So very September
I have had to learn to appreciate that death is part of farming. A plant grows, we eat its leaves; it flowers, we eat its fruits, and then it dies or goes to sleep for the season, but with each little death I am given a little more life, and in this case it translates to a full pantry and freezer to feed us through the winter. With a Worldwide pandemic still in full swing, having all the food I need right outside my doorstep keeps me safe and secure during uncertain times.
Technically, time is always uncertain, but I jest.
Picking, cutting, and pulling tuberous roots out of the ground, I move through the field like a scavengers on an egg hunt. I count the days until the first frost and try to guess if the sweet peppers will ripen in time.
It’s a time of making space in the fridge, of sanitizing canning jars, and planting the fall seedlings outdoors. The movement is perpetual and simultaneously past present and future. There’s no need to categorize these lines that are more and more blurry.
We’re actively processing all of the food we’re harvesting, loading baskets we got from the Dollar Store onto the porch and keeping the canning pot nearby for the next batch of whatever. Both my office and the front porch are draped with hanging bundles of drying peppers, herbs and flowers. The poor beer fridge is now becoming the pickle fridge, which is also spilling over to the main fridge.
There’s no chance to look ahead. Truly, this is living in the moment.
The pressure is even more intense because I never waste a morsel of food. But if it doesn’t go into our mouths, the leftovers are fed to the chickens, and they return the favor by keeping the compost pile moving along. Round and round, I forever imagine the circle of life in my mind. Nothing must leave this land in waste. Very soon, everything we need will be right here.
With each day repeat the process of tracing my finger around the activities in the field, harvesting, processing and storing food, keeping the weeds at bay (at the very least before they flower), watering if necessary, and finally, removing the spent crops to prep the bed for the next. It’s a zen like pattern and I repeat some phase of it every day of the week.
It sounds very systematic, but I can assure you that it is not. I’ve learned to live with clutter, buckets of harvested vegetables on the porch waiting to be washed and properly stored. Weeds outpacing me. Pain slowly building up in my body from lack of proper recovery.
With each day of hard work I am reminded of my mission to create and share. And with the pandemic limiting most forms of sharing, especially intimate sharing, my mind again drifts to thoughts of uncertainty. Uncertainty about the food system. Uncertainty about our economic future. Uncertainty about human connection and whether we will ever hug again.
But none of this will stop my progress, because in addition to creating and sharing, I also must grow. (Forgive the pun.) Behind the scenes I am generating another to do list which covers all the things that I need to learn more about before next year. Things like cultivating, harvesting, processing and packing. And I must make room for observation, perhaps the most valuable skill in farming. But in this moment that seems to be moving at warp speed, the pressure of right now pushes thoughts of the future aside.
I can’t blame the pandemic for the failure to launch my farm into a business. More likely I lack confidence in farm production. I know I am being hard on myself because I can easily look at all that I have accomplished. Isn’t that enough to start selling something? I convince myself that this is an opportunity to immerse myself in a strong foundation and nourish my relationship with the food I eat, but I know that eventually I will want more. I just don’t know exactly where the fear is coming from.
At the very least, I know that time will move on, hopefully in a forward direction.
My average first frost is right around the corner so I work quickly to replant the beds with cover crops, and use this learning opportunity to explore different varieties. I’m currently sowing rye, barley, winter wheat, mustard, and an oat and pea mix, and each of my five field blocks gets at least one bed of each crop.
I clear the beds one by one, leaving roots in the soil to feed the biology underneath. Next I dig my pitch fork in along the length of the bed sending bursts of oxygen to the soil below before raking them back into order. I do spare the marigolds because they are still blooming, and when the next rain falls, I transplant them next to the blueberries so they can keep feeding the bees.
The process of direct seeding by hand is meditative and slow. Each furrow dug with a long handled hoe, and each seed manually placed in position before being gently raked in. The timing is critical, especially good when planting is followed by a good rain.
I fill the bird feeders often. I leave flowers like echinacea and Mexican sunflower to dry on the stalk. I leave my corn standing to provide safe rest stops for the wild birds.
Finishing their second year, the hops are well established and have just finished flowering. It was a big bummer that we unfortunately lost the entire crop of hops due to poor post harvest handling. For some reason, we failed to realize that we should thoroughly dry the flowers before sealing them in plastic. It’s always frustrating when you make mistakes with things you should know better. For now, the hop vines are laid down on their beds to rest for winter and fava beans are just starting sprout in their place.
Although there are many things that keep me stirring in the middle of the night, September is the first real step downward. The humidity is still high, the pandemic is still roaring, and the upcoming election is still on everybody’s mind, but as other things in the field begin to wane, I sigh a breath of relief and allow knowledge and experience to slowly sink in.
