Tales of Idyllia

Winter Construction

2012-02-01T18:12:00.000-08:00

February has descended on the farm for the year of 2012 and I thought I would take a break from the winter farm chores to share some of the activities that embroil us this time of year, and more specifically, one in particular. Up to this point in the new year, much of my time has been spent planning and plotting out next season’s plantings and activity. It is a gruelingly laborious task, but without it, spring will attack the most optimistic plans and crush them like a steamroller. Actually, that may be a bit harsh, but nonetheless, without planning, any given year will at best be a chaotic run through a maze of madness. But I digress.

There are many other tasks to be performed as well, for the farm is of course “Nev-R-Dun”. For this current year, activities such as deer fence repair, leaf removal, barn repair, etc., have been temporarily put aside for a greater cause. And what is this greater cause? A greenhouse. I shall explain…

Over the years, I have made many attempts at starting plants in mid-February for the following season: in a greenhouse heated by propane (Tremendous waste of money, and do not believe anyone who says otherwise!), under artificial lights in my basement, as well as using heat directed to small areas of the larger greenhouses. It is this last attempt that has led to what will follow.

The main issue to be faced is that I do not have a heating source for all the space in either of the greenhouses. Since I have made the absolutely final decision not to use any form of fossil fuel heat, an efficient alternative heat source has not been found. The heat sources are relegated to space heaters. Inside a 48’x21’ greenhouse, space heaters have little effect. Throughout the years, I have partitioned off sections of a greenhouse in order to heat “sections” rather than the entire structure.

Then, this year, Kirk made the suggestion for us to build a smaller greenhouse, specifically for starting plants, where heating will be much less of an issue. And so, on Saturday, January 28, Kirk and I set about to build this new structure…

First, spare lumber was gathered for the structure. Both Kirk and I are relentless collectors of spare lumber, so between the two of us, we had all that would be required for the structure, which ultimately was not a large amount.

Next, Kirk graded the area for the greenhouse.

Then the baseboards were attached…

Then the conduit hoops were installed…

Then the end walls were constructed and the door and louvre installed.

With some strong wind all day on Saturday, we decided to wait until Sunday to put up the plastic. Sunday was supposed to be much more calm, which, of course, it was not. Nonetheless, with plastic blowing in every direction, we were able to cover the end walls in plastic. But with strong wind gusting throughout Sunday as well, we decided to delay an attempt at covering the hoops with plastic until later in the week.

With a lesser breeze on Tuesday, we were able to cover the hoops relatively easy.

And on Wednesday, a beautifully calm and sunny day, we finished the main structure. Of course, it is not quite complete, for the grow racks need to be assembled along with other incidentals, which will keep us busy for a bit longer. As for heating in the structure, we have two weeks to experiment with that before the first seedlings will be started.

So this is an example of some of the winter fun we get to experience. Fun? That depends on your perspective. Without having accumulated the wealth to vacation in Mexico sipping margaritas until March, I guess it will have to do.

I've Been Through Worse

2011-11-17T17:18:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, at the end of the 2009 Downtown Westminster Farmer’s Market, I remember hearing two of our farmers tell each other that if you could survive that growing season, you could survive any growing season. You see, 2009 was a year without a summer, which occasionally happens. While it is odd, it does happen. Nonetheless, when I heard that brief discussion, I was struck by it. That year was not especially horrible, at least in my experience. But then I realized how new to market farming the two talking actually were. And while I did not interject into their banter, I do remember hoping that they did not just jinx 2010. Because it could be worse… Oh, it could be MUCH worse!

For many years now, I have learned to take a particular growing season into perspective by comparing it to previous years. After about twelve years of experience now, I have, well, over 1/10^th of a century’s worth of knowledge on seasonal weather patterns at Nev-R-Dun Farm. That really is not a very long a span of time at all, but nonetheless, that is the length of experience I have at my disposal. So, if I were to analyze the 2009 growing season as I did back in 2009, my reaction would be… I’ve been through worse. Indeed, over the years of my experience I can remember another “summer-less” year… where it rained and rained and rained… I cannot remember if it ever stopped raining, but that year was definitely worse. In fact the spring and fall crops in 2009 grew outstandingly well! There were some very good things about 2009. Yes, definitely, I’ve been through worse.

And so, during the last half of my tenure as an organic farmer whatever strange weather situation that has arisen on the farm has been analyzed with such a result… I’ve been through worse. In fact, as the years have passed, that thought has been what has propelled me forward through all of the unfortunate ordeals the weather can cause on the farm… I’ve been through worse. It is rather akin to Nietzsche’s statement, “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.” In fact, in “Twilight of the Idols”, that line is preceded by, “Out of life’s school of war”. Where is the best school of war? Why on an organic farm of course! Bellum omnium contra omnes! (Have I written that entry yet? I’ll have to do that soon, but as for now I have digressed greatly!)Anyway, as my efforts continue to trudge forward through each growing season, I always end up analyzing any unfortunate occurrence with… I’ve been through worse.

And then came 2011. The especially cold spring followed by a month of no rain was a bad start to the year, no doubt, but… I’ve been through worse. The 115 degree Fahrenheit heat index day was a first for me for sure, but, considering it was but one day… I’ve been through worse. Hurricane Irene only dropped 3 ½ inches of rain on the farm and blew over all the tomato trellises… Actually, I had to think about that one. I have experienced more rain, but not the tomato trellises being blown over… But no time to dwell on that now, here comes Tropical Storm Lee. 11 ½ inches of rain fell in three days. And it was right there when I definitely realized… I have NOT been through worse! Add in the 6 inches of snow in October… I have DEFINITELY NOT been through worse!!!

Yes, indeed, 2011 was BY FAR the worst growing season I have ever farmed through. But I did not stop there in my analysis. First off, the 6 inches of snow fall in October… out of the four other times in recorded history that snow fell in October, the most was 2.5 inches in 1925. Throw in a hurricane which happens on average about once every ten years, a deluge of 11 ½ inches, which was last beat by 14 inches in 1972, 39 years ago, a 115 degree heat index day, which I am not sure has ever happened, and that cold spring followed by a short drought… 2011 was very probably the worst growing season EVER!!! And if you follow that reasoning, now that the 2011 growing season is all but over, and the plans for 2012 are being organized, for the 2012 growing season there is now a 99.?% chance that with whatever comes our way during the course of that entire year… I’ve been through worse.

All throughout this past 2011 growing season, my neighbor Kirk of R&R Farm has witnessed all of the abnormal weather extremes fall upon my farm, as well as his. The difference is that most of his animals survived all those extremes while most of my plants did not. Anyway, throughout the year, we discussed solutions, or ways to remedy some of the situations. Take for an example the tomato trellises. The tomato trellis system I have used for the past ten years is top heavy, and that is what brought them down from the strong winds of Hurricane Irene. We have now designed a new system that is much stronger and evens the weight throughout the system. This is too difficult to describe, but nonetheless, we are fairly certain that will, for the most part, remedy the situation.

About a third of the way through the growing season, Kirk and his wife, Jen, decided to partner their farming operation with mine starting in 2012. This is a complicated situation and there are many, many reasons involved. An example here, as I revealed in an earlier “Tales of Idyllia” entry this year, R&R Farm’s pigs LOVE the weeds from my vegetable fields. They also love marred vegetables! What to my farm would be at best eventual compost turns into immediate pig feed. And the pigs have a way of turning that feed into compost… eventually!

That is but one example, one small example of how partnering our operations should aid us greatly in the future. Another is that we have rented another property that is almost ideal for our immediate future plans, that is, elevated, slightly sloped tillable land with a well right next to it. It also has pasture land and more. So, we are expanding despite all of the 2011 hardships. We have been extremely excited about our possibilities ever since. At the time the decision to lease the land was made, we did not realize it, but once 2012 arrives… we’ve been through worse.

And then, on October 29 six inches of snow fell. Ugh.

I received a cell phone call from Kirk. “Tom, we’ve got to be the dumbest” [people]” on the planet to go through all this crazy weather and still look forward to 2012 enthusiastically!” First off, Kirk did not say “people”. He used two other words that added special emphasis that I will not repeat here.

Euphemistically moving on, what Kirk expressed was of particular poignance. As six inches of heavy snow lie on our farms and still having three more weeks left in the growing season, theoretically, we still looked upon that future year of 2012 with great enthusiasm. And still do! For sure Mother Nature and Mr. Murphy teamed up this year, indeed, they were the same power… and to the extreme! What can go wrong definitely did. And what cannot go wrong did as well! What, for example, cannot go wrong? It cannot snow six inches in October! And it did!!!

But that was in 2011. We are long past that! 2012 wears the crown of importance now. And as for that upcoming year, no matter what hardships are thrown our way, by Mother Nature or Mr. Murphy, we are well aware that there is a 99.?% chance that… we’ve been through worse!

Theatrical Performance

2011-11-10T17:57:00.000-08:00

For many years now, I have stated that a farming season is very similar to a theatrical performance. First there is the script, or the farm plan; then the stage preparation, or tilling, planting, cultivating, etc.; then, the play begins! Now, to pause here, not all farms operate the same and they by no means use the same script. My script is very complex. As an example, let’s say… the play is based on The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. What an extremely complex novel that is! So, perhaps my farm plan is not that complex…yet. Anyway, in order to act out such a complex script, many acts are needed. My farm plan requires six acts, one each for the months of June, July, August, September, October, and November. Many scene changes occur throughout the play’s activity, and many diverse characters come and go along the way. Then, once December hits, the play is over. Very few cheers are heard from the audience at that point, but there are a few. Then, it’s off to plan the next script.

After thinking about this a bit, I kind of like that comparison. In fact the more I think about it, the more it seems to truly reflect a farming season, that is, a theatrical performance, inside a theater, with the actors, those behind the scenes, as well as the audience and random stragglers popping in from seemingly out of nowhere. So, in order to analyze this comparison a little better, let’s see how 2011’s script worked out!

From the very beginning things did not start off well. The doors leading into the theater are set up to a timed unlock mechanism. In late February/early March, the doors are automatically unlocked and all the workers for the theater come and get busy working on backdrops, scenery, etc. For the farm, the first step is to till the fields. Unfortunately, MN came by and re-locked all the doors and did not allow them to be unlocked until April! From the very start of the season, we were behind in our preparations by approximately one month!

Before I continue, it seems apparent that a little should be said about MN. You will have to determine who that is, but suffice it to say, that she gets her way whenever and wherever she wants in the theater/farm. Oh, and she can get quite unruly!

But back to the growing season! So, we got a very late start setting up for this year’s performance, but that was okay. Through our many years of experience, we were able to work “around the clock” as the cliché goes and catch up. However, MN, for some reason turned on the air conditioning in April, and left it on all month long! This mostly affected the rehearsals, where all the actors and actresses had to wear heavy coats due to the cold air. Then, on April 16, a tornado descended a couple of blocks away from the theater. While this did not affect the theater, still, a tornado! Man, but MN was in some type of mood! Nonetheless, as professionals, we fought through the diversions, rehearsed, built the back drops, etc., it was time for the performance!

By June, the air conditioner had been turned off, right when it would be most enjoyable! But the theater is what it is, and that means “hot”, at least during the first few acts of the play. Now the first act went fairly well, but MN turned off the water right at the start of the performance. She tends to do that at least once every year, but it is still a hassle, nonetheless, for if you think of the reasons a theater requires running water, well, I will stop there.

So June, the first act went very well, and the audience seemed quite pleased. By July, the second act, it was hot, but that happens every year. MN turned the water back on early in the second act which was quite a surprise. Why? Who knows? MN is, in general, extremely moody. And as a perfect example of extreme mood swings, on July 22, she turned on the heat… as high as it could go! She also closed the doors and windows so that the theater turned instantly into a sauna! The effect of that high heat dazed the actors and stunned the crowd. The performance literally stopped! And also as a result of that extreme heat, some of the actors never recovered and eventually had to be removed from the stage. Oh what a tragedy that was, no pun intended! Something had to be done to the script now that those performers had been removed, but what? The answer to that question was a call to the backup performers, and this was done in August. But before I move completely into the third act, it seems necessary to stress, that none of the performers that endured that extreme heat performed as they should from that point on.

The third act, August, started out dreadfully. As mentioned above, ALL of the actors were greatly affected by that extreme heat, some forgot lines, some just stood in the same place without moving, and some actually died, yes, DIED! Holes developed in the script where the departed could not be replaced, but we trudged along. The first three weeks of August were typical for a normal year, but alas, the initial cast of actors was still dazed and some departed, while the replacements were too new to their roles to make an impact at that point. But we trudged along…

On August 23, MN pulled a prank on us that NONE of us expected, and I mean NONE! I am convinced that she had been drinking at that point, and by that time of the performance she was getting downright nasty, because… an EARTHQUAKE shook the theater. This theater is on the east coast where there are no earthquakes. What the…? Nonetheless, the only damage from the storm was a beam fell in the attic of the theater, an unimportant beam, so, all in all that was taken merely as a prank.

What we were not aware of at the time was that that was just a precursor for what MN was to do in the very near future. By this time, I am convinced beyond any doubt that MN was downright drunk… and we were not even midway through the performance! First up… Hurricane Irene. Tremendous winds and a heavy downpour knocked out the power in the theater for six days! What a fiasco! At one point, MN opened the doors and a fierce gust of wind tore into the theater twisting some of the props and knocking others completely down. How could we go on after that? But we did! There is no other choice!

