Handling your hoe (rural version, ch. 1)

A couple days ago I was out weeding our two remaining beds of leeks. It was an odd weeding job because the deer had been grazing on the weeds they like to eat, leaving shortish weeds with fairly stout roots (hard to hoe and pull because of the deep-set roots, hard to pull, also, because of the lack of grip space to yank 'em up). Deer don't like to eat leeks (at least these don't), and most of the rest of the field has just recently been put into a cover crop of rye, vetch, and clover (all of which are mere seedlings), leaving the nightly congregation of deer in that field to munch on nothing but weeds. The main weed was a yellow-flowering fast grower (whose name escapes me) that just absolutely dominates our farm throughout most of the year; deer seem to love it, but they left others, like dock (deep, stubborn roots), to grow unabated. So, hoeing was rough. And the inevitable hand weeding that left many broken roots in the ground was discouraging . It was slow going.

I find that when you have such a weeding job in front of you, it's nice to slap on a pair of earbuds and let music help you along. For instance, Modest Mouse assisted me in the leek-weeding endeavor. The schizophrenic vocals over a steady funk-like beat helped rhythmize and energize my hoe strokes to efficiently uproot (or at least chop off sufficiently until the first frost comes) those pesky bastards. Neko Case helped me slow it down a little--let me feel the cool, pleasant breeze under the completely blue and sunny Carolina sky, helping me find some odd grace in my hoeing technique. Because, what's weeding without a bit of contemplative, sensual pleasure? And then Paul Simon brought me back to the rhythm, giving me that final push of energy to get the job done. Plus, there's no not liking weeding when Simon inquires about the 50 ways.

Sometimes I don't need music to accompany me. Often just being outside, doing real, meaningful work to survive is enough. But there are days when you'd rather be doing nothing, or else something easy. Though it's tempting to just give in to laziness (which happens sometimes), certain things just have to get done. And I really wouldn't want it any other way.

*****

The trees are really coloring up now in the higher elevations. The reds are out. But yesterday our high temperature hit 80, which was, um, perfect. Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin, they're expecting snow and freezing temps. Love it here.

Chill

It has gotten a bit cold here. Smells like fall. One night we go from the fan sucking cool, sweet mountain air into our room, to the next night having the whole apartment closed down--us draped in sweaters, smothered nightly in a heavy comforter, me cursing my lack of a good pair of boots for farm work (thus relying on the old trusty sandals in the 40-degree dewy morning). But don't get me wrong, it feels good.

Basil and pepper plants are pissed. Basil hates the cold; sweet peppers also hate the deluge we've been getting of late. Even some of the lettuce, the cool-moisture lover that it is, is rotting in the field. But arugula is happy. Napas and bok choi are trying hard. Kale would probably be happy if not for the plague of harlequin bugs. But we can take heart that the flea beetles have seemingly left us for the year. And we haven't gotten flooded like some of our unfortunate WNC neighbors.

We've got a bit over a month left at this farm, where we'll keep tending our fall/winter crops for market and, most importantly, CSA members. It's a bit of an unwinding time, at least in my mind, despite all that's left to do.

In other news, the blueberries are still plentiful up on Max Patch, as of last weekend. We were picking amongst the roaring wind and the cries of the haint (or a flying kite; or a creaking tree--I'm not sure).

The near future brings visitors from afar and, maybe, if things fall right, a trip into the backcountry (our last camping excursion near Mt. Mitchell left us soaked, a couple additional inches of rain away from being devoured by a rising river, and within several hundred feet of being crushed by a toppled tree--which is what I call an adventure).

In the meantime I'll be happy to watch the trees slowly transform as the cold sets in and daylight contracts. Already we see the 4,000+ foot peaks that poke into the sky around our cove hueing toward orangish-yellow. The vegetation on the creek banks is thinning to the point where we can see the road again for the first time since May. The ragweed has pretty much done its thing (ahhhh... relief). Sumacs everywhere are blushing mightily.  They're calling for a less than stellar fall color show this year because of all the rain we've had. But I wouldn't heed what "they" say. Because, well, the spring leafing was beyond words, in it's spectacularly subtle green gradient, and hardly anyone even touches on how beautiful that is--ever.

How's fall on everyone else's land? Fruits and veggies still going by you?

Blueberries laugh at the tractor

We spent part of the last two weekends picking wild blueberries on the Blue Ridge Parkway (Graveyard Fields--it ain't no secret). There were so many bushes to visit, and lots of ripe berries--much more than I expected. All told, we picked several pounds, stopping only because of my fatigue. They've gone good on cereal and pancakes. We froze a bunch of 'em for future sustenance.

