Photos

Sunset in upstate New York

Tomatoes!!

The Farm Queen with her lovely bouquet of Swiss Chard

Stefani harvesting lavender

Chris and Jon (Stefani's brother) at Farmer's Market

Beautiful, beautiful produce

I enjoy Farmers Market. I like displaying vegetables and stacking crates and arranging baskets so that they tier just so. I like turning baskets on their sides so it appears as if the cucumbers are spilling out onto the table. To fill bins with romaine and Boston and leaf lettuces, each with their own textures and ruffles and curves. It’s pleasurable to mix the colors on the tables to attract they eye: purple and lavender eggplants, orange carrots, yellow squash, and magenta radishes.

Among the most beautiful is the red and white Swiss chard- brilliantly massive in their stems and puffy leaves. Peas and garlic and broccoli add texture to an otherwise leafy green display. Leeks and scallions add height. Beets and new potatoes dimension. Zucchini a little pizzaz with those stripes. Currants add a sort of feminine curiosity that intrigue.  Herbs bring abundance and fragrance and consistency. They sit neatly in their bins, stems still in water, beside a list that I compile each week: Basil, Thyme, Oregano, Cilantro, Garlic Chives, Dill, Lemon Balm & Lavender. I like to draw a line through each herb as we sell out each week. (Usually that would be Basil, Cilantro and sometimes Dill.)

And front and center on our market table you would find the most popular item of the week. Usually a newcomer. First, it was strawberries red and ripe in their quart containers and currently, the first tomatoes of the season. Large pink beauties. Cherry tomatoes in orange, yellow, red and purple shining in the morning sun.

Many shoppers comment on our display (which is nice), but when they take out their camera and snap photos of our gorgeous veggies it is the highest compliment.

I know it’s a bit of my OCD and perfectionism and public relations background, but I do enjoy setting up at Farmer’s Market. And I hope it matters at the end of the day. That we are a Farmer’s Market vendor worth visiting, worth searching out, worth coming to week in and week out. 

Just this last weekend two women exchanged recipes over the basket of zucchini and the crate of eggplant– pens and paper pulled out of purses and everything- and it made my heart happy. Without people willing to buy fresh, local, organic produce all of this would be in vein. 

July: Where the going gets tough and the tough suck it up

July is the hardest month. That is what Thomas told us our first working day in July. We start the workdays an hour earlier. Long, long workdays. And still there are things that are forever needing weeding, cultivated, trellised or transplanted. This week we started watering with the waterwheel because it has been terribly dry. Terribly. Makes for good weeding though- and that’s about it.

I want to tell you all the things I have not mentioned thus far. How Chris and I sleep separately most nights; he- all 6'5" of him- on the full-sized bed (barely) and me on the futon folded out into a larger bed. Every single night we sleep apart, because it’s the only somewhat not-so-terrible way to sleep. It is still far from comfort.

I want to tell you on Tuesday and Fridays when most the harvesting is done, I end up walking around most of the day in pants and shoes that are sopping wet. Imagine that time when you got off one of those water rides at Six Flags and you had to walk around for the next three hours with wet socks and wet underwear in the blazing hot sun. Yeah, it's sort of like that. Because we are power washing and soaking and spraying veggies to get most of the dirt off of them, we get a little wet.

And tomato plants, what’s the deal? They are so sticky and yellow and after trellising rows of them for hours on end my arms look like the incredible hulk’s: green. My hands and arms are covered in yellowish, green sticky film that will only wash off after the third or fourth scrubbing. But it keeps the insects away- at least.

And after pulling weeds and pulling garlic and knotting twine around bunches of garlic to hang them up to dry, my fingers ache. I usually don’t realize this until I wake up the next morning and think that I have early onset of arthritis. My mom told me when I was young that a woman shows her age in her neck and hands. In these four months my hands have gone from looking 25 to looking 45. I am not exaggerating. This is how it is. My hands look, well, like someone who digs in the dirt for hours on end while in the sun. Farming: it’ll age a person.

We’ve harvested potatoes, eggplant, leeks, cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli and currants all in the past week alone. Our table at Farmer’s Market on Saturday’s is brimming with harvest o’ plenty. And so is the table in our apartment. We’ve been able to enjoy sautéed yukina savoy, boiled potatoes, slices of tomato on our sandwiches and cucumbers marinade in vinegar.

It’s a good feeling- working so hard. It’s something I’m proud of at the end of the day. Even if it is work that is not highly regarded, eating is necessary. Growing real food is necessary.