Act 4. The power was restored on September 2, and on September 5, the first drops of Tropical Storm Lee were felt. MN had turned on the overhead sprinkler system! We finally got power, and now this! The unfortunate part of the situation is that she refused to turn the sprinkler system off… for five days! What an awful mess! Almost everything was ruined, and beyond merely drenched actors and sopping wet scenery, but the very theater itself suffered significant damage from that unfortunate situation. It took weeks to get some of the stuff to dry. The actors were incensed. Some refused to perform after that for weeks, and others actually quit entirely, and that is not to mention those that drowned! Ugh! And it was only the beginning of Act 4!

But then… MN disappeared. Perhaps she passed out from drunkenness. Who knows? The remainder of September went smoothly, albeit without the intended prop and sceneries and a significantly distorted acting core. And, as mentioned above, we trudged along…

MN did not remain passed out for long. As soon as the fifth act, October, began she cranked up the air conditioning. Once again, the actors were stunned by that extreme temperature… this time cold. Luckily that only lasted a couple of days, but still, it had quite an effect on the actors. As October went along, it seemed to get back to “normal”… but where was MN? We had not seen or heard of her for virtually the entire month! In the meantime, some of the surviving replacement actors had begun to deliver their performances and things were looking somewhat optimistic for a powerful end of the entire performance.

But then… MN reappeared. How she managed what happened next is truly beyond me. On what little remained standing in the theater, on October 29, she dumped six inches of snow! October!!! Six inches!!! This was historically unprecedented!!! For two days we dug through that awful mess, only to find all of the props and scenery destroyed, and all of the actors dead or dying except for only a few. Oh how horribly MN had treated us up to that point. That said, WHAT NEXT?!!!

As for the sixth act, November, MN finally settled down, perhaps she finally passed out from her drunken spree, but it was too late to really salvage anything through all the destruction. But the audience had paid for their admission, so we trudged along. Nothing out of the ordinary happened for the rest of the performance. And as the silence settles on another theatrical performance, it is time to start writing the next script…

A Day in Idyllia

2011-10-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

On October 9, few clouds spotted the clear blue autumn sky, as the sun warmly toasted the farm to a high of 79.5 degrees Fahrenheit. After a month and four days of horrific weather, fall had descended upon the farm in a delightful fashion. Birds flittered from the tree branches, scurrying around with spring like glee. And the intoxicating aroma of German White garlic consumed that autumn day of continued farm activity.

I was sitting on top of the two steps that lead to the back porch of the farm house. The activity for the day was to plant the German White garlic cloves for next July’s harvest. The first task was to break apart the large bulbs of garlic into the individual cloves. Ah, what a refreshing task! There is something about the scent of garlic that greatly enhances one’s mood, and as each one of those multiple bulbs that I had saved for specifically the reason to plant as seeds were broken apart, a sense of relaxation enveloped me as that warm fall sun continued to illuminate the farm.

The next step was to plant the cloves. I drove over to Kirk and Jen Robertson’s R&R Farm with the garlic planting stock. Their farm is .7 miles away from Nev-R-Dun Farm, up the dirt road of Hughes Shop, then around the corner on Murkle. When I arrived there was plenty of activity going on; Kirk and his father in law were installing irrigation line, Jen was helping, and their kids were running around like little kids do.

We quickly set upon the task of planting the cloves. The row that we had designated for the garlic planting had been tilled earlier, the one up against the fence to the cow and chicken pasture. Jen helped in the process, where we took the cloves and pressed them three to four inches into the loose soil down theoretically straight rows. There is not much involved in the process of planting garlic, but as the aroma of those delicious cloves waft in the air, the task is oh so pleasant!

In that one row, which is about five feet wide, four strips of garlic were planted about a foot apart. While I was planting the first strip, with my back literally up against the cow/chicken pasture fence, chickens constantly neared my activity out of curiosity. And the sun still shone brightly in the sky.

Garlic is such a wonderful, and somewhat unique plant. It is one of the few that gets seeded in the fall for a summer harvest. Theoretically, after seeding the cloves, in a week or two, green sprouts will break through the soil and grow until the hard frosts and full on freeze, but the growth of the plant has been started! Once the soil thaws and warms in the spring, the garlic plants revive and quickly grow into quite beautiful plants. While almost nothing else in the early spring garden shows sign of life, a green stand of garlic promises a wonderful July!

But of course, we are in the land of Idyllia, which means whatever can go wrong will. In our case, for that particularly warm day, nothing did go wrong. However, garlic, which is such a delicacy to humans, is also quite desired by other creatures that infiltrate the farm, especially groundhogs! Oh, how I hate those despicable creatures! And that was precisely why a row of German White garlic was being planted next to the cow/chicken pasture on R&R Farm. The chance of a groundhog attack is slim in that vicinity, but I have probably just jinxed that situation…

As my back was against the fence, slowly moving down the row sticking garlic cloves in the ground, I felt a presence behind me. I was squatted down in a baseball catcher’s position, and as I turned my head to investigate the presence, I found myself face to face with one of their larger cows, separated by a couple of inches… and a fence. What a startling site to see! The cow’s head was bent down toward the black crate I had the garlic in, apparently sniffing that powerful aroma. Do cows like garlic? Hmm. Perhaps groundhogs aren’t the only mammals to be worried about! But that is for a later day to investigate. (Kirk has assured me he will reinforce the fencing there to make sure he doesn’t wake up one day to his cows in the middle of the row chomping on fresh garlic!)

So, the day proceeded in quite a peaceful fashion. There was a time when the young kids, I believe the oldest of the two is seven, the other possibly three, decided that they wanted to help Mr. Tom plant the garlic. Kids really don’t know how to help, but the day was peaceful, the weather serene, so the “new helpers” did not get in the way… too much.

After planting the row, I drove back to Nev-R-Dun Farm to plant another garlic row there. The sun was descending in the sky at that point, and the temperature was falling as well. As birds skirted about the fringes of the field that should have been mowed months ago, and others sang from tall trees that surrounded the scene, the rest of the cloves were planted. The work was done.

It is sometimes strange when a day as peaceful and uneventful as that befalls the farm, for so many of the other days involve… an earthquake, hurricanes, tropical storms, groundhogs, rabbits, etc. But then the thought of having to leave the farm to find employment arises… No, I will take Idyllia, with all the hardships and unforeseen disasters. And on such an extremely peaceful, warm and sunny day in fall for planting garlic, I will drink up that day like the finest of wine. Some of the days in Idyllia ain’t half bad.

What's This?

2011-10-20T19:05:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was over at my neighbor’s, R&R Farm, helping to clear some feed corn stalks from their vegetable garden. The intention was to till up the row nearest the cow and chicken pasture, then replant it in German White garlic for next year’s crop. It was somewhat cool, but the ground was dry enough, finally, to be able to till.

Before continuing, it seems more description will help here. The area of their vegetable garden is a little over a hundred feet long, and it is bordered on one side by the aforementioned cow and chicken pasture, which is separated by metal fencing that keeps both the cows and the chickens on the other side of the fence, that is, in the pasture. Now, throughout the year, Jen and Kirk, the owners of R&R Farm, toss random vegetables and weeds into the pasture, where the cows or chickens eat up those scraps. As a result, when they see human activity in the vegetable garden they mosey on over to see if any goodies will be acomin’ their way.

And mosey they do… at least the cows. The chickens tend to sprint. While I was pulling out those confounded dead corn stalks, in what seemed like only a couple of minutes, there were two cows up against the fence watching my activity. One minute there were none, then, multiple spectators. And not to forget the chickens, they were there too. They are always near. But anyway, there I was with dead corn stalks in my hand and animals looking for a treat only feet away. Surely they wouldn’t want a corn stalk, would they? On one of the stalks there was an ear of dried corn still attached, so I pulled it off, and thus my experiment began…

The vast majority of beef cattle in this country are raised, at least the last portion of their lives, on CAFOs or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. These operations have as many as a thousand cattle that are penned in cramped lots of concrete, where they are fed mostly a diet of corn, (genetically modified, of course), so as to fatten them up as quickly as possible for slaughter. (If you would like to see how they operate, watch Food, Inc.) The situation of CAFOs is both cruel and very unusual punishment for the cattle, where they are fed an unnatural diet, in cramped and disgustingly unsanitary conditions. But without getting too much into that topic, suffice it to say, that that type of farming is completely opposite to the type of cattle raising on R&R Farm, where the cattle are raised on… grass!

The reason I bring this up, is that on CAFOs, corn is the main, if not only, source of nourishment for the cattle. The thing is, corn is not part of a cow’s natural diet. Grasses are there natural diet. Some genius figured out that since corn growing is subsidized by the government, and is endless in supply, why waste land for cattle to pasture, when you can pen a thousand of them up and feed them all the wonderful subsidized corn they can eat, which does fatten them up, and since they are sold by the pound… more cashola! And the cattle form of factory farming was born! Agriculture became more about money than health, for humans or the cattle…

But enough on that. The issue for that particular day on R&R Farm, was that I was standing near a couple of cows patiently awaiting a treat, and I had an ear of feed corn, albeit not genetically modified, in my hand. So, I pulled back the husk to reveal the golden kernels and stuck it over the fence toward one of the cows. The cow did not seem to be too interested in what I had to offer. After a minute, I dropped it on the ground near it to return to work.

After the ear of corn was on the ground, the cow bent and sniffed. “What’s this?” was what it seemed to question. It brushed it with its nose, then stared at it for a while,… then slowly mosied away. I was actually stunned to witness that. For some reason, I thought the cow might actually lick the ear of corn, if not nibble on it. But no! Nothing doing! It had absolutely zero interest in that product which is almost exclusively fed to CAFO cattle. (Of course, the CAFO corn is genetically modified…)

Before the cow had mosied too far away, I felt guilty about my experiment. The cow had anticipated some treat and all it was offered was junk food, that is, food to it that is junk. I saw a lambsquarter weed that was only about three feet tall, (they don’t grow the eight foot weed variety I produce on my farm), and pulled it from the ground. The cow saw my activity and paused. As I walked to the fence with the greenery, the cow approached. It sniffed what I offered, and promptly bit into it! Cows like lambsquarter!

I am simply amazed to watch the different animals on R&R Farm when offered the different types of vegetation. If their senses tell them it is good, they devour it quickly. If the senses deem the food not desirable, they leave it alone. In a similar way that is how I grow my vegetables. Instead of concocting some formula for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to add to the soil for a certain crop, I add lots of organic compost, which has all kinds of healthy minerals in it… and let the plants decide what to eat!

Over the year, I have watched and learned some of the animal’s dietary preferences. While pigs love wild chicory, especially the root, they will not touch bell peppers. And while cows like pig weed and lambsquarter, they won’t touch corn, unless, of course, they are confined in tight quarters with corn as the only option for food!

And as for that lonely ear of corn abandoned on the grass of the pasture… fear not, for there were chickens on the pasture as well. Chickens love grain, especially corn!

Watch Where You...

2011-10-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

…land, stink bug! Those were the words I verbally spoke when a Brown Marmorated stink bug alighted on my t-shirt by my left shoulder over a month ago. It was not the first or only stink bug to land on one of my shoulders, nor the only type of bug, but, nonetheless, they all met the same fate.

Now that it is October, and after experiencing an earthquake, hurricane and tropical storm, not that those natural occurrences have anything to do with the topic, it seems to be an appropriate time to report on the state of stink bugs on the farm, and in particular the Brown Marmorated stink bug.

First off, there are many, many types of stink bugs in our region, and this year in particular, the rainbow display of varying types made their appearance in full force. From the normal brown variety, to the Southern green, to the Rough stink bug, to the vibrantly colored Harlequin stink bugs all made a solid appearance in 2011. They feasted on… everything! This year the populations were larger than normal, but it was by no means in epidemic proportions.

Second, as for the Brown Marmorated variety, the non-native, Asian species, that was feared to defoliate the east coast… Okay, maybe that is going a bit far, but nonetheless, they were feared to appear in incredible numbers this year. I am only speaking of Nev-R-Dun Farm at this point, which has quite a healthy bird population, and bird’s love stink bugs… to eat that is, but while there were noticeable numbers of those beasts, those numbers were not significantly higher than in past years. In doors, now that is another situation entirely.

So, after 20 weeks of harvest, the assessment is that stink bugs are relatively in check at the farm. For the most part, they thrive amongst weeds that act as protection from prey, such as birds, or me. Once weeds are removed, the numbers are significantly lower. In other words, weed removal needs to be improved. But that will have to wait until next year.

But now back to the beginning of the entry. “Watch where you land, stink bug!” I have witnessed a couple of new things this year about stink bugs. The first I will come back to in a minute, but the second reflects upon the title of this entry. At least a half a dozen times this summer, I heard the familiar “buzz” sound of a stink bug draw near, and then witness that creature land on my shoulder! It did not happen only once. Through my scientific approach to all things natural, if events or situations repeat themselves, those events or situations are most likely not random. But why do they land on my shoulder? It is quite strange.

Before I continue, at least a half a dozen other times this year, I witnessed the same situation with squash bugs. They too landed on my shoulder. Squash bugs are closely related to stink bugs, so, deduction would state that something with those particular type of bugs are attracted to a human’s shoulder. But perhaps it is only my shoulder that attracts them. (Don’t tell any of the Extension Office people. They’ll start wheeling me through every orchard on the East Coast hoping for a new means of extermination. Ugh, what a thought!) Perhaps also, it could have something to do with my wardrobe, which for the entire summer consists of a white t-shirt. Are they attracted to white?