It's enrapturing, this wild bounty. Earlier this year it was morels. We've had elderberries, strawberries (not really comparable to the domesticated crop, but edible nonetheless), and blackberries as well. All without cultivation of any sort.

Yeah, nature is pretty good at growing things. I try to remember this when I think about having our own farm in the near future. You can't really go wrong trying to emulate nature. Of course, as humans, we are a part of nature as well, and we've got some nice tools to enhance things.

We're learning lots these days, but, for me, the biggest lesson is in seeing anew how things move of their own accord. It may be good or bad for people, but when all is said and done, life continues in one way or another. Which is something to notice and appreciate.

The days are getting noticeably shorter as summer wanes. Ragweed and lamb's quarters are trying to make babies (sneezes are in full swing). Only the occasional optimistic mateless lightning bug still sparks just after dusk. Non-conformist locust and cicadas groan loudly in the heat of the afternoon. The swallows that successfully avoided the acrobatic black snake have moved out. The Perseids recently made their spectacular fireworks, even under the gaze of a persistent moon.

Though we generally anticipate what's coming up for us, it's hard to say what shape it will take. Transitions are tremendous. Not knowing is half the excitement.

I'm content with not knowing; I try to get a feel for the movement.

It's August?

Time is certainly flying around here. You'll have to forgive me, friends, for not posting with any regularity. We've been busy. Those who farm and garden know that midsummer is about as hectic as it gets, with your heavy producers like tomatoes, squash and beans in full fruiting mode. And then there's the corn. Yeah, we're not in the greenhouse starting plants as much, or out in the fields putting in many new transplants, but we're picking like mad, and weeding, and dealing with the heavy harvests.

You'll be sad to know that our onions and garlic were devastated by all the spring rain, and we pretty much lost a good majority of the two crops. I mean, there's garlic and onions galore curing, but they look like little wrecked balls, most of which are unsuitable for selling. But it's a lesson learned. And hey, we're still providing plenty of other stuff for the CSA and making good sales at market. Gotta appreciate the crop diversity of small farms like ours.

On the other hand, our greenhouse-grown tomatoes are so prolific that we are having a hard time keeping up with them. Summer squash, which started out terribly in the wet weather is producing well. And green beans, the pain in the ass that they are to pick, love to fill up several bushel bins with each harvest. Our first crop of sweet corn was pretty damn good, too, despite the corn ear worm invasion. Luckily the folks at market mostly understand what it means to grow and eat things organically.

Elsewhere, we've been entertaining lots of visitors from out of state, which has been a pleasant surprise during our time here. We attended the fun Bele Chere in Asheville, where I drank plenty of local brews and enjoyed several bands I had never heard before. Spent some time exploring the Smokies, including a grueling hike up to the top of Mt. Sterling in my crappy sandals. We've visited several farms in the area, which has been a great educational experience. Started taking yoga once a week. And in our downtime we've been kicking back with some beers, enjoying these amazing mountains that surround our cove, watching the occasional movie, and reading some good books.

Yep. It looks to be busy for the next several weeks as well, with more visitors expected and the final big push to get fall crops in the ground and tended to. However, I'll try to be better about updating this thing.

What happened inbetween rains?

Bushhogged some of our cover crop down. The rye was tall and the vetch was clingy. Mmmm.. taste the organic matter and soil nutrients.

Harvested some rainbow chard, among many other things.

 

Sold our goods at the market.

 

Watched frogs and toads do it in the puddles. A lot.

 From tadpoles to little hopping toadpoles with tails. 

 

The ghost of Max Patch.

 

We were eventually blessed with 10 minutes of spectacular views when the fog temporarily blew out.

 

Finally, a shot from the Blue Ridge Parkway, somewheres between Asheville and Waynesville. The laurels are in full bloom.

Did I mention it's raining?

Yep, it's still raining. We're approaching 10" for the month, which is nearly a third of our yearly average. In one month. And last month was rainy too. And so was the previous month. Standing water in some of the fields. Lots of slugs. Temps this month have fluctuated from lows around freezing to highs in the low 80s, which has caused a bunch of our field crops to bolt and try to go to seed early, thus shortening their lifespan and ruining their quality in some cases. Affected: broccoli, arugula, radishes, cilantro, tatsoi, and probably some others I'm forgetting. The lack of sun has really slowed down our second succession of crops and stunted early planted peas, beets, turnips, strawberries, and spinach. On the other hand, we're producing monster heads of lettuce, beautiful mixed greens, vibrant rainbow chard, mustard greens, and kale. These things are loving the rain.

