Wild Mexicans and Summer Evenings

Just as we all thought summer would never rear its hazy head, mid August arrived with gusto and heat. Monday after Monday now Coogan and I drove the two hours to NYC in the dark with the night temperature never having dropped below its muggy 75 degree calm. I was beginning to feel like a tomato soldier. A trucker keeping trucker's hours. Rising at 3am three days a week to get the fruits to market week after week had finally begun to take its toll on my faculties. Days blended. There were no such things as weekends. What was a weekend?

Once in the truck, we conversed over the two hour drive to Union Square in Manhattan about the boss, the other interns, the tomato blight and all other manner of farm topics that had been on our minds this past month. He had gotten little sleep again because the Mexican crew had "brought the party back from Reading," as he often put it. He'd been up since 2am. At least I had gotten my usual five to six hours after a much needed shorter day of packing yesterday morning. The weathermen had promised yet another sultry Monday in New York with the always and ever lasting chance of a shower. Indeed, where had the summer gone? It seemed to have vanished. That is until this last two weeks. It had stored all its ferocity for months and had come charging in like a tenement fire, raging over the damp hills of Pennsylvania, creating dreamy, glowing horizons at night and oppressive washed out days.


We set up the stand and by 10 am the forecast had come true. New York was hot again. All the tomatoes were displayed neatly in ordered rows across the table with the cherry tomatoes at the left end of the front table. The Wild Mexicans, the name Tim had given the tiny red currant tomatoes that sold as Matt's Wild and Sweet 100's in many seed catalogues, were given special attention and much needed room to shine. We'd never sell many of those on a Monday, I mused. Too slow. Although, Mondays had been good thus far. We'll see I thought.


Unlike the other Mondays this year, today held a kind of prize at the end of the day. If we could be relatively sold out by 3:30 this afternoon, we could pack everything up in a hurry and rush back to the new farm where Organic Gardening magazine was setting up a photo shoot for an article by Dan to be published next summer. More importantly, famed chef Alex Lee was coming all the way from Long Island to add some tasty dishes to our Monday night Potluck tradition. Annie would meet us at 4 sharp and we'd hit the road to be out of the tunnel and on 78 well in time to reach the farm by sevenish. It would be close. One could never really plan anything for certain this time of year. There was really only one commitment. The tomatoes demanded submission. They wanted acceptance of their cult. Initiation to the tribe was non-negotiable. This was always the month that seemed to last forever.

Casey had gone to take a break in the park. I told him not to sweat it because I was an old pro and could run the Monday stand alone if need be. Of course this thinking was always deflated when three or four customers all swarmed at once and at the same time a couple of restaurant workers showed up to pick up their orders. This never failed. Today was no different.

The young Latino hipster from Otto showed up as I was scurrying to make change for two customers. "Just give me a minute," I said with a half smile. "Yeah, yeah, no problem. It's all good," he replied. He was always like that. Cool. No big deal. He had big chunky gold glasses a la Puffy Combs or Elvis and always dressed the semi-hip hop urban way with every detail in place. He didn't look the restaurant part to me and made my haggard farm/punk dress seem hillbilly to say the least. His face was straight out of a 70's children's TV show. A comic book set of mariachi teeth and big brown eyes with a smile on his face that reminded me of one of the characters on the Fat Albert cartoons. Always the most polite and friendly of customers. Every time.

As he stood next to me half on his cell and half looking at the invoice I was spastically scratching down for him, he whispered a few inches from my head, "Yo, I think that's Chelsea Clinton!?" It took a second or two for me to register this. All I could focus on was the other customers waiting. And him waiting. And everyone waiting on me to get it together. This was New York. You had to hustle. It wasn't slow-as-molasses, do-it-when-you-get-to-it Pennsylvania. Move the product so you can move it all! That was the game here. Even at the fairly mellow Monday farmer's market. "Huh?," I grunted as I half turned around to look at the woman, only one of three waiting, standing just in front of the Wild Mexicans and looking at her Blackberry. She had already made her selection of two half-pint cherry tomatoes which were placed just so at the edge of the table in front of her. "Just a minute," I said to everyone this time. "I'll be right with you." At first glance I wouldn't have recognized the woman if she had not been pointed out. This surprised me even more than the fact that she was there in the flesh, apparently with no Secret Service or entourage at all. I had always been the one to recognize the famous customers when they visited the farm stand. If you wanted to blend in to the crowd though, leave your personae behind, there was no better place than New York City.