Oh so many questions arise, with little hope of drawing a significant conclusion at this time. Nonetheless, this strange trait of theirs has been noted. Perhaps in the future more conclusions will be drawn. As for now, I will return to the first new situation I witnessed about stink bugs this year. All but one of the stink bugs and squash bugs that landed on my t-shirt met a quick death through the use of TFF. (For those unfamiliar with TFF, that stands for “thumb and forefinger”, which is completely acceptable by organic standards.) The first stink bug to land on my shoulder this year met a different fate. Allow me to explain a little first.

I have researched stink bugs many, many times over the years, and on more than a few occasions I read that a person should wear gloves when dealing with those creatures because they can burn a human’s skin. Preposterous! I have squished countless thousands of those things, and countless thousands of their kin the squash bugs. Burn the skin? Never! Whoever wrote that obviously does not know what they were talking about!

Those were my thoughts before this year. In fact, to back up those thoughts, stink bugs are considered a delicacy in different areas of the earth… that is, a HUMAN delicacy. They are a bird delicacy everywhere! If dealing with those bugs caused irritation… how would the activity of eating them work? Something like hot peppers?… Ah… perhaps something just like that, but back to that first stink bug.

Let’s say it was late July. It was hot, the sun was “beating” down, and the sound of a stink bug in flight neared. My activity was that of weeding a row of beets, those delicious red and gold beets, that… Where was I? Oh yeah. Thoughts were aflutter as a stink bug landed just below my left shoulder on the white t-shirt I was wearing. Damn stink bugs, I thought, and without a moment’s hesitation, my right hand smashed the bug against my t-shirt, thus killing it instantly as its carcass fell to the dirt as future fertilizer. One less stink bug in the world. Hurrah! And then, a minute or so later, I felt a slight burning sensation just below the top of my left shoulder. Why that was exactly where I smashed that stink bug! I lifted my T-shirt to look under it, but saw nothing. However, later that night, as that slight burning sensation still lingered, there was a noticeable red spot on my skin, sort of like a grave stone for that dead stink bug. And that red spot remained visible for over a week!

Could it be? Could it really be true that squashed stink bugs can cause skin irritation? Perhaps all those I scoffed at were correct in their assessment of stink bug goo. It burns! I would love to concretely deposit a law about stink bug innards causing skin irritation, but, alas, I only smashed one on my more delicate skin areas. I learned my lesson too quickly! But nonetheless, it does make sense about the skin irritation. And the reason why the TFF approach, that is the smashing of stink bugs between one’s fingers, does not cause skin irritation would be along the same line as chile peppers. They do not burn my fingers. Either through calluses or something else, I can pick and squish chile peppers without any sense of burning as a result. Others merely touch them and they feel their burn. So, perhaps, just perhaps it is true, stink bug innards can cause skin irritation. (If anyone wishes to do a test on themselves with this, please let me know your results.)

But now back to the beginning again. After all, this entire entry to this point is completely superfluous to my initial intention. That intention was to alert the stink bugs, and squash bugs for that matter, that all landing zones in a garden are not necessarily safe places to alight, such as my t-shirt. Really, the whole point of this entry was to alert those damned stink bugs, “Hey, watch where you land!”

Supply and Demand

2011-10-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

There have been countless times in my life when I have witnessed a person talk about the economic “theory” of “supply and demand” in absolute awe, as if standing before some famous idol or relic. Personally, I have never been so struck by such a simplistic analysis of economics, but then again, and I admit this quite freely, I have spent little time contemplating economics in general. I would more prefer to screw my thumb to the table for enjoyment, but I digress.

Supply and demand… what is it? The answer is quite simplistic actually. Let’s take a bag of fresh, local organic spinach as the example. It all starts with the supply. If there is a small amount of fresh, local organic spinach available and there is great demand for that fresh, local organic spinach, the value of that fresh, local organic spinach raises. If there is a large amount of fresh, local organic spinach and low demand for that fresh, local organic spinach, the value of the fresh, local organic spinach lowers. It should be quite easy to figure out the other possibilities by deduction at this point.

So where does that get us? More specifically, where does that get us in the world of fresh, local organic vegetable production? Nowhere. Here I shall elucidate a little. Over the ten years I have been producing organic vegetables in and selling to Carroll County, Maryland, the demand for the organic produce is quite large in comparison to what is actually produced. Now any true capitalist would be making “bank” selling that produce, as the saying goes, realizing the rule of “supply and demand”. The equation would look like this: small supply + large demand = “bank”. But that is not at all how it actually works. And before I move on, the possibility of an oversaturation of organic produce is almost non-existent. Therefore, the approach to pricing to follow is not one led by fear of future competition. (But here I seem to have added one form of complexity that “supply and demand” does not. I have digressed again.)

My intent has always been to offer organic produce at prices similar to conventional produce in the stores, which as any successful organic farmer knows, is idiotic. However, that has always been my “intent”. The reality of farming organically has caused me to raise some prices to justify the extra difficulties involved. But, nonetheless, I have continued to try to offer my organic produce at a “fair” value to the “local” customer. The reason for this, mainly, is for the customer to realize what a great deal they are getting by purchasing from my local organic farm. For if they purchase directly from me, that relieves me from having to travel with the organic produce to far off places willing to pay the higher prices justified by the extra effort in farming organically, thus also incurring travel expenses. When taking into account all the factors of travel, etc., the lower prices charged for selling locally has tended to be worth it. And the customer gets produce day fresh, which will have much more flavor and last quite a while longer than anything that can be purchased in a store.

“Supply and demand” will scoff at this approach, for sure. The point for “supply and demand” is to make the most money while the supply is small, before the competition arrives that will force the prices down due to the now greater supply. And it is precisely here where I come up upon the wall I refuse to scale. That wall needs to be destroyed. What wall is that? The wall of “supply and demand” when it comes to fresh, local organic produce! Oh, I realize that the words I write are quite blasphemous, at least to those who hold ideology to be more important than actual reality… but I have digressed yet again…

Before I relay my thoughts on the previous paragraph, I will describe one example of “supply and demand” that occurred recently at the farmer’s market. And the example this time is… fresh, local organic spinach! How perfect! About a month or so ago, I harvested a few bags of organic spinach from Field 1. This was the result of an experiment to see if I could get spinach to grow during some of the hot months when spinach is definitely not available locally. To explain, spinach loves colder weather and abhors the heat. In the heat, seeds will not germinate and the plants, that is, if the seeds had actually sprouted, bolt, which means those plants immediately grow to produce seed stalks instead of the delicious leaves. However, as the result of my multiple years of experience growing organically, I suspected that I could trick the seeds to germinate in the heat of the summer, and then keep them somewhat cool in order to produce those delectable leaves. I had success, albeit very minimally. Nonetheless, that which was harvested was brought to the Downtown Westminster Farmer’s Market to sell.

So, there I was at the farmer’s market with fresh, local organic spinach, a product VERY much in demand, and absolutely for certain, I held the only supply. The demand I have known for many years, for customers constantly ask me whether I have spinach regardless of the month or season, and as soon as I set the bags out on the table, they tend to be purchased instantly. So, again, there I was with fresh, local organic spinach. What should I charge? I thought. And this was when I decided to test the law of ”supply and demand”.

When the first lady approached my stand, a long time customer of many, many years, she asked if I had anything new that week. “Spinach,” I replied. “Really?” Her interest was piqued, for she knew that spinach that time of year was… unheard of! “How much?” she asked. “150 dollars.”

It was quite a hearty laugh that followed that rather serious reply of mine. But why was that? Supply and demand dictates that since I had THE ONLY fresh, local organic spinach anywhere around, since the supply was so thin, and the demand was so incredibly great, $150 was surely not too great a sum to request for a product that would normally sell for $5.

When the next customer approached the stand hearing that I had fresh, local organic spinach for sale, she laughed at the $150 price tag as well. Hmm. It seemed to be a trend. Why did that price evoke laughter? Then, Regina, who is the owner/baker of The Farmer’s Daughter, sent her very young son over to my booth to say she would like a bag and asked how much. Since her booth is just across the center aisle from mine, I could hear her son tell her the price. “I’m almost willing to pay that,” she stated. Progress! Of course, since Regina is a business woman, she gets the “supply and demand” rule, BUT, for her as well as the others mentioned, the price eventually settled upon was the normal $5. (As a small aside, my neighbor, Kirk, has suggested that if I had asked for $100 I probably would have gotten it. Perhaps I was a bit TOO greedy…)

Alas, there goes my vacation to the… Riviera. Who am I kidding? I may as well say the Riviera is going to vacation at Nev-R-Dun Farm. There is an equal chance of that happening. (Digressions, digressions…)

The point that I am attempting to make here is that when it comes to farming fresh, local organic produce, “supply and demand” should have nothing to do with the pricing. To take such an approach would be to sacrifice integrity, and one does not get into farming fresh, local organic produce if one does not stand by one’s integrity! The situation described above was, while true, as in it actually happened, it was all in jest… and the customer’s knew that. Those customers realize that I sell my produce for fair prices, and they also realize how hard I work to deliver those goods.

That said, the prices that I ask for my fresh, local organic produce is actually not as random as it may sound at this point of this entry. The value placed upon those crops is a mathematical equation that takes into account all that goes into producing those crops, most of which is labor. Since I am also not one of the greedy types, I do not place the value of my actual physical labor at… a billion dollars, like many CEOs of colossal companies do for sitting behind desks, or perhaps golfing. No, such an approach… to food is ludicrous. And yet, somehow, those CEOs of Big-Agriculture still make those billions even from the cheap produce found on supermarket shelves!

Ah, but I do not want to get into all of that. The stand that I wish to make, that is to disintegrate that looming wall of “supply and demand” in regards to fresh, local organic produce is to simply state, that all I ask is for the customer to pay me for that produce’s actual worth, as in, to pay for the effort that went into producing it. And this is where “supply and demand” comes in. If it is mid-August, and tomatoes are stacked high on every farmer’s table at the market, don’t expect for the value of the tomatoes I have to sell to diminish due to a burgeoning supply. It still takes the same amount of effort to produce those tomatoes. Tomatoes are a perfect example of where “supply and demand” can kill a farmer’s efforts. And we farmers must stand united in our approach to this situation. Instead of lowering prices to “get rid” of excess tomatoes, stand proud, and sell those tomatoes for what they cost you to produce them! Food, especially fresh, local organic produce should not be subjected to such silly whims as “supply and demand”. It takes too much effort!

Finally, if “supply and demand” truly dictated the value of tomatoes this year at the market, when a hurricane, followed by a relentless tropical storm, followed by extremely low temperatures for the end of summer/beginning of fall fell upon the local farms, the price for a fresh, local organic tomato… if you could find one… would surely be $150!

FRUSTRATION

2011-09-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

Since August 29, events have continually befallen the farm in such a manner as to be considered quite concretely… frustrating. As of today, September 28, it has been a 30 day stretch in the middle of the farming year that has been completely out of whack with “normal” summertime weather. It is well known that the seemingly random dice roll of what the weather will be is almost never predictable. It is also known that such extreme weather, such as tropical storms and hurricanes, are not only not rare, but almost to be expected, to a degree, that is. Nonetheless, to have unfortunate event after unfortunate event occur with almost no break between them is EXTREMELY frustrating… especially when one is attempting to make a living with plant life underneath of all of that!

Having written all that, if what is above was the actual topic of this entry, the title would be “Frustration”. The title, however, is “FRUSTRATION”. While having a week long power outage be followed by 11 ½ inches of rain is EXTREMELY frustrating, it is, after all, the result of the unpredictable weather. What is to follow, the reason for the title, “FRUSTRATION”, is also the result of the weather, but it is a little different. Hopefully I will be able to explain that in the following paragraphs.

However, before I engage on that activity, a few things do need to be clarified.

After the extensive deluge as a result of Tropical Storm Lee, followed by the next 2 ½ inches that fell shortly thereafter, and the 2 ½ inches that fell shortly thereafter that, what has resulted in the ensuing weeks has been anything but “revival”. Instead, the many plantings in the fields linger in “limbo”, if you will, for they have not grown as they would in a “normal” season. As the ground remains saturated, there is PLENTY of moisture, and the sun actually made an appearance this week! And, the temperature rose above 70 degrees Fahrenheit!!! Nonetheless, those wearied plants have grown very little over the last couple of weeks. As unfortunate as that is, who can blame them? If you were forced to stand outside during that unending deluge of rain lasting over four days, would you want to grow? Perhaps I should adjust that question. If you were, say, somewhere between the ages of four and ten, and forced to stand outside during that unending deluge of rain lasting over four days, would you want to grow? Actually, “want” is a trivial word at this point. Avast, I have lost my line of logic. HOW CAN ANYTHING GROW AFTER SUCH A RELENTLESSLY BEATING DELUGE?

