WHICH DO YOU PREFER?
CSA PICKUP
MELODY CUTTING FLOWERS
WHO IS DOING WHOSE BIDDING?
ZINNIAS
THE EARTH LAUGHS IN FLOWERS
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER NO DOLLAR
Wasting no time, since there isn't a moment to waste around here, we were in the fields by 8 o'clock this morning and worked virtually nonstop until 7:30pm. Literally, we didn't even stop to eat a normal lunch, and Jen didn't even have time to find a bathroom all day! In lieu of lunch, we nibbled on raw fruit and vegetables all day long. If you've never eaten raw sweet corn, you have never lived. If you are buying quality corn, there is absolutely no reason you should have to cook it. Despite not stopping for a proper lunch or having many breaks it was a good day.
We're staying in an apartment in town, 10 minutes from the farm. By the time we arrived at the farm, Melody, Adam's girlfriend, already had the van packed and ready to take off to the market while Adam had already harvested over 100 ears of sweet corn. No matter how much we work here, and it will be more than we've worked on any other farm, Adam and Melody will always be at work before we arrive and will always work well after we've finished for the night. We started the day by harvesting 40 bunches of beets, each bunch containing 4-7 beets depending on their size, for the CSA. We harvested golden beets, candy striped beets, and bull's blood. We spent the rest of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon pruning, tying, and suckering the tomatoes in the greenhouse. This was no small task, since Adam's greenhouse is almost 15 feet tall, and so are all his tomatoes; we've never seen anything like it. The rope system Adam has devised for his tomatoes to climb up is inventive and so effective that it makes tomato cages and wooden stakes seem like child's play. Sometimes people affix the stalks of a tomato plant onto ropes or stakes for support, often using zip ties or string, both cumbersome and disposable, while Adam uses reusable plastic clips that snap onto the rope and around the stalk, supporting the plants as they grow. Adam has given each plant nearly 50 feet of rope, leaving about 30 extra feet wound up at the top. Tomatoes develop first at the bottom of the plant and bear new fruit clusters towards the top when the first fruit is ripening. With his system, Adam can harvest the first tomatoes at the bottom and then unwind some rope down, essentially lowering the entire plant onto the ground and giving it more room to grow vertically. This means he can grow a 30 feet high plant in a 15 foot tall greenhouse.
Later in the afternoon we harvested field tomatoes, anana melons (yellow oblong melons with white mild flavored flesh), and peppers. Juniper Hill's CSA members come to the farm between 4 and 7pm each Friday to retrieve their produce. This CSA is different than others we've seen because no boxes are made and brought to a central drop off point. Instead, all the produce is laid out on tables and people come and pick and choose what they like best. They're offered everything, but today plenty of people didn't take all that was available. In addition to the beets, field tomatoes, melons, and peppers we harvested, on today's table was: oriental eggplant, salad mix, carrots, onions, squash/zucchini, sungold tomatoes, and sweet corn. We'd sure be thrilled if we were offered this bounty for $23. Reflecting on what we've seen from past CSA operations, we think although this method of having people come to the farm has definite benefits, if we were to have a CSA, we'd probably drop off boxes to customers. Timewise, both ways of operating a CSA are probably similar: either you spend time packing boxes and taking them to town or you spend time setting up a stand on the farm and bringing all your produce there and staying there for three hours to monitor it all before breaking it down and putting everything away. For Adam and Melody, this works because their customers all live quite close and none of them mind coming to get their goodies. However in a larger CSA in a bigger city, a huge benefit is food gets delivered directly to customers and they don't have to go out of their way to pick it up. The plus of Juniper Hill's way is members don't ever get food they don't want or won't eat since they simply don't take home carrots if they don't like carrots. This system felt more like a farmer's market to us, but with fewer customers; but on the flip side, we bet those customers enjoy coming and seeing a bit of the farm and being able to talk with Adam and Melody. Almost all of these members are family and friends and are all very supportive of this relatively new start up farm, but we can't help but think the hours Adam and Melody spend manning the tent could be better spent elsewhere.
Just before sun fall we helped Melody harvest flowers. In addition to fruit and vegetables, Juniper Hill is also growing certified organic flowers. Melody makes bouquets and sells them at farmer's markets throughout the week and just like the vegetables and fruits, the flowers require care and massive amounts of attention. Her bouquets are beautiful, her flowers are magnificent, and it was fun as well as interesting to talk with her. We're really happy to be here and we know we'll learn a lot from our contemporaries (Adam: 27, Melody: 25) who are running a successful, small organic farm. It's a huge eye opener to be here, to see the endless work they do, and the ever growing list of needs they have is staggering; how they manage it all as young farmers is impressive.
No comments:
Post a Comment