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| salad mix at San Francisco farmers' market-Green Gulch Farm |
Today, I returned to Powisset Farm after almost an
entire week away from the fields! After flying all night I returned to the farm
around 9am, when the air was still moist and surprisingly cool. The arbor in front of the flower garden had
new height to it and the fields were quiet with everyone away for the Monday
holiday. It’s amazing how much our
fields transform after just a week.
Around every corner, I was thrilled and amazed to see all the work that
the farm crew had done while I was away and how much the kale and chard had
grown and how the broccoli will be harvested soon!
Powisset farm is an easy place to miss. I wondered often about how many pounds of
tomatoes the crew was harvesting each day, or if it rained at all, helping to
quench our dry soils. When I craved a
zucchini or cherry tomato, instead of walking out to the fields I had to buy
them!! Luckily, I was vacationing in
vegetable mecca; northern California! So, off to the farmers markets I went—full of
excitement to see what these stands had to offer and how the produce would
compare to what we were growing in Dover.
Plums, pluots, peaches, grapes, dates and avocados
overflowed displays on delightfully beautiful stands, with smiling people
offering delicately sliced sections of figs for visitors to sample. Those particular stands definitely pointing
out the differences between what we grow here and the plentiful stone fruits of
California. But, plenty of stands were filled with
beautiful bowls of salad greens, bunches of chard, and red, ripe early girl
tomatoes grown with “dry farming” methods, that I really need to read up
about. I perused the rows upon rows of
vendors at the big Ferry Plaza farmer’s market in San Francisco, a large cup of coffee in
hand—when I normally would have been harvesting for our Saturday
distribution—and wondered, how local were these farms?
Of my favorite vendors—the ones that most reminded me of
Powisset, and totally inspired me to grow new and beautiful things—the closest
one to the market was 20 miles away. The
other farms I admired were growing on forty to one hundred acres and traveling over 75 miles to come to the
market—some of the farms making the trip to the city several times per
week. I gratefully smiled for the true
local-ness of our farm and this farming community, both CSAs and farmers’
markets in eastern Massachusetts. We are truly growing food where we live,
small scale production, no need to drive 75 miles each week in order to sell
our produce. Yes, there was beautiful
weather, plump stone fruit and the beautiful bay bridge in the background—but
there was no Powisset Farm.
It’s good to be back!
See you in the fields!
Meryl
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| i love onions! |
What's in the share this week:
Up at the barn: lettuce, cilantro, sweet corn, hakurei turnips, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, carrots, choice of greens (chard, arugula, bok choi)
in the fields: husk cherries, last of the cherry tomatoes
What We Need Is Here
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
Wendell Berry
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