PATCHY FROST.
This weekend, after a few teasers, we finally got our first frost. And many plants were effectively toasted. But what a season it has been! We could not have asked for a better year here in Bugtussle to get established. It was never very dry, it was never very hot, it was always sort of wet––albeit occasionally too wet––but it has been a near perfect vintage (if one is allowed to apply that term to vegetable farming) throughout.We don't, of course, expect it to last. We expect drought years and floods, heat waves and sudden, unwelcome cold snaps, but in many ways we felt we were shown some true Southern Hospitality this year. And we're extremely thankful for it.Of course, this doesn't mean the season is over necessarily, just the growing season, the tomato season, the peppers, eggplant and summer crop season. With a frost, in fact, comes a lot of sweetness. Carrots will officially become the sweet, odd little roots we all know and love. Kale will lose its lightly bitter edge and replace it with a touch of sugar. Salad turnips will suddenly go from chubby, spicy vegetables to chubby, spicy apples. If someone were to ask me what my favorite time of year is, it wouldn't be as simple as fall or spring, summer or winter. It's right before the first fall frost, and right after. It's right now, amid the sweetening.- Jesse.
WALKING THE PERIMETER.
Lately, we have sort of been lamenting the fact that Wendell is, in fact, not a good guard dog. During the day, he is basically useless - asleep to the point of comatose - leaving our chickens free for the taking. He is SUPER active at night (as his breed should be), barking and running up and down the road constantly. But even then, he never roams the woods that surround the majority of the house....he just paces the main driveway.Then, just a few days ago, we added a new element to our daily family walk. We started walking the perimeter of the farm, mainly because of the cooler weather and the fall leaves and the realization that we hadn't visited certain parts of the property in months. Wendell was happy to join us. And now? Wendell nightly walks the perimeter. We hear him barking in slow-moving circles all around the farm, deep in the woods. It makes sense - before we showed him the border, he stuck to the driveway where he saw us daily coming and going. He was just protecting what he knew. So I guess we will keep our opinions on his guard-dog abilities to ourselves for a bit, and just keep walking the woods and forming a new path, learning our land and adding a new ritual to these cold, autumn days.- Hannah.
LESSONS OF A YOUNG FARMER: HUMILTY.
A couple years ago when I was a second-year intern at Bugtussle, my mentor Eric and I were cultivating in the garden, but that's not where my brain was. My brain was on my own farm (which didn't exist yet). I was daydreaming about what said farm might look like, what things I would do differently, and I was barreling through my cultivation as I did so––barreling through my cultivation as I imagined I would on my own farm to save a little time."I think you're the only intern we've ever had that can actually cultivate faster than me," Eric said that day.A foreign cockiness welled inside me, and out came the words, "Well, I've got ten years on you," which, as you will realize, is not how you use that phrase if you're actually less experienced. Eric was about to turn forty (and had been farming for well-over ten years). I was about to turn 29... and apparently ignorant. I immediately knew I'd said something stupid.In an unsurprising move after such an arrogant statement, Eric started to go back over where I had been running my hoe and inspecting my work. "Jesse," he called to me, "come look at this."His hand swept through the soil to reveal untouched crust. That is to say, when you cultivate, your goal is to break all the soil––or "crust"–– around the plant to literally nip the germinating weeds in the bud––and it turned out I was not doing that very effectively.Although it was fast, my technique had gotten lazy, and Eric pointed it out. He then took a few minutes to show me his rows, then his technique (for the tenth time and second year in a row), and asked me to return to cultivating the old way––between the plants first, above them, then below them. It's slow, but it's effective.Soon, I noticed Eric was decidedly faster at cultivating this way than I was and, already starting to feel stupid, I decided to tell him so."Well," he responded in an inspired moment, "don't worry, you'll get faster––I've just got ten years on you."I deserved that, and needed it. I needed to be reminded that I still had things to learn; reminded I still had more to learn about what I thought I knew; and reminded I still had a great mentor at my disposal—something that should never be wasted. With six months still left in that internship, I didn't know it, but I (obviously) needed some humbling. And today, I cultivate slowly and deliberately because I learned that day there is simply no point in doing something fast if you're not going to do it right––that goes for internships as well.
BIRTHDAY WEEKEND NUMBER 2.
Lastweekend we celebrated another birthday - this time JESSE'S! Saturday is always a crazy busy day with our Nashville market, but we managed to cram it even fuller.We met up with dear friends for burgers and beer at Burger Up in 12 South, and then spent the evening rejoicing in the wedding of lovely Brooke and Casey, farmers and butchers and fermenters and all-around amazing folks. Their wedding was simple and joy-filled and held at Sulphur Creek Farm. We had so much fun and were up WAY past our bedtime, but it was all worth it.- Hannah.