All our greenhouse crops are doing pretty good. Cukes are huge sellers at market, but they've reached their peak and are starting a downward trend. Eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes look promising.

New crops in the field: summer squash, parsley, basil, sweet corn, and flowers. Fruits are forming on the squash already. So far so good.

Potatoes and onions are looking healthy. Pests are up. Now seeing potato beetles and cucumber beetles out and about. Boo those.

It's busy at this point in the season. More to come soon.

A little on the ethics of gardening

We're just relaxing today after one hell of a Saturday. We had a huge plant sale yesterday down in Waynesville. The day started at around 3:30 a.m., and, aside from the car ride there, I didn't sit down again until around 5 p.m.; then my head didn't hit the pillow until around 11 or 12 last night. Yeah, it was busy. We sold lots of beautiful plants though, which will find cozy homes in the gardens of lots of folks. We hear from the media and see firsthand that gardening is on the increase this year. Which is great.

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

That quote is from Aldo Leopold, one of the great forefathers of environmental ethics and ecology. A Sand County Almanac is his masterwork, wherein he philosphically and beautifully documents a year of living on a small farm he reclaimed in south-central Wisconsin. Key to Leopold's work is his Land Ethic, which, in a nutshell, says humans need to face the undeniable fact that we are part of the natural world, not separate from it and, therefore, "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

The book was written in the 40s. Leopold was worried then about Americans' tendency to focus so much on being "productive," rule-following, patriotic citizen-consumers, leaving the bulk of important decisions to "others," notably the government. In other words, Leopold felt that without direct, individual obligation--an ethical relationship--to the preservation of the land and everything on it, we could lose all that sustained our lives and made them worth living. An obligation without personal commitment and conscience is often an unfulfilled obligation.

Could it be that 60 years after A Sand County Almanac was first published folks might be embracing the land ethic?

Yesterday I sold plants to people who have never gardened before. And I hope I sold them good, strong plants and gave them some useful tips. Because it might be that their livelihood--or at least their comfort--depends on our plants providing their family with some sustenance. Some people spent $50 on little vegetable and herb plants. That's 20+ plants. For their home garden. All these folks--and apparently they're out in record numbers all across the country--have decided to take a little bit more responsibility for their own existence, closing the door just a bit on the destruction caused by mechanized petrochemical agribusiness and government subsidies. They know (or will see soon) that viability springs from the soil, from other plants, from animals, from the sun, and from other people.

I don't know if people are doing this out of necessity, if they're being pragmatic, or if it's the start of a new era in this country. We'll see. But no matter the motivation, this year's gardeners/farmers (the two words can be interchanged in my opinion) will gain or solidify valuable skills for the necessity of the near future. 'Cause I don't think it will be long before people need to grow at least some of their own food. Same as it almost ever was.

From The French Broad, by Wilma Dykeman:

It would be difficult to find a dozen people who have a family history in the French Broad country who don't count at least one farmer, and more likely several, among their ancestors. Even professional men by vocation were also farmers by necessity until recently, and savings were often deposited in lands rather than in banks.
[...]
In the rugged Tennessee county of Sevier, bordered by the Smoky Mountains and sliced by the Little Pigeon River, there were 1,071 heads of families listed in a census of 1850. Of these, all but 89 were designated farmers, with the exception of one or two candid souls who admittedly "did nothing." Of this eight percent of nonfarmers, blacksmiths (14), millers (11), and Baptist minsters (9) led the list. Half-a-dozen carpenters and wagon makers, five merchants, three each of physicians, tanners, shoemakers and horse traders, a brace of lawyers, coopers, Methodist ministers, hammermen and saddlers, and a single hatter, miner, wheelwright, navigator and cabinetmaker just about complete a fairly clear picture of the pre-Civil War life of that and many a neighboring county.

And I'd venture to guess it was like that in most of America a century-and-a-half ago. When I read those numbers, I was shocked, and proud of our ancestors; almost everyone was a small farmer, and many non-farmers provided people with the products and services they required to live a decent life. It's been like this on most of the planet for most of human history. People knew what it meant to work and survive. Most everyone possessed skills that mattered. And, in many cases, that direct, knowing dependence on the biotic community for one's livelihood automatically led to an ethical obligation to care for the land. That obligation slowly eroded; but maybe we've reached the valley.

