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October 12, 2009 "Early Sowing"
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Greetings Friends of the Farm,

     I called the Marias early this morning, before 6 AM, to advise them that Don Lupe -- their husband and father -- our main transplanter, should not come to work today. Yesterday’s rains have perpetuated the sogginess that sent him home on the bus Friday. As of Monday, nothing in the fields has changed. The sun does not shine, nor do the winds blow, so the moisture level is still at ... boggy.

     Imagine crawling along in a footpath just now drained of its flood waters, scooping out planting holes in the raised beds, tucking in the poor little plants and packing the mud around them. Even if you are wearing a black plastic garbage bag as a raincoat and even if your knees are outfitted with FoF Tom’s thoughtful gift of matching black kneepads, it wouldn’t be a pleasant day in the field.  Mud sucks at you. It wants to encase you. It wants you to be one with it.

     When folks email me with the offer of volunteering, desiring to get their hands “dirty,” I don’t think they have this in mind...After all, this is not a music festival....

     So, a bit irrationally, Maria, the younger, asked me, “Vamos a cosechar?”  “Claro que sí,” I responded. Of course. The harvests continue no matter the weather. The only thing that runs us harvesters out of the fields is violent weather: hail, lightning, that sort of thing. (We hope the torments come, if they must, whilst the Marias are inside the Salad Shed, washing already-picked greens.)

     Rain, just rain, not even bitterly cold rain? Nope, it’s nothing for harvesters. We know that if it’s raining like crazy on harvest day, probably the next day’s market will be sunshiny, and lots of visitors will come. On harvest day, they, in their warm cubicles or houses, would not think that perhaps we didn’t want to get muddy, or cold, or wet, and so we didn’t harvest anything. And they shouldn’t think that, as for sure we were out there, in it, with it, and finally, absorbing it.

     Friday, while Don Lupe was in his easy chair, undoubtedly bored, the Marias were attired nattily in their rain gear, smiling at me as I snapped their photo. Their gear was relatively new, with no tears or splits, so inside it they were reasonably dry, their faces adorned with their great attitude. They harvested everything they normally harvest, wading through ankle-deep water in the footpaths between the beds of eggplant, slipping around a bit, but they persevered. I told them to hurry so they could go home early, at noon, that I would pay them for the entire day, a bonus for the trials.

     Meanwhile, I trudged along one of the former heirloom tomato fences, where below it, lodge the radishes. Thank goodness for the fence, for at times, I had to hold on to it; the mud was slippery, as if it were ice. I pulled the radishes, piled them in clumps, and carried the clumps to the tub and then the heavy tub to the straw-bale barn.

     The chicks greeted me with exuberant peeping as I passed their cage. Happy that they noticed me, their surrogate mom in her alarmingly muddy, yellow jacket, I dumped the radishes into the wash tub. Almost every pink and purple orb wore a slick chocolate-brown coating. Soon, with the water hose trained on them, their true colors shone like a new baby’s bottom, so slick, so pink. Once cleaned, I bunched them according to size and trundled them through the rain to the cooler in the Salad Shed. There the Marias were washing baskets of baby arugula.


     All the root crops we harvest are washed in the barn. They are way too messy to be in any proximity to the delicate salads, for they must be sprayed with a strong stream of water. No one wants mud flying through the air and onto the salad greens. In our earlier days, we washed the roots outside, no matter if the rains did most of the work. Now, we have the barn with its metal roof and straw bale walls to keep the rain and the north wind off of us.

     Off of, especially, one whose rain jacket has split open in many directions. And whose slicker pants are long gone.They opened completely up the back. Alas, my cotton farm pants with their elastic waistband, were so soaked and stretched that I was in danger of losing them. Nice that no men were present. And, at least the temperatures were not too cold yet. That will come, eventually, so new rain duds are in the immediate forecast.

     Today, however, just a light jacket was all that we needed. Although the soil is still wet from all the rain, we were able to prepare the raised beds and sow seeds of English peas and fava beans. English peas may be a bit la-de-dah for us peasants, but barring frost-ugglied pods, they are a good choice, as even with pod disfigurement, the peas inside are always beautifully delectable. These plants should reach five feet, and I plan to tie them loosely to the fence to make the picking easier for the Marias (our chief pea-pickers).

     Same with the Italian/Morrocan fava beans, two exotic (to us) varieties from an Italian seed company.  They will be tied to a fence also. I couldn’t get seeds in quantity this year, through normal channels, due to the cold/wet conditions in the northern part of the USA. Lots of crop failures up there. So I searched the net and found these imported beans. One variety has purple seeds, so it will be interesting to see what color the fresh beans will be....


          The Marocco beans, left, looked like normal dried fava seeds; the Grano Violetto was a lovely surprise!

     Fall planting is coming together now.  Half of the intended peas are sown; carrots, rutabaga, beets, spinach, and chard are up. The broccoli and other brassicas are growing well. I’ll sow snow peas and sweet peas very soon. Everything seems late, but yet it’s early in the season. Normally we wait until November to sow peas. I wonder what it all means?  An early frost?

    Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. After the last two years, especially with “August” coming in June this summer, anything can happen. Let’s hope most of it is good!

    Carol Ann

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