But that is all EXTREMELY frustrating, as stated above. And that has also not been the last ordeal. After standing in muddy soil, and in some cases a swamp for over a week, some crops literally died. Poblano peppers and sugarsnap peas are two examples. The pepper plants were dead within a couple of days. The sugarsnap peas, that were just starting to produce those delectably sweet pods, with flowers all over the tops of the plants that were taller than me, died much more slowly. That took over a week to happen. Nonetheless, they died. Now all that is left are brown and dried up vines limply hanging from the pea trellis. And that, indeed, was EXTREMELY frustrating! But, again, that was the result of an incredible amount of rain not at all common for the region. Also, successive rows of sugarsnap peas have been planted over a month period, so there are more crops to come, hopefully…

Alas, the damage did not stop there! Over the next couple of weeks the “bruises” started to appear; spots, blemishes, and well, rotting on lettuce leaves, spinach, chard, kale, beets… what else is still alive at this point?! The situation had gone from “bad to worse” as the cliché goes. But that is farming. “What can go wrong will. And what cannot go wrong will as well!” At least that is how I define farming. Oh! And then there are the diseases that have developed on the plants kept water-logged in temperatures below 70 for a week… without any sun! Ugh! How more EXTREMELY frustrating can it be? Or GET???

I discovered the answer to that last query over the last couple of weeks, as I attempted to accomplish a necessary part of organic farming… weed eradication. As an organic farmer, there is no quick answer to that situation, such as spraying some form of nefarious carcinogenic herbicide on those weeds. Without such evil practices, the most efficient approach is cultivation. That approach uses tools to slice through the soil, thus severing the weed plants from their roots and killing the unwanted vegetation. When the normally loosely dry soil is saturated, that is, mud, such an attempt at cultivation is impossible. To begin, it is virtually impossible to walk through the pathways between the rows without sinking several inches into that mud. Second, cultivators are worthless in such a situation. They are useful in much drier soil. Try cultivating in mud sometime and you will quickly understand the situation.

And yet the weeds continue to grow at an astounding rate! You see, those weeds, whether they are lambsquarter, galinsoga, pigweed, or any of the multifarious varieties found on the farm, have reproduced for countless generations on that particular land. Through the evolutionary process… they are PRIMED to THRIVE on that land, regardless of the weather! And so, the weeds grow and grow…

As an organic farmer, without the possibility of cultivation, the resort is “hand pulling” the weeds. If only that were possible!!! Mud simply does not allow for such an endeavor! However, this leads to the “FRUSTRATION” of this entry. WEEDING! What a task that is! And for that FRUSTRATION, I will revert to memories of childhood. I do not remember how old I was when the order was thrust upon me to “weed the beans”. Nonetheless, it was a grueling and ultimately fruitless task. Perhaps I was 10, but I cannot remember, but the daunting torture of traveling down a row of beans to pull out all of the weeds in the row was endless! My mind did not encapsulate the end result…, that is, those splendid beans… that we ate EVERY DAY! Why were beans so important? They even came in neatly labeled cans in the supermarket!

In those days, weeding the garden was one of the worst chores required. Now that I am an organic farmer, weeding is no longer a “chore”. It has graduated to the level of a requirement that is absolutely necessary. Countless hours are required every year weeding the many, many, many, many rows on the farm. It is beyond laborious… and never done! But now, now that for close to a month the ground has been too saturated to weed, aka that chore that I had abhorred as a child, multiplied to a level that young mind could not possibly comprehend, with weeds growing inches every night, is BEYOND frustrating! It is the epitome of FRUSTRATION!!!

Tropical Storm Lee

2011-09-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

At 4:03pm, Friday, September 9, 2011, the sun appeared from behind the clouds!!! And by 4:05pm, it was hidden, yet again… The last time the sun had made an appearance in our mid-Atlantic sky was five days earlier. During certain times of the year, that is, most often in the winter, that may not be so uncommon, but in early September, that is beyond “out of the ordinary”. Nonetheless, such was the situation as Tropical Storm Lee made its way from the Gulf Coast into the mid-Atlantic region… and refused to leave.

But this story starts long before then. And I will pause here to state that this is merely one, that is, ONE farmer’s experience in a particular growing season that has been ravaged by completely out-of-the ordinary weather. Across the globe, similar plights happen to farmers every year. Personally, I am well aware of that. What is to follow, nonetheless, is the accounting of events that befell my own farm, and how such unpredictable weather can “crush” a farmer’s best intentions. So, put a smile on, we are about to embark on quite a ride… oh, and don a raincoat as well!

I will start with the earthquake that occurred around 2pm on August 23. Now that was odd. But that quick tremor passed quickly and had no affect on the farm other than rattling some of our nerves that strange day. It was on August 27 that Hurricane Irene made its way up the East Coast, remaining a “hurricane”, instead of weakening into a “tropical storm” as usually happens that the first out-of-the-ordinary events truly took place. Whereas an earthquake is EXTREMELY out of the ordinary, it had no affect on the farm. Hurricane Irene, however, did.

My father informed me that it was 2am on Sunday, August 28, when the power went out at the farm. I live a little over a mile from the farm, and as luck would have it, my power never went out. Anyway, three and a half inches of rain were dropped on the farm as Irene passed through the region. Normally, again as tropical storms pass, what is expected is a deluge of rain and some heavy winds, but for the most part, damage from that extreme weather is minimal. The amount of rain that fell was somewhat average for such a storm, but the wind damage was something else. As the heavy wind coming from the east for the most part whipped around the fields, it mangled ALL of the tomato trellises, leaving most of them on the ground, and twisted quite a few plants into a very unfamiliar… mess. Nonetheless, the damage was not too bad, and as the sun reappeared later that week, not much was thought about Hurricane Irene, other than that electric power had not been restored to the farm. And of course, the tomatoes were split into unrecognizable globes of goo.

Since this has all been related in another entry, I will skip to when the power was restored: approximately 6pm, Friday, September 2. At that point in the evening, I was personally quite drained of energy, due to the lack of power and the extra effort required to overcome that elongated power outage. However, the Saturday market’s harvest had been gathered, so, on to better things, that is, the Saturday market!

That evening, I checked the weather forecast on the internet. There was a good chance of rain expected for the afternoon. The prediction was quite wrong, for it was maybe an hour into our farmer’s market that rain began to fall, as well as lightning striking quite nearby. As a veteran market farmer, I know CONCRETELY what that means… Almost no customers will venture out in such inclement weather. So, after having spent extra hours transporting water to the farm to wash produce, much of that produce remained unsold on my tables at the end of the market. Ugh.

I returned to the farm that day rather deflated from the weather/power outage situation, but I had no idea what was to come. And what was to come began to make an appearance on Monday, September 5. No sunlight shone on the farm that day, for Tropical Storm Lee was arriving on our Mid-Atlantic doorstep…

September 5: One inch of rain fell on the farm. All in all, in was a moderate day. The temperature reached the mid-Seventies, and the wind was not severe. I was able to harvest for the Tuesday CSA share with little difficulty, although the site of the ravaged tomato plants as a result of Hurricane Irene was quite disconcerting.

September 6: Over night, the temperature dropped noticeably. As rain fell sporadically, and sometimes fiercely, throughout the day, that temperature did not raise much. The high was 60 degrees Fahrenheit, quite a low temperature for the beginning of September. It was at that point, as the temperature remained so low, that I first had that “inkling” that the farm situation was in for something quite drastic. From my experience, such constant low temperature, combined with constant moisture leads to one thing… disease. (On plants that is.) While only two more inches of rain fell upon the farm that day, I was quickly surmising that there was much damage, as yet unseen, that would be quite visible on the produce… should the sun ever shine again on that produce!

September 7: Wednesday. It was the day to harvest for the Thursday CSA shares. And what a miserable day that was. Nonetheless, I must assert that I have lived through similar days countless times throughout my farming experience. It was a day of constant rain. My boots were saturated within minutes, but the fields were still able to be harvested. As a farmer, you “suck it up”. You “deal with it”. Rain saturates every inch of your skin, but you “gotta do what you gotta do”. Again, I am used to that. But this repetition was on day three! Trudging through mud in early September is definitely not a normal occurrence. But the CSA shares were harvested, the temperature remained cold for September, and after the day had passed, another 3 ¾ inches had fallen on the farm.

September 8: Thursday was an absolute deluge. Rain fell and fell and fell. The temperature remained in the 60s, and there was simply nothing that could be done. At that point over ten inches had fallen on the farm over the last couple of days. Every step taken upon grass was akin to stepping into a marsh. Admittedly, I did little stepping that day. The day was for naught, that is, for farming purposes. Oh when would the sun shine again? As that miserable day ended, another four inches of rain had fallen on the farm.

September 9: Friday. Day 5 without sunlight. It was harvest day for the Saturday farmer’s market. And it was still early September. Oh, how to explain the dismay over not being able to achieve that goal! The rain, for the most part had passed, but the last deluge that fell overnight ravaged the fields in a manner I have never witnessed before. My experience relates how excessive rainfall will result in some erosion from certain rows. Since my fields are on low lying ground, this is expected. And also planned for! But Friday revealed something quite different than ANYTHING I have ever witnessed on the farm.

The first thing that struck me, as I attempted to walk down a particular hillside to a field in the valley, was that there was standing water… on those hills! Every footstep landed with a splash! How was that possible? By the time I got to the valley… Okay, I need to pause here, because it was not a valley, but a swamp! To put it simply, in my forty plus years on that property, that was an unprecedented situation. And then came the harvest, or at least, the thought of harvest. In the front field, what normally would lie as dry dirt had been transformed into quicksand. Literally! I learned that quite quickly when I thought I was stepping on solid, that is, compacted soil, and my boot quickly sunk ten inches into the mud in an instant! I remember oh so clearly looking at red beets, eggplant, beans, etc., and realizing that there was no possible way to harvest that produce in that quicksand/mud.

Amazing! It was so incredibly humbling to witness what Tropical Storm Lee delivered to the farm. Over 11 ½ inches of rain had fallen on the farm by the time Tropical Storm Lee finally left the region. That was truly unprecedented in my lifetime. And by the time the rain had stopped, I felt like a boxer after being pummeled relentlessly for rounds, backed up against the ropes… just waiting for the bell to sound the ending of the round.

At 4:03pm last Friday, that bell sounded. The sun broke through the clouds! The round had ended! But alas, that was not the end of the fight! There are many, many more rounds left to endure! So, battered, bruised and extremely tired, the bell is sounding for the next round…

Barter System/Why R&R Farm's Pork Tastes so Good

2011-09-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

After power was restored on the farm this past weekend, I decided to indulge in a couple of feasts, which there is normally no time in the season in which to indulge. So, on Saturday, I pulled a pack of bacon as well as a ham steak from my freezer so that it could thaw out, and I could cook, then devour. My justification on such feasts was that after the earthquake that was followed by Hurricane Irene, constant rain was on its way from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee. It has been a very rough year so far, and after the cold, cold spring, etc., weariness inevitably overwhelms me, realizing all of the effort put forth… which failed to a great degree to produce the intended crops, mostly as a result of those unpredictable extreme fluctuations in the weather. If the reader is not a farmer, this is difficult to comprehend, but nonetheless, in lieu of say, a weekend, or a weekend couple of hours off, I decided to take an hour vacation, TWICE!, in one day. The menu of that vacation consisted of bacon and ham!

On Sunday morning, I cooked up the bacon for a breakfast feast. Now to explain a little, this is not your ordinary bacon. That bacon originated from pigs raised on my neighbor’s farm. R&R Farm is the name, and Kirk and Jen Robertson are the farmers. But again, this is not your ordinary bacon. After frying up the bacon and making a couple of egg and bacon sandwiches, my palate was overwhelmed with sensual delight! It is absolutely amazing the taste difference between the big agriculture confinement pig source of bacon, and that which is naturally raised in friendly confines, that is, outdoors, in fresh air and… well, I’ll get back to the rest later. Oh what a feast started that day! All of the other chores of cleaning up the mess behind a storm that passed a week ago, and only having power restored hours ago, were assuaged by the feast of that unbelievably delicious bacon!

But that was the start. As dusk fell, I cooked the ham steak, along with some veggies left after the market. While the chard and beans, etc., were delicious, that ham steak was a culinary masterpiece! The flesh was so tender, and juicy, but beyond that, the flavor was… perfect! How to explain this? I am personally well versed in the consumption of confinement-origin pig/ham, and that is why the taste difference struck me so startlingly. That ham steak from R&R Farm was the first one I had sampled from them, and I was simply dumbfounded by the intensity of the flavor. As weird as it may sound, the flavor was absolutely… natural! Again, I do not have the words to describe how delicious that feast was, but there was a sense of satiety, a fullness that my stomach and internal organs related that is not the same after consuming confinement ham. It may seem like I am overdoing my assessment of that pork, but I assure you that that is not the case. At every bite, you tend to pause, then think, “Damn, that is really, really good!” Then, you take another bite and the process is repeated!

So what is it that causes the pork raised on R&R Farm to taste so delicious? I have questioned that extensively. After witnessing a restaurant chef/owner experience the same delight over that pork, I have realized that there is something VERY special in how those pigs are raised. The ability to "move" must surely have a great deal to do with the texture of the meat, and the fresh air surely assists in the pig's health. But I suspect a lot of that pork flavor initiates from the food the pigs devour. How does the wise saying go? "You are what you eat." And what do they eat? To a great degree, the answer to that question can be found 1/2 mile away from R&R Farm, down the dirt portion of Hughes Shop Road to… Nev-R-Dun Farm! But allow me to elucidate… with pictures!

Weeds! Pig feed!!! Natural green vegetation certified organic by the Maryland Department of Agriculture! This is a picture of Field 9 at Nev-R-Dun Farm, just one of the fields in which I grow the incredibly nutritious organic feed for the pigs to thrive on at R&R Farm just up the road. There are so many plants those pigs love found in that green mess that it would be impossible to detail completely. However, there is lambsquarter, pig weed, poke weed, low-lying...something or other whose name I do not know, ...other plants whose name I do not know... OH! And purslane! They LOVE the purslane!