Mainstream media and politicians at the federal level will probably not admit it until the very end, but the American lifestyle haphazardly erected during the past century or so is just about over. I don't know if I'd go as far as Jim Kunstler, who says that the demise of our deeply embedded irresponsible stuff-based culture will lead to a "national psychotic breakdown" or that "the current mood of public paralysis will dissolve in a blur of blood and spittle sometime between Memorial Day and July Fourth," but I like the way he tries to lay it all out bare on the floor. Sometime in the near future, life in America is gonna be very different. People are gonna have to relearn nearly lost skills. Thankfully some folks have preserved old knowledge and have worked to adapt them into usable, modern, ethically based skills.

Gardening is the best first step in our recovery--a real stimulus. I admire all those folks who came out yesterday to start their gardens for the season.

It really begins

Things are really gaining steam on the farm as all the potential energy built during the last two months jolts into the kinetic. This weekend is a huge plant sale down in Waynesville; we are preparing for that. Our direct-seeded greenhouse is cranking out the greens (and completely unmanageable weeds). Most of the field crops are doing good, aside from the few that got decimated by flea beetles. Cukes in the greenhouse are huge, but the fruits are getting chomped on by some mysterious burrowing creature. It's hard keeping up with all the flats of seedlings sitting in the propagation greenhouse. We've had the local TV news out of Asheville out here to take moving pictures of the quaint farm life and ask why in the world some young folks would willingly spend their time learning to farm. The cameraman irked me.

Aside from all that, it looks like morel season is done here. We got several decent harvests though. The recent weather has been rainy again (so much for the beginnings of that supposed drought, huh?), but it was preceded by several days of really warm, dry weather, which was perfect for outdoors fun. We also had our first visitor from back home, so the past weekend was spent cruising the area. We got to see some spectacular things at Max Patch and Cataloochee and out exploring our own holler, and spent some quality time in Asheville.

Lately it's been hard for me to sit back and reflect enough to write a decent post or unload pictures from the camera. Got lots of good shots to share.

How's everyone out there?

On missing things

Probably for the first time in over a month, since we've moved, I'm missing some of the old stuff. It's probably 'cause I was looking through pictures from the last two years. They hold lots of good memories. I miss Sunny Sky Farm. I miss our Wisconsin friends. I even miss the flatness (and rocklessness) a bit.

I mean the me that is now was born there. And place always matters.

Love where I am now though. Just miss some of those things.

Like:

• helping farm and learning what I need to know at the longest-running CSA in central Wisco
• Keith and Carie and Gavin--hangin' and occasionally tryin' to fish
• spring hiking the beautiful glacier-touched lands, despite those nasty ticks
• graveyard drunkenness
• Point beer
• easy, mostly level bike rides
• quick walks to Charlie's
• Feel Good
• really bad TV newscasts
• Wisconsin Public Radio
• and everyone out there trying to expand local agriculture--it's amazing what you all are doing in such a small population center

 Just to name a few.

A respite from rain?

It's been busy. I can't even remember what happened at the beginning of the week. We did have another snow scare, but it never actually fell. It only dropped to 35 last night, and now we're looking at several days in the mid- to upper-70s. Crazy mountain weather.

The last couple of dry (finally) days have been reserved mostly for bed prep and transplanting. We got lots of onions out and some mustard greens. Some beets and snow peas didn't germinate well, and the direct-seeded arugula in the field was destroyed by flea beetles, so we tilled all those in and we'll reseed them probably tomorrow. Since some of these crops were in partial beds, I had the opportunity to hone my skills at precision tilling on the tractor. It went ok, aside from one solitary plant casualty.

Tomorrow will probably bring lots of direct seeding, which we're behind on, and more transplanting (scallions and who knows what else). It's nice to finally have some dry weather.

This weekend is Trailfest in Hot Springs. Many of the Appalachian Trail hikers who do the whole thing (from Georgia to Maine) in one season make it to Hot Springs around this time. And they have to pass through the downtown, which is the first real population center they hit on the trail, so many of them pause here to stock up on provisions or catch a breather. Anyway, Meagan is gonna try to sling some of her jewerly as a vendor at the fest, and I'll be there for moral support.

More photos up soon, hopefully.

Edited to add: Oh yeah, bagged a whole bunch of morels yesterday. They might be peaking in our holler right about now. Also, the farm tour down in Saluda was cool. Met lots of nice folks from nearby farms and then had dinner and a couple brews at Asheville Pizza and Brewing Co. Good pizza; pretty good beer.