The three of us pulled into the farm in Lobachsville at just about half past seven. Not bad, I thought. The photo hubbub would have ended and we could start on the food and maybe some cold beer. The light all around had turned to evening oranges, purples, and blues. The vista surrounding the farm seemed to have an endless quality as I surveyed the chile and tomato field and terraced grass and oat fields that enveloped the out buildings of the grounds. "You guys are lucky to be driving at this time of day. It's the best time to ride around," Annie had said as we winded down and through New Smithville's fairy-book-like nooks and crannies, meeting up with Fleur de Lys farm on our left. "Yeah," I replied. "It's all fuzzy and glowing." I looked in amazement yet again at the intense green trees spotting the sides of the road and the many shades of yellow light casting shadows on and bathing the hillside cornfields. Wasn't this the first and last redeeming quality of the automobile? Sunday drives on summer evenings in the country?


Our Potluck Mondays had come to a halt throughout July mainly because nobody had time for them. The tomato harvest was upon us at Eckerton Hill and Dave and Tianna were busy with their ag jobs and responsibilities. Everyone was traveling a lot for work these days. It was nice to finally have a farm dinner again. What a way to end a long market day! The very often tedious and arduous planting and harvesting means had finally started producing this most serene of all ends. To sit at the table and enjoy the food. To relax finally under the summer veil of sunset and then moon and stars. To indulge in Alex's hopped up, tweaked out version of mole sauce with spare ribs, Kate's stone fruit tart, a cold Stoudt's ESB, tomato salad with basil and cheese, Maria's bean and cheese enchiladas and all the many other delectable squash, corn, bean and grain tastes arrayed out before us. Ahhhhhh. If only for its position to me as the lowly seasonal precursor to Autumn, these last most heated summer days and nights were truly sublime.

Alex and Tim converse among the bhut jolokia and fatali peppers.

Amana Orange

To the Oxheart of all Oxhearts. The sweet, dense, acidic heart of the Universe. That fruit containing all secrets and kingdoms. That heavy symbol hanging so heavy and low on the vine. Almost two pounds of dense flesh, the color of mango fruit! The brother and cousin and father and mother and sister of Verna Orange and Persimmon? Lush! Behold it amends the scripture and sends the message:

I am the wind that blows o'er the sea;
I am the wave of the deep.
I am the bull of seven battles;
I am the eagle on the rock;
I am a tear in the sun;
I am the fairest of plants;
I am the boar for courage;
I am a salmon in the water;
I am a lake in the plain;
I am the word of knowledge;
I am the head of the battle-dealing spear;
I am the god who fashions fire in the head.


I am the TOMATO.

The peak of August is at hand everyone. Go to the market and find your fruits.



All photos by Wayne Miller tmrg. Celtic myth passage from Joseph Campbell's "Myths to Live By." Said to be quoted from Amairgen, chief poet of the Goidelic Celts.

Late Blight: Spray 'em or Bust!

It wasn't the first time it happened. Truth be told, it was a fairly common yearly occurrence except that it had come two months early this year. It wasn't referred to as late blight for nothing. This particular fungus, that could ravage an entire field of tomatoes, potatoes, or whatever other solanaceous crop it fell onto, was supposed to rear its ugly head right about the end of an average tomato season. The last time I saw it was in the third week of September, 2006. Within two weeks it had claimed the last 5,000 (yeah that's right--5,000) tomato plants. Untold profits sifting into the wet, gray sky like fireflies rising suddenly, in a gentle swarm, from their low hiding spaces in an empty field. Invisible spores with the strength of a Grecian regiment. No evil intent, mind you. But just as ferocious all the same. That year we cut our losses and let it do its thing. The bulk of the tomato crop had been harvested and the crop had been cashed.