Here is a picture after the pig feed has been liberated from the field, thus revealing a row a lettuce. Beans are under the white row cover to the right. While pigs love beans and lettuce too, those crops only seem to reach them after us humans have gotten our share first. I mean, after all, who harvests all those delectable greens for those pigs?

After the pig feed has been harvested, with great amount of laborious effort, I might add, the pig feed is loaded onto the pig feed delivery vehicle, otherwise known as my truck. (Don't let the big white water tank in the bed of the truck throw you off. It has nothing to do with the pig feed process.)

Usually, the pig feed, that is, lambsquarter, purslane, pig weed, etc., are transported in five gallon buckets. However sometimes those plants thrive excessively well in the farm's heavily composted soil and grow to over six feet in height. Those do not fit in five gallon buckets, but are hauled "as is" and normally dangle over the sides of the truck bed, but I digress...

Upon arrival at the farm, the pigs recognize the sound of the pig feed delivery vehicle. This duroc pig eagerly approaches the feeding area.We are rapidly approaching the proof of how good that organic pig feed is for them...

"Ain't nothin' better than this Nev-R-Dun Farm greenery", they would say, if they were not so busy stuffing themselves with it! It is the manner in which they "tear into" those greens which is so incredible to witness. Pigs do not "love" to eat everything. If it does not smell right to them, they will leave it along. An example of that are bell peppers, even ripe orange or red ones. They won't touch them. But when they are given tomatoes, melons or squash... Look out! And the same goes for those delicious Nev-R-Dun Farm greens.

This is the older sow. No younguns at the moment, but she knows what's up. Pig feed is a-comin', and as usual she can't wait! Actually, the one that REALLY can't wait is the boar to the left of her. He was so impatient for that pig feed that I could not get a clear picture of him. No big loss. He's just a really big glutton anyway. I'm pretty sure his thoughts are "Eat, eat, eat..." almost exclusively.

Feedin' time! There is no hesitation between the feeding and the eating. The situation is a little unfortunate in that paddock, that is, the one with the older sow and the boar. The boar wants to eat EVERYTHING and constantly pushes the sow away from the pig feed. To alleviate that boar's greed, pig feed is dispersed in different locations of the paddock. Here, the sow gets to peacefully dine alone. Unbeknownst to the boar, the sow usually gets the really "good" stuff.

Now here are the adolescents, otherwise known as "feeder" pigs. Their paddock is a little removed from the driveway. They can hear the delivery truck long before their share of organic produce is delivered. As the five gallon buckets are carried to this fence, they run up the spot in the picture to the left, and press against each other, as though they were in a scrum. It is like they are prepared to wrestle for it. Fortunately, there is plenty to go around for all of them.

"There's nothin' better in the world than this Nev-R-Dun Farm produce!" that light colored pig is thinking. At least, I'm pretty sure that is what she is thinking. (Check out the different dialect spoken here by a Yorkshire mix from the Duroc above.)

Lastly, and definitely, not leastly, is the latest mother of the group.While the greens are behind her, she always seems to expect them delivered in front of her. (That does sound odd, does it not?) Anyway, the greens are tossed over her head to the clear area behind her, only when they pass over her head, she does not grasp that they will land behind her. And so she mourns a bit about not being fed, then eventually turns around to see a mountain of pig feed just waiting for her! And her piglets, as well...

The piglets are a little more amusing to watch. They have only just started to wander around the paddocks a week or so ago, and that is all a "new world" to them. They are curious, but very skittish. At sudden movements, they will quickly dart off in the opposite direction. When the greens are tossed into the paddock, they will scamper a couple of feet away, only to immediately scamper back to dig into the feast. I am always struck on how young they are when they learn to eat their veggies!

And so now you have been provided visual proof as to why R&R Farm's pork tastes so good. Once again, it is the manner in which those pigs "tear into" those greens that lets you know how good it is for them. Sometimes, after the last paddock has been fed, the first may already be finished eating all their greens! Nonetheless, I am going to assert that the statement, "You are what you eat", is extremely sagacious, and that it truly reflects why R&R Farm's pork tastes so good. Sometimes, when I take a bite of R&R ham, I can swear I taste...purslane!

But this entry is not quite done. The other part of the title is "Barter System". You see, all of that pig feed, I mean the tons and tons, the innumerable truck loads of that pig feed, is harvested and distributed to those pigs free of charge. (I will reflect on an alternative situation at another time...) What our two farms have developed is a form of barter system, where we trade things, or labor, etc., instead of exchanging money. For the feeding above, after coming home from the farmer's market on Saturday morning, I was greeted with this wonderful pile of firewood scraps from their farm! What a fair trade! The scraps from my farm end up as delicious feed for their pigs, and the scraps from their farm will keep my house warm during the winter months! (More things to come from this front. Stay tuned...)

Hurricane Irene (continued)

2011-09-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is electricity to be restored at the farm.

Kindest regards,

Tommy Reinhardt

Day 6 without power: Upon returning to the farm on Friday, there was still no electricity. The electric company expected to have the power back on some time in the evening. Unfortunately, Friday is a major harvest day, which means that water is required to clean the produce. As a result, the first hours of the day were spent trucking water to the farm. Harvest started late. And harvest was not completed as darkness fell upon the farm.

However, the bright point of the day, no pun intended, occurred sometime before 6pm. After harvesting the Ruby Red chard, I climbed the hill from behind the house toward the front porch with a crate of that wonderful produce in tow. As the hill was crested and the lilacs were passed on the left, the strangest of sights befell my eyes. The front porch light was on! That was my beacon to alert that power had been restored. And indeed, power had been restored!!!

Ah, but alas, my energy, my vigor had long dissipated. The day was growing old, and all that that electricity seemed to reveal was a very disheveled situation. All of the extra effort put forth to overcome that elongated power outage really seemed to sink in at that point. There were more crops to harvest… but no time to accomplish that feat. And so, as darkness descended once again, at least this time assisted by artificial light, the produce was cleaned and loaded into the van for the next morning’s farmer’s market.

The story of Hurricane Irene is finished, but Mother Nature was not finished with her unexpected intensity. The forecast for Saturday was for rain storms to develop in the afternoon. It was not long after the market started that Saturday morning, when the first storms arrived, in fact the only storms for the day. It has been probably two years since the market has experienced such a rain storm, which has been quite a blessing, but the timing of that downpour could not have been worse. What inevitably occurs when it rains on market day is that very few customers brave the weather to purchase the fresh produce from our stands. And that is exactly what happened that Saturday. After all of the extra effort to harvest produce sans electricity, etc., that produce stood quite idle on my own farm’s tables as rain fell throughout those few hours of our farmer’s market.

All of this described about Hurricane Irene and its aftermath, I personally log under Murphy’s Law-Extended. Whereas Murphy’s Law is: “That which can go wrong will”, the extended version is: “That which cannot go wrong will as well”!!! What else could that be? Well to start, there was a very moisture laden Tropical Storm soaking the Gulf Coast at that point, and its future path would be northeast…

Hurricane Irene

2011-09-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday/Sunday, Hurricane Irene rampaged its way up the east coast of the United States causing quite extensive damage. It was quite an out-of-the-ordinary hurricane, in fact it has been the only “hurricane” to ravage this far up the east coast while I have been farming. The following is how it affected my farm, that is, Nev-R-Dun Farm.

To start, most of the time that a hurricane develops very far to the south and out to sea, by the time it gets to mid-Maryland, if it ever does, it is inevitably a tropical storm at that point. I have experienced a few of those, and they almost always seem to appear precisely when the Downtown Westminster Farmer’s market is open on Saturday mornings. Since I have a stand at the Downtown Westminster Farmer’s market, I have clear memories of how nasty such a situation can be. In fact, if my memory is accurate, it was during a tropical storm/downgraded hurricane, I think in 2004, that the last remaining members of our market at that somewhat remote time linked our small grouping of canopies together and discussed/enacted our coup d’état of the Downtown Westminster Farmer’s market, since customers were almost non-existent in the torrential downpour. To not get into great detail about that, we decided at that point, some seven years ago, that we would be a “producer only” market. While that approach was by no means a new one, it was quite foreign to Carroll County at the time. Anyway, tropical storms are definitely something we have experienced at the market over the years.

This past Saturday, many years removed from our coup d’état, there were quite a few customers that stopped by the market. The big difference this year was that the big storm coming up the coast from the south had not yet arrived. Clouds encapsulated the sky, and occasionally a stiff breeze pushed through the market, but all in all, it was a somewhat pleasant morning and quite a relaxing break from the heat so ordinary this time of year. However, throughout that morning, a common question was presented to us farmers. “What are you going to do about the hurricane?” Yes, indeed, it was not a “tropical storm” heading our way, but an actual “hurricane”! Run! Panic!

But that is not how we, at least, those of us seasoned veterans of the farming war responded. For the most part, the answer was, “Nothing.” Then, after witnessing the incredulous expression on the inquirer’s face, “There’s nothing we can do. Whatever will happen will happen.” It is a rather realistic approach to nature’s ultimate force. There is no way to protect crops from such storms. Whatever will happen will happen. We have been through countless situations where nature works against our best intentions, and even those not quite inspired by the “best”, if you will, but nonetheless, we are merely stewards to a land which nature will treat however it wishes. Perhaps this is difficult for those who reside in well-protected air-conditioned houses to comprehend, but it is what it is. So Hurricane Irene is coming? Hopefully there will be some produce remaining after she passes.

After the market ended, as usual, I went back to the farm to get some work done before the impending deluge. To pause, from my experience, at least in our somewhat elevated area, and also somewhat removed from the coast, tropical storms normally just dump loads of precipitation upon us. There is definitely an increase in wind intensity, but from my experience, it is nothing to be all that concerned about. My intention last Saturday was to till up some of the rows to plant some more fall crops. After emptying the market van, I entered into the house, that is, my parent’s house, for they live on the farm that I use while I reside 1.2 miles away, to tell my father something. I remember closing the statement to him with, “I hope to get some rows tilled before the rain.” I then walked outside and everything was drenched. So much for tilling. Hurricane Irene was arriving.

At that point, I was relegated to some greenhouse work. By the time I cut off work, it was getting dark, and the same stiff breezes and light sprinkles continued to fall from the sky like they had for the last few hours. I checked my rain bucket before leaving the farm and it measured one inch of rain at that point. That was all for outside farm work for the day.

The next morning, the breezes were much more intense, but the deluge had passed over night. From my house, which resides in an oak tree forest, what passed by overnight did not appear to be overly intense. So, I made coffee, drank it, checked the internet, then drove off to the farm.

The first thing I noticed at the farm was what I somewhat expected. All of the trellises that support the numerous tomato plants were severely bent over and very near to the ground if not completely on the ground resembling some form of dead soldier. I did expect something like that to happen, but it was much more severe than anticipated. Anyway, I looked at the greenhouses and they seemed okay. I checked the rain bucket and another two and a half inches had fallen. The deer fences were still upright, although some were no longer at a ninety degree angle. The row covers over the beans were ripped off, but still lingered near to the intended row, unlike past tropical storms where they were found hundreds of feet away from their starting point. All in all, the damage did not appear to be too intense. In fact, with more close up inspection, the bell peppers were lying on the ground which always happens after such rains. Chard leaves were twisted around in a vortex. Sugarsnap peas were affected in a similar fashion. But again, all in all the damage did not appear to be too intense.

Then, I went into the farm house, my parent’s house, and flicked on a light switch. Nothing. Oh, I thought, the farm must have a power outage. That would surely be no big deal. The power would surely pulse anew shortly… That was Sunday around noon. When my father returned to the farm from an excursion later that day, he informed me that the power went out at two o’clock in the morning that Sunday. That was a rather long period to be without power, or so I thought at the time. And so, I went about some normal farm activity and eventually left for the evening.

Day 2 without power: Monday was a bit odd, simply because the use of water was restricted since the well pump was not working. But my neighbor, Kirk, bailed me out (kind of a weird term, no doubt) for I had the Tuesday CSA shares to harvest… and clean. He helped with the harvest and we cleaned the produce over at his farm, which still had power and is on the same road on which my own house resides. Those of us who reside on Murkle Road still had power. In fact, we never lost it!

Day 3 without power: Now Tuesday was a bit rougher to work through. It was on that day that I realized how much water I actually consume. Containers of water had been filled from my house and brought to the farm, but only a pitcher for drinking purposes. Tuesday is a WORK day for me, which means that I tend to sweat a lot in the heat of the day. That pitcher of water was consumed quite quickly. That was when the ordeal of not having power at the farm was first truly felt. Instead of turning on a faucet for instant relief, travel time became a quotient. All of a sudden, daily activity on the farm became quite a hassle. More specifically, the transplants on my grow racks needed to be watered as well as the greenhouses. Thankfully, the fields were saturated, but the normal ease of turning on a faucet was not an option to satisfy those other areas.

Day 4 without power: Wednesday was another hassle day. I have neglected to mention up to this point that we borrowed a generator from a friend to power my parent’s freezers and refrigerators. That was arranged on Monday. That in itself took quite a bit of time to navigate, but you have to do what you have to do at times like this. On Wednesday, the generator ceased to work. Yet more time was spent on activity outside of farm work. Nonetheless, I was able to harvest for the Thursday CSA and clean the produce, once again, over at Kirk’s place. As for the produce, I need to use an aside here on the tomatoes. They are probably done for the year. Every single one of those tomatoes were split to a degree that was unsalvageable by the deluge of rain that fell. That is the fate of heirloom tomatoes after heavy rain storms. And with those plants ravaged by the winds on those now veritably prone trellises, I fear those crops are done for the year. Hurricane Irene was their coup de grace. Perhaps, just perhaps, Hurricane Irene was more damaging than initially suspected!

