PUTTING THE "CS" IN CSA.
Today, in the midst of our lazy, rainy morning, one of our shareholders brought us lunch. A beautiful quiche, still warm from the oven, and potato salad. This sweet gesture means so much more to us than you could know, because we have been without a working stove for almost a week. For us, who cook three meals a day and buy very few groceries, this has been tremendously difficult. Our kitchen is literally crowded with baskets of food, and we are unable to eat it! And so, this quiche, this small gift of food, was really a very big gift. It reminded us what a CSA really stands for. "Community Supported Agriculture" is just that - a community. Jesse and I are members of that community as well. We share the bounty of what we grow with others in the community, and in turn, when we find ourselves without, the others share with us. It is not just about the exchange of goods and services and money and vegetables, it is a system of support. It truly brings tears to my eyes to be fed by those we normally are feeding. It has humbled us, reminded us, that we should remember to ask for help when we need it. Reminded us that any feelings of guilt or failure we feel are only what we have placed upon ourselves - we have neverfelt anything but love and support from all our CSA members. We are so grateful for this little meal, for these new friends in our lives, for all of you who have been there for us from the beginning. The shareholders, those who have donated, those who prayed for rain, and those who simply follow along with our ongoing story - you truly are everything to us. So, with our bellies full, we watch the rain come down, softly renewing the dry and dusty soil and bringing hope back to the garden and its farmers.- Hannah.
GAME ON.
When I got out of bed this morning the grass was wet and the rain was still coming––slowly, lightly, but surely. If it would last for a couple hours, we could say with confidence it would pull us from the dryness, and do so with the ideal-type rain for a garden. I got out of bed at 4:45 a.m., it's now 10 o'clock...still raining in the same, gentle way!I ran up to the garden a little while ago and the rain gauge read three-quarters of an inch. It should be near double that by now. We'll definitely need a bit more rain, but MAN, it feels good. It feels good to have rain drops on ours shoulders and mud on our boots. Boots! Something we haven't had to, or been able to, wear for over a month. It feels strangely good to know weeds will germinate and the grass will erupt, that we'll be soon be beating back nature to let us utilize our little garden, because it also means plants will perk up and the color green will return to the farm. The rain still has a lot of missed work to make up for, and it would be nice to get a few more inches over the next week or so, but the garden's wet again, so GAME ON!- Jesse.
UPDATE: 1 1/2 inches and climbing!
FALLING FOR IT.
They say money doesn't grow on trees, but those people are decidedly not farmers. However, our trees (er, plants) need some rain to grow some food to give to our shareholders...and quick! But don't worry friends, this isn't going to be another post bemoaning the drought. Hannah and I are just ignoring it and getting some good work done!Beyond the watering we've been doing––hauling jugs of water up to the garden on a daily basis––we've started experimenting with microgreens! This is actually something we've been wanting to do for a long time and it's only now that we have no choice. If it works, it might help to punctuate our CSA offerings for the rest of the season. If not, then we'll adjust and keep trying because we. love. microgreens. We also went ahead and started a small run of fall items––broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and cabbage––with the anticipation that it will, probably, hopefully, rain again one day. And since the garden is still dry, we've been watering in beans, planting more cilantro, more basil, more carrots and all sorts of other tasty things! There are some possibilities for rain over the next few days, so we're remaining hopeful, working on the last half of our summer season and getting ready for what's going to be a spectacular fall season. And I rarely use the word spectacular, if that gives you any indication of our expectations!Also, everyone wish Wendell a happy 1/2 birthday today (six months old, half way to being a horse). ALSO also, we should be expecting baby bunnies within the next week!Here are some day-by-day shots of the greens. They grow so fast!
- Jesse.
FAIL.
"It's baffling to me that something beyond your control can make you feel like a failure. But welcome to the life of a farmer."-Courtney Lowery CowgillA couple weeks ago Hannah and I received a wonderful book in the mail from our friend Pam in New York...a gift to young farmers, about young farmers. The book is called "Greenhorns: the next generation of American farmers," a compilation of essays by young farmers whose experiences are eerily similar to our own.
The drought has been hard on us, which I know we've let on a little in our blogs, but not fully. Hannah and I want nothing more than to give our shareholders heaping baskets of food to the point in which they are refusing veggies. We want to have so much food leftover the local food pantry and even our compost pile are getting their own large shares! Yet, week after week, we've been struggling to get enough food picked to even satisfy our small CSA.This is our fault and it's not, but that doesn't mean we don't feel all the guilt. 100% of it. We started our tomatoes the very day we got to Danville in March, and got them in the ground as soon as we could and yet, they are still not ready, two weeks into July, seven weeks into our deliveries. But it's hard not to feel like that's our fault. All of the cucurbits––cucumbers, squash and zucchini––are suffering and appear to be slowing their growth. Many of our lettuce attempts have failed. Our herbs got hit hard over the high heat. The peppers haven't had one rain that didn't come from a watering can. Our first two bean plantings have not had good germination or been productive (yesterday was literally planting number five). Things have been stressful, even if we have almost no control over them.
That's where the book comes in. It's helped us to be realistic, that things are not always going to go our way or be under our control, but that we will learn from what mistakes we make, and learn to accept and adjust to nature's whims. In the essay I quoted at the beginning of this post, the farmer, Courtney, writes "No matter how much control our business model gives us, we are still farmers and farming is mostly an exercise in managing chaos––an attempt to control the uncontrollable. No method or scale marketing strategy can change that." This book has helped keep things in perspective, to divide what we are doing wrong and what we can realistically consider nature's hand.The drought continues, and we're actively fighting it. We're gaining confidence to stop feeling so guilty and keep working hard at it. We're increasingly feeling better about the rest of the season, it's just the right now that is hard. If the drought is not going to let up, we're just going to ignore it, and learn where we can. Next year, we'll be able to get tomatoes started several weeks earlier, getting them in the ground in time to benefit from the spring soaking. We'll plant more, of everything. And when the weather doesn't go our way, we'll accept it, adjust and make the most of the things we can control. Nature is not one of them.- Jesse.