"We're just trying to get a handle on how some of the farmers here at the Greenmarket are being affected by the blight," said the Time magazine journalist inquisitively. "How have you dealt with the problem and what has the effect been on your business?," she asked me. Wow, I thought. Late blight has caught the attention of a national publication. Was it the fact that there was such a rise in the number of certified organic farmers in the past few years? Certainly this had to be a big part of their interest. The farm I co-managed had never even applied for certification. For too many reasons to mention, it just didn't make sense. While this year we had grown all of our spring and summer crops in the organic/natural manner we always had, we were forced to spray fungicide on our tomatoes. People often talk about sustainable agriculture. It's ironic, though, that when the word sustainable is mentioned, it rarely refers to being financially sustainable. I guess viable would be a better word in this context. Still, it seems to be a little known fact outside the world of "sustainable agriculture" speak that most organic farmers, certified or not, are lucky if they break even financially each year, much less make a profit. Why does this tie into discussions of locally grown, organically grown, certified organic, naturally grown, etc.? Because while it may not be the first issue or notion that comes to mind when the topic arises, it may be the biggest elephant in the room.

"We aren't certified organic. We never have been and our farm has been able to exist almost solely on the sale of tomatoes. There wasn't any way that we could survive this year without the use of some kind of conventional (read: chemical) spray being used on some of our tomatoes," I replied to the journalist. A viable business is not without some bottom line somewhere. "If I couldn't spray my plants I'd be out of business," the owner of our farm said to the latest wondering chef. The conversation naturally put the farmer somewhat on the defensive as he anxiously explained how an entire 15 year savings had been put on the line to purchase a farm last fall. It had become time to stop renting and letting the cash crop be obliterated so soon afterward was not an option. Buying the farm was also none too soon. To date, we haven't seen any disease on the new field's somewhat virginal soil which may simply be a result of not having been planted with tomatoes for decades, if ever. Tomatoes almost always thrive in new soil because all the many diseases that affect them are not yet established in the soil. Assuming the soil is favorable otherwise, that is.

"Do you have anything smaller?" asked Nelson, a recent NYU grad who was interested in farming and who had been working at our market stand now for about a month. This after he had just asked me for twenties to make change for Uma Thurman who was standing in front of him. I had stepped over to Tim to get the twenty dollar bills I was short on so early in the morning. We were both looking at each other knowingly, but all I could think was that the glasses she had on were not that flattering. It turned out that neither Nelson or Tim had known who she was, even though Tim had sort of whispered to me, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, "Who, who is that? Is she famous?" It wasn't like it was the first time she had bought our tomatoes. Lucky for us she didn't ask the dreaded, "Are they organic, are they sprayed?"

But what of the hundreds of farmers all through the mid-atlantic and northeast region of the country who are putting high hopes into selling the most popular of all August's acidic fruits? The farmers that truck into New York's Greenmarket from "upstate," as is the label for all farms north of and including the Catskills and beyond. The summer that gave rain and then more rain and then just kept on raining, week to week, month to month. The summer in which July was on schedule to be the second coolest on record for New York City. Sure they could sell their zucchini, eggplant, peppers, and corn but what had weight like a tomato? What could draw a price to match Whole Foods' $5.95/lb. for the next six to eight weeks? When we put a 1lb. Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter heirloom tomato on the scale at our stand and the price reads $5.50 or a rare $6.00 for one tomato it's something to behold. As John McPhee might say, that's a fruit that, even if only for a very short season, "gives good weight."

Night Shades part. 3

Studio 2728--Girard Ave. Philadelphia,PA

We took the rhubarb, asparagus, and kale out of the trunk and walked across Girard Ave. to the entrance of the Studio. It was still early. Like 6pm. The shows always started at six but no one ever got there until around 7. At least that’s how it usually went at Studio 2728. But tonight was special. It was to be the first big deal night for Jon and Leigh. Everyone assumed for one reason or another, whether it was the old adage “sex sells,” or the rising status of the erotic photographer, that this show would draw the biggest crowd the place had seen thus far.