Day 5 without power: By Thursday, I kind of had the routine down. I filled the tank of water on my truck the night before and used that water to irrigate the new broccoli transplanting, as well as the new rows seeded of spinach and salad mix. The generator was brought back functional, and once again the loud roar of the machine echoed throughout the day. The weirdest part of the day was when I wished to eat something and my hands were covered with mud/dirt. Luckily, there was a bucket with water in it on the back porch where I could at least wash off most of the dirt. Its “organic” dirt anyway, how can it be harmful?

The newspaper has stated that the electric company expects to get to our area to fix the power outage some time on Friday. That is tomorrow. We’ll see. I have left the farm for the evening as I write this. My prediction for tomorrow, that is, most likely, Day 6 without power, a MAJOR hassle day. With the harvest for Saturday’s market looming, and no running water at the farm to wash the produce… well,… to be continued…

Organic Inspection and a Couple of Hummingbirds

2011-08-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

I have elected to start with the two hummingbirds, since that is the most recent in my memory, although both occurred in the same day, that is, this past Tuesday, August 23, 2011. This may appear to be an odd paring for a title, but I assure you that it… might make sense by the end of this entry… I hope! (What does not make sense is how the “p” on my keyboard has decided to become dysfunctional. How does one deal with that? Press harder! But I digress.)

It was 4:45pm when I began weeding Field 3 Row 8, but weeding is not quite an accurate term. First off, somewhere within the tight verdure of weeds were red beets, and perhaps some gold beets, or at least that was the theory. Anyway, the row consisted of a variety of… plants, from purslane to pig weed to lambsquarter, all of which… pigs love to devour! Technically, beyond weeding, I was also harvesting feed for Kirk’s pigs. And to jump ahead a bit, man, but those pigs LOVED those greens, as one group of pigs snorted their dismay over not being tossed those delectables first… but I will get back to that in another entry.

The day was incredibly un-August like! The temperature was in the 70s (Fahrenheit, that is), and for some reason, it felt rather peaceful and stress-free. So, I continued to find small beet plants beneath the towering plants listed above and liberated them from their “weed” enshrouded captivity. It was after 6pm, when I heard/felt a rumble.

I have to pause here, because what I am about to describe is the approach of hummingbirds. To begin, I am not sure what species of hummingbirds they were. I have a few bird books that I have paged through, but none of the pictures are accurate to what I witnessed in the field. There was a definite presence of yellow on their torsos, and since they were so close to me, that is undeniable. The fact that they were hummingbirds is also undeniable, since the rapid wing motion all the while hovering in one place in mid-air produced that “humming” for which they are named.

And I will pause again here to assert that a more accurate term for those birds should be “rumblingbirds”. The term “hum” suggests harmonious resonance, whereas those birds’ wing beats is somewhat dissonant. As a person who has learned to tune stringed instruments to a hum for a couple of decades, there would be no way to tune such instruments to a hummingbird’s wing “beat”. In fact, that sound resembles something far different, but allow me to describe…

So, I was weeding, or harvesting. My mind, as usual was deep in thought, when a slight rumbling was heard, and felt. (And this is what I hope to describe accurately!) There is not so much a “humming” that is heard, as… a tremor in the force, if you will, only not evil. It is a mellow “rumbling”, as though a far off plane is approaching the airport runway to the south of me and soon will be roaring over head in its descent. But, that sound did not grow so intense. My thoughts were ceased that day, because that rumbling was subtle, and continuous, and once it was actually realized, it was realized to be VERY close. Over the years, I have learned to latch onto the sound of hummingbirds, simply because they seem to be so human friendly, and because of that trait, they intrigue me greatly. In much the same way the stink bug’s short brusque buzz alerts me to their presence, the rumbling wing beats of the hummingbird alerts me to them.

When the sound settled into my brain that it was a hummingbird in the near vicinity, which in some strange manner resembled that of a mellow pulsing diesel engine, I paused my “harvest” and looked for the source. The row next to me contained bell peppers, and a wire trellis was installed over those plants, which resembles a clothes line about six feet in the air. I noticed the first hummingbird as it hovered just before the wire of the trellis staring directly at me. And that is the thing with at least that type of hummingbird. They specifically approach ME, and hover just over head quite passively. There are no flowers around to source nectar, there is nothing which could be the focus of their stare… other than ME. This has happened so many times over the years that it has to be the case. By why? Why do hummingbirds feel the need to “meet” me? I still find the situation very odd.

Anyway, the second hummingbird flitted in with nary a sound and perched on the wire of the trellis. Then, the first hummingbird started to dance, if that is what it should be called. In mid-air, as its wings beat incessantly in its diesel-esque tone, it stared straight at me, then shifted to the left, then the right, then forward, then to the left… Actually, I cannot remember its “steps”, but to witness that bird’s actions, I SWEAR that bird was dancing! And the second bird just stared at me from the wire. All that time, I was crouching low to the ground in a baseball catcher’s stance. I had ceased my activity, because I did not want to startle them. My intense curiosity wanted to film those creature’s activities into my memory. Again, to pause, hummingbirds always seem to make an appearance before me as I weed at the farm. It truly seems like a form of greeting, where they face to face meet me, then speed along on whatever course is their destiny. The situation is extremely odd, at least to me. Of what interest could I be to those tiny birds? It is not like I intentionally build nests for them… or feed them. Nonetheless, as mentioned above, for some unknown reason, hummingbirds tend to make a face to face meeting, at least to this human animal.

I watched the dancing hummingbird for quite a few minutes. At first, I was curious as to how long the dancing would last. After those minutes passed, I realized I needed to shift from my squatting position, because… well, I am getting old, and the knee sport injuries I experienced in the distant past often make themselves known quite ADAMANTLY! I knew that once I shifted my position the hummingbirds would vacate the scene. Such a shift from a six-foot male mammal would definitely not come across like the “dancing” of that one hummingbird. I shifted. The two hummingbirds flew away.

Oh, and that is why I brought up the organic certification for 2011. Earlier that day, my annual organic certification inspection took place. My neighbor, Kirk, with the pigs, etc. was also in attendance, as Bill, the certifying agent and I walked the fields. There were no hummingbirds witnessed during that part of the inspection, in fact, hummingbirds are no longer a focus of this entry.

Eventually, we sat around a large dining table in my parent’s house, (They own the property as well as the old farm house on the property that was built long before indoor plumbing. There is currently indoor plumbing, but I digress again.), in order to go over the paperwork side of the organic certification inspection. This involves detailing all the processes used on my farm, amendments, etc. I have gone through this process for years, and it really amounts to me simply relaying my record keeping in order to show accountability.

But then, I heard… and felt what seemed to be the rumbling of a diesel engine. That is not unusual, since the lay of the land, that is the hills and valleys, cause any diesel-powered vehicle that rumbles down Hughes Shop Road to be “felt” in the old farm house. But it did not cease! And it increased in intensity! A diesel truck must have been coming up the driveway. Perhaps it was an oil company truck to fill up my parent’s oil tank. I mentioned this to Kirk to my left. I stood in an attempt to look out the side window but I was blocked by other chairs and such. Then, as the rumbling intensified even more, I looked back to the table, over which hung a dangling light fixture which was shaking back and forth… in the opposite direction THAT THE WALLS WERE SHAKING!!!

WHAT THE…? The three of us looked at each other with incredulousness. “Is this an earthquake?” I asked naively. We had no idea. We had never experienced one. For maybe twenty seconds the house shook and the old farm house windows rattled against each other, as we remained relatively motionless, uncertain as to what to do next. And then it was gone. Or was it? Strange thoughts arose, at least to me. Was the oil burning furnace directly below us in the basement about to explode for some unknown reason? But things had settled down. The tremor had passed. The three of us talked a bit about it, and our conclusions were correct. When Bill got into his vehicle, the radio relayed that indeed an earthquake was the cause, and he passed the info to Kirk and I.

Wow! Nature! Never underestimate that power!

For me… what a day! Tremors of all kinds! Hummingbirds, earthquakes, and definitely those that just passed me by! “You live, you learn.” That is a cliché. But I drink up such unexpected situations with exuberance! Life on the planet Earth is amazing on SO MANY levels. And for sure, absolutely for certain, that was an organic certification inspection that none of us will forget!!!

Fresh

2011-08-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

“Fresh”. Ah, there is nothing like “fresh” produce… But then again, what is “fresh” produce? More specifically, when produce is labeled “fresh”, what exactly does that mean?

For those familiar with the continuing debacle over word usage in advertising produce, I apologize, but nonetheless, bear with this entry for a bit, for the debacle over verbiage is the very heart of the matter!

The reason behind the term “fresh” as the title for this entry is that the terms “organic” and “local” have already been commandeered by the government. That statement will surely make some heads shake over that despicable entity, known as the “government”. Nonetheless, this entry comes from the heart of a farmer, and more specifically an organic farmer, that is, one that deals daily with REALITY and not IDEOLOGY. There is quite a huge difference between those two approaches: the former deals with integrity, the latter with belief. In respect to the “laissez-faire” ideology, at least in the 21^st century situation of agriculture, it is a contradiction. While it would be quite “idyllic” to have no government intrusion in the realm of agriculture, in our current situation, that is quite a naïve… belief. Unfortunately, commerce dictates agriculture, and integrity, as a result, is a rare, very rare occurrence. As a result, agriculture is monitored by government agencies, and as such, is as convoluted as any other form of enterprise monitored by government agencies. Inevitably it is a contradiction, AND very far removed from any realm of “idyllia”. But the point of this entry is not to envision or “push forward” any form that “idyllia” may take. Enough of the interlude. Let’s start with “organic”…

When I first was “certified organic” back in 2001, with the intention, that still exists, to provide “organic” produce to Carroll County, that is, the county in which I farm, I was met with little respect in regards to my “integrity” at that time. The reason behind that was that there was a local “organic” farm not far from my farm that was anything but “organic”. In my own naivety at the time, I thought that an “organic” approach, rather than that of constant pesticides, herbicides, etc. might be appreciated…, at least to some degree. What I quickly learned was that a “faux” farm that called themselves “organic” lie less than three miles from me, and their actions caused all local denizens aware of those actions to scoff at the term “organic”. At that time, the term “organic” had not been commandeered by the government. And what I discovered about that “faux” farm absolutely devastated me, that is in regard to the integrity of the actual “organic” farming practice. The “faux” farm travelled to D.C. to sell their “organic” produce, and it was well known in this area that they supplemented, if not completely “commandeered” their “organic” produce from the local market shelves of cheap conventional produce! With such a devious example, who would care about “organic”?

But that example is exactly why the “National Organic Program” (NOP) was put into effect. At that point, the government commandeered the term “organic”, and if that term would be used in the future, the entity using the “organic” term would have to “certified” under the NOP standards. (To explain a little here, before the NOP was introduced, there were hundreds of individual organic certifying agencies. I was certified by the Maryland Department of Agriculture, which remains current. The NOP created guidelines that all of the organic certifiers needed to adhere to, thus making it a legitimate regulatory force.) As a result, there are no more random assertions of “organic” products. If a product is “organic” now, it will be accompanied by either the NOP stamp or the certifying agent accredited by the NOP.

Phew! That sounds like a lot of bureaucracy, but in reality, it should act as an alleviating source one can depend upon. I will definitely grant that there are still issues involved with the NOP regulations, and most specifically on how animals are allowed to be raised in “caged” situations, but nonetheless, what has resulted from the “commandeering” of the term “organic”, at least from my perspective, is a very good thing. At least now, if someone declares themselves to be “organic”, you, as a consumer, can say, “Prove it!” The proof is in the certification, which requires detailed data collection that records every part of a farm’s operation, so that, in respect to a… tomato, for example, the source of that tomato can be traced back to where the seed for the plant originated, how that seed was planted, what type of soil/amendments in which that sprouted seed grew, when the eventual tomato fruit was harvested, AND where that tomato was eventually sold or distributed. Some may think of that process as a logistical nightmare, but for a scientific mind, it is merely data keeping, that is, a means of essentially learning from the process. Nonetheless, the main reason behind such data keeping is accountability. If something negative should occur from eating, say that tomato discussed above, everything involved in the growing of that tomato is readily accessible to be traced for where that tomato went afoul. Instead of finding out about some, say, beef recall, on the news, then listen a week later to find out they narrowed the source down to a dozen states, which diminishes to three state by a month’s time, all “organic” produce, which includes meats, are absolutely traceable through the record keeping. To my mind, it is a 21^st century approach to farming. Ah, but the greedy have no time for such record keeping! Laissez-faire! Bah…

Now that is how the government intrusion evolved on the term “organic”. Of more recent times, the term “local” became an issue. This was mostly an issue that revolved around the sporadic road side farm stands that offer everything…(and I jest with everything, for you may never find salad mix at such a road side stand, but that is exactly part of this issue) from corn to cantaloupe to tomatoes to watermelon, at times when they are never even close to being ripe in a particular growing region. Such road side stands have been a target of my aggression for years, and I have vociferated over such fictitious “farming” practices endlessly. And now, it seems, the government has tuned into not only my own frustration, for I am a rather late-comer in regards to agricultural integrity, but to the actual “local” farmer’s situation as well.

