses- aluminum frame and heavy plastic - are emptying out. A complex vascular array of piping and tubing litters the seedling tables. I cannot imagine the care and coddling that goes into the production of these plants.
I buy four flats of flowers and head back to the farm.
By the blunt side my medium stone hammer, the stakes
go snugly into the soft soil. The saw mill has used what they call a "pencil sharpener" to fashion a tip on each stake. I suspect that, in fact, these tomato stakes might work well against the cold heart of a vampire. If need be.
Nearly half of the field is still barren, with the exception of a clover-like green ground cover. This is where the beans, corn and pumpkins are seeded. When will all of this burst forth? I wonder. After staking a dozen of the giant cherry tomato vines, I wander over to the seed plots.
First there are the bean rows. I find a few stray white beans on the ground. Each is swollen, and a tiny root protrudes. I poke my index finger into
the soil, and transplant these neophyte seedlings. At the pumpkin patch, I stand smiling into a strong breeze. I can hear distant thunder, but there is no rain. The spirit of pumpkin seed, I imagine, has taken hold. But, alas, The Raven, it appears has stricken. I notice that the stray seeds on the ground have been chiseled open on one end, and the meat extracted... as only a bird can.
Curiosity goads me to check below ground. I find that our pumpkin seeds are in the early stages of germination. A fine strand is emerging from our flat seeds. In a day or so baby vines will be competing with the the ragged ground cover.
There are still sixteen hills to be shaped and an equal number of cucumber sets to be planted. As I start to shape the first, my phone rings. A reporter. Wants to talk about this blog, and likely assess my sanity in this latest incarnation.
"Are you at the farm, Ben?" he asks.
"I am. Speaking to you from my cucumber patch."
After the interview, I come back to solid soil. I stow my phone in the right pocket of my muddy shorts. I finish planting the cucumbers.
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