By eight o’clock there were more tattooed women than I’d ever seen in one place milling inside the gallery and outside on the sidewalk. Models that had worked with the artist I guessed. The story went that he was now being hired to fly all over the world to shoot women in his erotic photographic style. Originally working and based in Baltimore, MD, he now lived on a “farm” in one of those mid western corn states. Iowa was it? I couldn’t remember but he definitely brought the crowd. Skip had been irritated with this guy because at six o’clock, when the doors were supposed to open, the photographer and his assistant were still hanging art. Apparently he had some anxiety issues and was sucking down Mt. Dews all day. I thought the whole scene was comical. Here you had this fairly typical hipster looking guy sporting big ass gold-rimmed Elvis glasses nervously floating around the gallery ordering his assistant to various tasks in an almost whispering, raspy voice while back in Jon and Leigh’s bedroom was his quiet, sly looking girlfriend putting on heavy movie-star eye makeup with Skip’s cat snoozing on the futon. To his credit, I got the sense that this photographer was only as much of a primadonna as it might take to push him from cult star status to something more. It was all too LA yet in a fairly endearing, low-fi kind of DIY-for-porn-star way. The energy was there. That great city, art-scene energy vibe that can be sometimes hard to find out in the country where I live. Not to mention the amazing looking people in all their hipster attire. Flaunting style just to do it.

What a juxtaposed weekend. To think I had spent the morning at a Mennonite farm learning about companion planting in the garden. By ten that night a crew of us headed over to the Barbary Club for the after- gallery party. We had heard some friends of the artist would be spinning reggae and soul records there . I had been skeptical about this part of the night’s events at first but was amazed to find the dimly-lit, dingy bar slammed with people getting down to classic 60’s soul and yes! reggae. I had never been to the Barbary before but felt right at home immediately. It felt like London. I should say it felt like what I imagined a hard-hitting reggae club in London to be like. And what would any London club worth its salt be without a few skinheads dancing solo to the chorus, “I’m a sufferer, a sufferer, a sufferer.”



All photos by Wayne Miller thickmoonroughgoat!

Wild Persimmon Farm Journal

It was Dan's idea. He wanted to start a new New Farm. A magazine/website/community that would start on-line but then take physical shape in the form of a working farm that provides local food and education to the surrounding community and beyond. This is where Tim Stark and Dave Wilson came in. Tim already had the farm and was indeed starting a "new" one up above the Oley valley on a piece of land that had been in the Angstadt family for generations. Dan and Tim being friends as well as writers, things finally boiled down to organizing winter dinners which were partly to get the ball rolling on Dan's project but also to provide a weary farmer/writer with some respit from the winter blues. We could all use that. All of us who put our very souls deep into the earth of work for many months only to be stopped cold when the first flurries fall from a sunless sky.

Dave Wilson had been the main agricultural researcher at Rodale and was interested in continuing his various cover crop projects on new ground. Eventually a group formed which was roughly composed of these three persons as well as a jewelry maker and fabulous cook named Tess, the co-manager from Tim's farm (Eckerton Hill Farm) Wayne, Tianna, a sustainable extension agent from Penn State, and Kim, a person Tim and Wayne knew with seemingly endless talents for fixing, creating, and building up everything from people to engines to bees to garden beds . There too, at those first dinners was Genevieve, another writer with her pulse on the sustainable ag movement coupled with hands-on farming experience and soon to be graduate student at Columbia University. And on occasion Chris, another ex-Rodale man whose expertise were graphics and web design.

Still in the process of figuring out how and when and what to do with all the talents and ideas of all these minds, Wild Persimmon Farm Journal (so- named for the Persimmon trees that stand just yards away from the old Angstadt house) is at its beginning stages and like any organization worth its best idea, is a community of people. Slowly growing. Hoping, in this case, to serve as an example of how community can be found in the food grown and raised in one's own back yard. The cliche of you are what you eat comes to mind as well as all the many trends such as farm-to-table restaurants, farm-to-city, buy-fresh-buy-local, localvore etc. now circulating and overlapping the larger green movement(s). Are they all valid or even sustainable? Only time will tell. It does seem like its time to bring real food back to the table and create some semblance of culture that starts as it once did, down on the farm.