As I have described in previous entries, for the most part those “local” road side stands consist of “faux” farmers. There is a HUGE produce depot in Jessup where most of the produce found on supermarket shelves, on restaurant plates, etc., is originally transported into the area. Everything sold there is sold in bulk, and very cheaply as well. The produce can originate from Florida to California to Peru to China. This is produce marketing BIG AGRICULTURE style. And, if you have the money, and a means to haul such bulk produce, it is available for you to put in the back of your pick-up or box truck, and drive to some road side in the beautiful state of Maryland, and sell out of the back of said vehicle all those beautiful tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe and corn, that are not even close to harvest time in the beautiful Maryland region. (Of course, those “faux” farmers also sell that bulk produce when the above mentioned produce is ripe in Maryland fields, but I digress.) For the most part, random people driving by have no idea how that produce is obtained, and to be fair, the great majority wouldn’t even care if they found out. Nonetheless, such a situation “appears” to be that of a hard working farmer taking his farm raised produce to the road side to make a couple of bucks. I sincerely doubt that any such “faux” farmer would readily admit where that produce was originally purchased!

Now all that described above, I guess, is in some way legitimate, that is, acceptable capitalistic practices. However, all of this ceases to be acceptable, in fact severs the cord to the life force of reality, once those signs are placed along the roadside along which that “faux” farm situation rests that read, “LOCAL PRODUCE”. I often felt like pulling over at those road side stands, crying out “Li-ar!” like Carol Kane’s character in “The Princess Bride”, only with a male voice of course, and attacking those imposters in Three Stooges’ fashion all the way to “smacking off their nose” backed by the retort, “Oh, wise guy!” But I never did, and all of that is in the past, which is a very good thing.

What happened? Government intruded… yet again! This time the intrusion was specifically targeted toward the false advertising claim of “LOCAL PRODUCE”, after all, how “local” is Peru? This all arose, actually it came to a head last year, but it arose because of the rising interest in actual “local” produce. How can a local farm compete against a retailer who sells foreign products at cheap prices all the while advertising that is “local”? This is yet another example of necessary government intrusion to my mind, and laissez-faire be damned! It is one thing to compete, and quite another to do so “honestly”.

And so, the government commandeered the term “Local”. In this case, instead of defining that term or administering a list of guidelines to meet in order to be “local”, a less intense approach was taken. It was decided to let the consumer decide whether the produce is “local” or not, nonetheless, the retailer, or actual farmer for that matter, must relay to the consumer exactly where that produce originated. (And all of that just to keep things honest! Sheesh!)

As a result of that last government intrusion, what I witnessed this spring while passing those road side stands made me chuckle. No longer were the signs stating “LOCAL PRODUCE” posted before those “faux” farm stands. Instead, the signs read “FRESH PRODUCE”. Now just what does “fresh” mean?

One Pound Tomato Gulp

2011-08-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Early in 2010, one of my brothers sold his property at the corner of Stone Road and Murkle Road to Kirk and Jen Robertson. At least five years earlier, that parcel was included in my organic certification situation. While no synthetic products touched the property the following five years or so, it was, nonetheless, no longer part of my “operation”. When the property was sold to Kirk and Jen, I was told that they were interested in getting the property “certified organic”. In order to do that, they would have to contact the previous people who used the property for an affidavit stating exactly what was added to the fields and when…

Kirk called me when the four feet of snow that was dropped on us had melted to… maybe three feet ten inches? It was hard to tell. Anyway, and to skip to the meat of the matter, if you will, Kirk and Jen had purchased a piece of property that at that time, they had no idea would be of great benefit to them, as in, its actual locality. And not to jinx this situation, the great benefit expressly is designated toward their pigs.

While for ten years, I have personally slaved/labored relentlessly attempting to produce organic vegetables, Kirk has spent more years raising animals, that is, chickens, pigs, and especially cattle. What Kirk did not realize when he purchased that property at the corner of Stone Road and Murkle Road was that while he intended to become certified organic with his pasture, and eventually his animals, a 100% certified organic vegetable farm lie .7 miles away. (That would be my farm, or more accurately, my parent’s property on which I farm on the dirt portion of Hughes Shop Road.)

Anyway, again to fast forward this entry, it is now August of 2011. It would be impossible to estimate how many times Kirk and I have talked about our two operations over the past year and a half. Nonetheless, what we both discovered early on was how elements of each of our farms could greatly help the others. And again, in order to curtail this assessment, what I noticed rather quickly was that the “weeds” that I pulled from my many, many vegetable rows were by no means considered “weeds” by Kirk’s pigs. In fact, THEY ABSULUTELY LOVE THEM!!!

What actually led up to the discovery that pigs love, well, organic farm weeds, was a discussion with another farmer a year ago, who, when hearing me gripe about the endless chore of pulling purslane from the vegetable rows, (purslane is considered a “weed”), the other farmer mentioned how he knew another farmer who fed his pigs purslane. After hearing that, in fact later that day, as dusk was settling, I pulled a bunch of purslane from Field 4 and gave it to Kirk to feed to his pigs. He called back a little while later to state that those pigs devoured that purslane like there was no better treat on earth. (Oh, but there is, pigs, just you wait…)

Thus started Kirk and my deliberation over… weeds, organic vegetable production and organically feeding those weeds to pigs (and sometimes cows). Kirk and I did not know each other all that well at that point. We were more congenially helping each other without truly realizing what lie in the future. The point of this, I guess, is that it struck me quite early how almost all of the “weeds” pulled from my organic vegetable fields, which would normally be placed on a compost pile, is enthusiastically devoured when offered to pigs. They “tear it up”, so to speak! I was particularly struck by this when I witnessed the devouring process of the pigs upon vegetation that had grown very annoying to me. Again, at that point, Kirk and I were still well-meaning neighbors, but I could not ignore the situation… Why compost my farm’s “weeds”, when Kirk’s pigs LOVED them?

Now that was about a year ago. We have since aligned our farms in such a fashion that we constantly help each other out. And one of my constant chores is to “feed the pigs”. After weeding the many rows of organic vegetables, those weeds are taken to Kirk’s farm and given to the pigs to feast upon…

All of that introduction leads to the “one pound tomato gulp”. Unfortunately, Idyllia has still as yet not landed on my farm. As a result, there are often many, many crops that are tainted in such a fashion that they cannot be sold. The focus here are the Pineapple tomatoes. Pineapple tomatoes are HUGE! They are often over a pound in size. To describe this a little clearer, it takes two hands to handle those tomatoes properly. The diameter of those gigantic tomatoes can be eight inches! However, and inevitably, some of those tomatoes split, and by the time harvest arrives, bugs, beasts, whatever, have nicked or feasted upon a small section of those beautifully delicious tomatoes to the point that beyond being unsellable, it is also not worth the effort for, say, me to personally devour.

As a result, and instead of allowing those fruits to rot on the vine, they are picked and bucketed, then carted to Kirk’s pigs. To pause here, witnessing those pigs “tear up” the vegetation thrown to them is one thing, to see them devour tomatoes is quite another. Ravenous is a poor description of those pigs’ approach. Now to pause, there is more than one pig, and some react differently than others. In one paddock, at that time, Kirk had a boar and two sows. One of the sows was smaller than the other two pigs, and when the tomatoes were dumped into the paddock, she would secure one of those huge Pineapple tomatoes and scurry away from the other two, then somewhat slowly devour that delectable feast. I have witnessed that numerous times amongst human children, when the smaller child gains a treat, they have to resort to similar tactics less the larger children steal that nugget from them.

But that is also an aside. The point here is the one pound tomato gulp. And here is how I witnessed it. I like to tease the pigs a bit, by first throwing in a few buckets of fresh “weeds” to them. They root through the green vegetation searching for the tomatoes they can smell, but have not yet been delivered. They toss the green vegetation with their snouts, then come back to the fence where I stand with their noses high in the air, all the while snorting, “Hey, where’s the good stuff?” At least that is how I hear it. Then, I toss in a bucket of the tomatoes…

Again, ravenous is a poor description. When I threw that bucket of pineapple tomatoes into their paddock, there was enough for all, and the boar seemed intent on devouring ALL! With incredible rapidity, tomato after tomato was munched… and there is no chewing involved. The terms “scarfing down” or “ingesting a meal” adequately equates the situation. And then that boar found one of those one pound pineapple tomatoes. Now to describe this, the mouth of the boar does not appear nearly large enough to attack that tomato straight on… but that is exactly what it did! With its lower jaw, it flipped that eight inch diameter tomato into the air… only a couple of inches, that is, just enough for it to “open wide”, and with one gulp, one second of time… that tomato was gone!

What an amazing sight! It would take me a minute at the minimum to devour that juicy treat, even with all that juice spraying and dripping all over me. And yet, with one quick gulp, that boar devoured that entire tomato… and then it was off to the next one!

Again, it is quite the sight to witness those pigs truly appreciate that which humans view as unacceptable produce. For me, there is a definite sadness involved, as I think about all of my effort, my labor that was negated by bugs and beasts, thus netting me no profit, yet again. But to see those pigs relish that nectar! At least those creatures truly appreciate what nature can provide… bug damaged or not!

In closing, the other day, after dusk, I drove my truck over to Kirk’s to drop off some more besmirched tomatoes. The lights on my truck could not significantly illuminate the pig paddocks, but I could definitely discern the activity! Seemingly as soon as I dumped a bucket of tomatoes into the paddock, my legs were instantly sprayed with tomato juice as those joyous pigs chomped away! Wow! Somehow I think I have witnessed pig heaven!

Perfection

2011-08-04T18:38:00.000-07:00

Perfection. Now just what exactly does that mean? To be “perfect”, to be the prima example, but, what again does that mean? Alas, after analyzing life on this planet for over forty years, all I have ever witnessed is imperfection! The state of flux, that is, that natural state of existence as all species evolve involves many multifarious levels of imperfection! But in the produce aisles of our supermarkets… that is unacceptable!!!

It is normally around this time of year, the very end of July, that imperfection appears before me on every organic plant that attempts to thrive and produce its next generation of offspring. Beans are nicked, splotched and deformed, kale and chard leaves have holes, dead spots, etc., melons are cracked with many unknown assailants devouring their insides, Colorado potato beetle larva have long been devouring the potato leaves, groundhogs have inevitably breached the perimeter of the fences and found/devoured the latest lettuce and endive plantings, and the tomatoes have played host for the multitude of creatures that love to devour that fresh nectar, from the gruesome hornworm to the ever increasing population of brown marmorated stink bugs to name a few.

Ah, perfection, what on earth could that really be? In fact, can perfection truly occur on earth? What, after all, is perfection?

Alas, as far as I can fathom, it is an unfathomable “ideal”. However, if one discounts the most superficial of senses, that of sight, perhaps, just perhaps perfection can be found. If one takes, say, taste as the most important sense, there is an immeasurable amount of perfection on the farm! All that marred fruit, from tomatoes to beans to cantaloupes would be absolutely perfect if taste was the guiding force… and not sight!

But that is not at all an easy fact to sell. Even if taken from the point of evolution, that is, for whatever reason, wiring, whatever, our bodies, our taste buds tell us specifically what is good for us by… tasting good, or even great! It is the natural path to survival. When we eat something that is bad for us, it does NOT taste good. Chomping into a delicious strawberry will not result in death. Such is the nature of how we human creatures, as well as all other creatures on the planet thrive. But this reflects the natural side of things, taste, and not the superficial, sight.

Perfection on the visual side can only be accomplished through trickery at best. Perhaps through a particular camera angle, perhaps with extreme amounts of make-up, perhaps even something computer generated can display an example of “perfection”. Alas, it is never a situation of true reality. It is always some form of illusion.

In order to explain better the point of this entry, I will use tomatoes as an example, and then juxtapose that with school age children. Hang on… and here we go!

The perfect tomato exists in a large heap of red, often dull red, found on supermarket shelves from December to December, or July to July, that is, year round. Those tomatoes are perfectly round, and very, VERY solid. That visual display of perfection does not change throughout the year, or the decade… And after many decades, and perhaps a couple of generations, that visual perfection is ALL that will be acceptable in regards to what a perfect tomato should be, or more accurately, look like. Why mess with perfection?

I have to pause here to interject my exasperation on how such a view of “perfection” actually developed in the first place. But I have jumped ahead here…

THE PERFECTLY ROUND, RED, SOLID TOMATOES FOUND IN SUPERMARKETS ARE NOT PERFECT!!! They are… well, they are not tomatoes that are anywhere near perfect, that is, in the natural world. The supermarket tomatoes have been bred to: be stacked layers deep without bruising, thus allowing for global-wide shipping, be perfectly round, that is, ideal for “slicing”, and uniformly red… Oh, here there needs to be some clarification. While some “locally” grown red slicing tomatoes may actually “ripen on the vine”, the vast majority are harvested green and artificially “ripened” during transport by the use of ethylene gas. While this may be the superficially “perfect” tomato, it is by no means an actual “perfect” tomato. But then again, that goes back to flavor…

The actual “perfect” tomato varies in size from a small cherry to some well over a pound in size, which sometimes requires two hands to carry. They ripen in a wide variety of colors from purple to pink to orange and yellow, even GREEN! But seldom red. They cannot be stacked in layers for they will bruise easily, and they will not last for months on a supermarket shelf. For certain, that does not sound all too similar to a supermarket “perfect” tomato, and indeed it is not, but we are dealing with the difference between the superficiality of sight, and the actual delectable enjoyment of taste. By taste comparison, well, there is no comparison!

Back to my exasperation… how has it come to this? For countless generations, our predecessors have nurtured those strangely shaped and differently hued tomatoes full of exploding flavor, only to lead to uniformly dull red, solid tomatoes piled on high on supermarket shelves. Actually, all of this has to do with global commerce. Do a Google search on Monsanto to see how bad it can get, that is, how far from natural reality…

Anyway, what if perfection in regards to our own species was relegated to uniformity… and tastelessness? Actually, that was taken on by Orwell, Huxley and Bradbury early last century, as well as many others. But let’s play with this a little. As the tomatoes that I grow range in a multitude of colors and sizes, and well as deformities, etc., and yet are EXTREMELY delicious, let’s envisage this situation within a typical middle school of human children.

Now to start, we are equating supermarket shelf tomatoes to middle school children. To begin, ALL children must be red in color, or I guess ruddy would be as close as it gets. Already we are up against segregation lawsuits of all kinds. Next, anyone tall or short… gone. Dump ‘em, toss’em, whatever, they don’t fit in. Anyone skinny or fat… Ciao! Early bloomer or late makes no difference because they will all be artificially brought to maturity anyway.

So now we have the lineup of “perfection”. Wait a minute, Johnny’s got a wart… out with him! Suzie’s got a pimple… eradicate! Bobby’s got a bruise…

I think you get the picture. And this is not to suggest the flavor motif of this entry reflects upon middle school children. That is definitely NOT funny. The point is, superficiality, which is almost always along visual lines, gets us nowhere! “Perfection”, and I assert this quite adamantly, is a matter of taste, TASTE! What your eyes see matters not at all! What your taste buds relay as you devour an “actual” tomato should stop any debate that may have arisen!

Weed Warfare

2011-07-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

To begin… this is a ruse. This is whimsically mischievous at heart! With that…

As I was talking a few Saturday’s ago with Greg Thorne of Thorne Farm at the Downtown Westminster Farmer’s Market, I asked him if he had any need for Canadian thistle, and more specifically, Canadian thistle that was going to seed. He responded that he indeed had no need for any MORE Canadian thistle than that which was already present on his farm.

Actually, that particular conversation started rather late at the market, after most of customers had departed and those of us farmers that remained discussed the work we needed to accomplish after that VERY EARLY market was over. I asked Greg what he needed to do, and his response was that he needed to mow the numerous acres of his farm. He did not ask what my most impending task was, but I proffered it any. “I need to do a harvest,” I said. “Oh yeah, what are you harvesting?” He replied. “Canadian thistle. You want any? I can dump about a ton on your land if you are interested.” Greg asserted the above, that he was certainly not interested, but that is when my mind began to spin… actually my mind always kind of spins, but on that particular thought, a nebulous web began to appear…

Canadian thistle. Egad what a terrible plant that is! Forgive my belligerence at this point, BUT WILL THE CANADIANS PLEASE COME DOWN TO RECLAIM THEIR THISTLE, EH!!! We don’t want it! We don’t need it! Ugh, what a nuisance that plant is!

But perhaps the reader is not aware of Canadian thistle. If that is the case, the reader should be very thankful… to… something, I guess, but I digress. Anyway, Canadian thistle is a plant that thrives in our region in areas that are not mowed regularly, such as a field of produce. The plant grows rapidly and is one of the first noxious weeds to go to seed. To top this, its root system is downright diabolical to an organic farmer. If one pulls one of those evil plants, first off, without delicate precision, gloves should definitely be worn, else the tiny prickly spines,(the reason it is considered a thistle), will linger in one’s fingers for a week! Nonetheless, having pulled such a plant out of a heavily composted organic field, inevitably, after removing the vertical root, often eight to ten inches in length, the horizontal root, which lingers on average twelve inches beneath the soil, still remains to produce the next “crop” of Canadian thistle. (This is difficult to envision without witnessing first hand, that is, without digging down the foot or more to see how the root system of that plant “networks”. Canadian thistle plants are veritable covert terrorists to an organic farm!)

But Canadian thistle is just ONE of the many noxious weeds that thrive in our environment. There are many others. Canadian thistle has been mentioned mostly for the fact that those plants have already gone to seed. Pig weed, rag weed, …weed, there are many to follow. All of those plants have thrived because they inevitably go to seed, so the next generation, having developed and reproduced in precisely THIS region, they are all the more adapted and thus ready to thrive!

I mention all of this, because a whimsical idea appeared in my mind a few weeks ago, one that would mean nothing to a “conventional” type of farmer, that is, a farmer who readily uses chemical herbicides. It was quite humorous in my mind, and what led to the incubation period of this entry. And then… last Saturday…

As usual, I was late getting up for the farmer’s market. Unfortunately, my clock is still wound by my long past bartending hours and waking up perky and fresh at 6am just ain’t going to happen. (This is mostly due to the fact that falling asleep before 1am is also a virtual impossibility.) So, I was again late setting up for the market, and as my wearied efforts set up my canopy and tables and set out the produce, I did not even notice my neighbor’s stand’s new addition. In fact, I did not notice until the first throng of customers came by, questioning as to the price of the organic veggies that I had not put out signs for… yet, then the ensuing verbal exchanges, purchases, and monetary exchanges, etc. It was maybe 8:30 or so that I looked over to my neighbor’s stand to see how Greg and his wife, Kris, were faring, but… alas! All I saw was a shroud of white!

Now to explain this a little, a small area of vegetation lies between Greg’s stand and mine that contains some type of low-growing evergreen bush, along with dead Canadian thistle as well. Now just how did that thistle die? Actually, I don’t want to know that answer. But this is just a diversion.

The Thorne Farm stand is directly to the right of mine at the market. We are neighbors as though we were two houses separated by a small patch of green vegetation. How many years has it been? Six, seven? Give or take a few years? Of course we have not always been in the same spot at the market each year, but still… Neighbors are neighbors after all, and benevolent ones… or so I thought.

And then that white barrier appeared between our two booths. (Actually, it was an attachment to Greg and Kris’ tent to block out the morning sun, which appears at such hours directly from my tent’s direction, BUT, ignore that reality if you wish to be able to consume the ensuing venom of this rant!) That white barrier appeared as a glaring sign. “We do not associate with your kind!” At least that was how I took it! After all of these years… for it to come to this!

But what had it come to? All that I can think of is two actual home-owning neighbors, again separated by a small stretch of green growth between the houses. On any given day, the neighbors will see each other through the window and waive, say “Hi.”, “How’s it going?”, “What’s with the nectarine prices in South America these days?”, etc. And then,… AND THEN, the one neighbor not only shuts his window, BUT PULLS DOWN THE SHADES!!! “What is it I said?” would be the first thought, followed quickly by the second… “Those nasty, two-faced…”

So, it has come to this, has it? Mr. Thorne? Or may I still call you “Greg” for short? Perhaps it has become His Almighty Lordship Gregory the First, or something along that line. Nonetheless, so be it. What had started as a nebulous, whimsical thought has developed into… WEED WARFARE!!!

Yes, that is right, Mr. Thorne, weed warfare it is. I am completely aware that you will NEVER use chemical herbicides on your property. And since you have decided to shut your “seemingly benevolent” window on me, I will now revert to actions I never imagined I would stoop to. Since my own efforts are also organic, all of the organically grown Canadian thistle, wild lettuce, wild chicory, and oh, there are many, many more to come, such as golden rod that are rapidly going to seed, will be covertly dispersed throughout your land, whilst you are hidden behind your barricade! War it is! Again, I did not want to revert to this, but ALL of my future actions are the direct result of your…

I cannot finish this rant. THIS HAS ALL BEEN MEANT AS A JOKE!!! Greg is one of the most well-meaning people I have ever met in my life. And as the date on the celestial calendar will have it, he will turn 60 years old on August 1. 60! What staying power! And to still be farming! Organically!!! There is a party to be thrown for him, to celebrate his 60^th birthday, which I cannot make… because I have too much work to do, but nonetheless, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREG!!! YOU DESERVE IT!!!

65

2011-07-21T19:21:00.001-07:00

And now it seems to be the appropriate time to readdress the Brown Marmorated stink bug situation of 2011. I named this entry “65” for a specific reason. As many of us experienced in our mid-Maryland region, the Brown Marmorated stink bugs have an uncanny ability to invade our homes. How? That is an answer I do not have. Nonetheless, up until this evening, I had killed 65 Brown Marmorated stink bugs within my house of residence. That does not include the numbers already found dead on the window sills. And as fate would have it, I killed number 66 tonight, as it landed on the ceiling just a little while ago, but the number 65 or 66 is really irrelevant.

I kept track of how many Brown Marmorated stink bugs were killed within the house out of curiosity. What date would it be, when the 65^th Brown Marmorated stink bug would be killed in the field? This was an approach to measure just how bad the invasion of those non-native creatures would be. Although their numbers were somewhat minimal outside, until recently that is, the general fear of a population explosion appears to be somewhat warranted.

The month of June relayed relatively few of those nefarious creatures. But, I was well aware that that was probably early for them to make a presence. As the rows of beans were picked, a few were smashed here or there, but not all that many. I did notice, that there was at least one in any row of crop I entered, be it kale, garlic, potatoes, etc. But that is normal...somwhat normal, that is. In fact, there were only a few Brown Marmorated stink bugs more than the indigenous green and brown shield species. In June, things did not appear so bad.

Then July came around. On July 7, I smashed my 65^th Brown Marmorated stink bug in Field 8. The reason the number 66 is insignificant is because by the 8^th of July I had smashed over one hundred. Every day since, stink bugs have been witnessed on almost every crop I visited, and not just on a random plant here or there, but on the great majority. Perhaps, just perhaps, the fear of the Brown Marmorated stink bug invasion is justified. Most definitely, there are more this year than last.

For weeks now, I have smashed countless stink bugs. The act of counting the murders ceased long ago, for it was futile. But I do need to explain a little on a possible reason why the stink bugs were flourishing on… some of the plants. One major means of fighting those nasty creatures, organically of course, is to make their presence as easily known to the native birds as possible. For a long list of reasons, a list far too long to enumerate here, the chore of weeding, and more specifically, tying and pruning tomatoes is woefully behind schedule. But allow me to explain.

I will take tomatoes as my example: Tomatoes are a vining plant, at least the varieties I grow for their incredible flavor. However, if they are not assisted in their efforts to vine upward, they will languish on the ground, thus creating a thick mesh of green growth that looks like, well, an indiscernible amount of green growth, until the tomatoes ripen, then there is some color viewed within that verdure. Anyway, in order to allow a tomato vine to thrive, one needs to assist it to grow upwards. I use a trellis system that works fairly well. When it is in place and the tomatoes are trained to grow upward… good things result.

I was a bit late on that for a few plants this year. I am late every year. In fact, I am earlier in my lateness than other years, but nonetheless, I am late. Anyway, what happens is that the tomato plants grow vigorously in the healthy soil of the farm and… languish on the ground. All pests thrive in such a situation. Let’s start with moles, voles and mice. When an untrellised tomato plant lies on the ground, the fruit also lies on the ground, but the green growth of the plant acts a shield, or barrier to any creature that may devour pests from the air. As a result, rodents are free to scurry about under that canopy and devour any ripening fruit they encounter. Of course, they do not devour the entire fruit, no, they tend to nip at fifty, leaving a slight scar which renders the tomato “inedible” to the human species. But those are the rodents. The Brown Marmorated stink bug flourishes in such a setting as well, and its attack is much like the protected realm described for the rodents.

Last week, while I was trellising and pruning the Fox Cherry tomatoes in row 25 of Field 8, an alarming number of Brown Marmorated stink bugs were encountered, and immediately squished. Normally, in an average year, there would be one on every fifth plant or so. This year, there has been at least one on every plant! As the hours passed on my trellising efforts, I began to feel the epidemic that the “learned experts” had predicted. For the fact is, as an organic farmer, containing such an epidemic of Brown Marmorated stink bug attacks… is impossible, … that is, … by squishing alone.

But, there is an upside. This week, as I harvested the Fox Cherry tomatoes that were pruned and trellised last week, I encountered… ONE of those nasty creatures. That is quite a different body count than the hundreds from last week! “What could possibly be the reason for the sudden decrease in Brown Marmorated stink bug population on the Fox Cherry tomato plants?” he asked feigning naivety.

The answer to that question, as only experience allows me to relate, is that the indigenous bird population are the culprits. In my last entry on the Brown Marmorated stink bugs, I submitted that bats were the main devourers of those nasty insects. Perhaps they still are, BUT, when I approach Field 8 Row 25, a multitude of birds are constantly witnessed darting into and out of those hanging tomato plants. Unfortunately, with my diminished long range vision, I cannot make out what the multiple species of those birds are, but nonetheless, experience has relayed that THEY are the ones responsible for the lack of stink bugs in the vicinity.

Now some will scoff at this, but I assure you this is no “utopian dream” I describe here. It is experience that dictates the result of avian insect attack. (A short aside: Many times I have heard from farmers their disgust with birds because they nick the fruit. Nonsense! Not one of the tomatoes was nicked, nor are they ever when they are kept off the ground!) Still, this has only been one week since the trellising effort on the tomatoes. So far so good. As for the subsequent weeks, we shall see. This is the second entry on Brown Marmorated stink bugs for 2011. There is surely another to follow…