All content including photos and video by Wayne Miller.

First fruits

There is just too much to write and talk and think about. My thoughts are scattered like dandelion seeds in the afternoon. It's time to just start listing things. Line them up. Broadcast the thoughts you dunce. Grow it and then eat it you fools.

We'd been growing since February and as of the second and third weeks in April had been harvesting 7 different varieties of heirloom radishes, asparagus, tyee and bordeaux spinach, mesclun, and rhubarb. Up on top of the world at the new farm in Lobachsville Dave and Tim had seeded all manners of cover crops including red, white, and yellow clover, peas and oats, and various grasses. We were also now in the business of growing interns at a rate of two for the spring and one more to come that will make a grand total of three extra humans to help us this summer and fall.

There was all the ripping and tearing and nashing to be done at the 1780's stone farmhouse. All the carpets out. New steps to last a life time. Washing away of all metal, glass, cardboard and tin excesses. There had to be moments to stare at the green. So many first things. On Saturday the 9th of May the first fruits would be taken to New York for Lucy to write about. Don't blink. We all had to eat every other Monday. How much rhubarb could one person consume?

On Mother's Day it was way past the second and third weeks of April wasn't it? Waaaaaaaaay past. Catch up. The lines had been drawn up like California vegetable rows. There was now all of the above, go back up there and see that you missed the Tyee!, and romaine, butterhead, red oak, tango, speckled, lolla rosa lettuce heads, bright lights swiss chard, red russian kale, la cinato tuscan kale, baby pac choi, ruby streaks mustard greens, and over heated fired up gone to yellow seedzzzzzzzzzzies broccoli raab. Gobs of the big leaves and the poor men. Eat it. Eat all of it!

Night shades pt. 2

Bowers

Kate and I walked up to the garden plot in front of the big stone farmhouse at 9:47 am. We were 17 minutes late and James Weaver was already speaking quickly, captivating the group of 20 or so on-lookers who had come to learn about raised bed gardening. The first weekend of May had turned out chilly and gray with a refreshingly soft mist in the air. A much appreciated reprieve from the unseasonable 90 degree days earlier in that week.

James made a few more comments on the morning's topic which lead me to believe we had missed some kind of a greenhouse tour at the beginning of the session. He then introduced a rugged, wirey looking man of about 30 years as Seth. "His is the new way of gardening," James said enthusiastically. "Of course its really the oooooold way, but we're seeing it more and more again today." He was describing the now 100's of years old style of gardening known as raised bed or intensive inter-planting/companion gardening that would be the focus of his "brother's," as he called Seth, portion of the workshop.

Seth got right into explaining how he had set up the three 4ft. by 8ft. beds that bordered one side of the square garden plot. His accent was definitely southern and Kate remarked that he must be from Louisiana. She along with Casey, who were interning at the farm this year, had come along that morning to pick up some gardening know how but also to discover the great operation that was Meadow View Farm. I remembered that this space was formerly used by James's wife Alma for growing flowers to be cut and then sold. Now it would be a model for large scale vegetable gardening. It was immaculately layed out into about 12 slightly different shaped beds seperated by neatly carved rows all leading to a circular center bed. Each area planned for a different family of vegetable. The pathways perfectly sculpted and mulched.

Seth moved slowly down along his three bed presentation answering questions and giving insights through smiles and a somewhat self-deprecating manner. I noticed how clear and straightforward he spoke. How directly he looked at the person he was addressing. Like James, he loved to talk. He said all this was just plain fun for him and that he was indeed learning himself. "Can you just plant spinach then right down in the middle of the sttttrawwwwbuuuries?," asked a serious looking woman with a flower patterned dress and a refined, mild accent that sounded possibly Indian. "Oh yes, for me the texture and color of the garden is just as important as the rotation of vegetables. You can go so many ways with your layout. We know that spinach and strawberries are good to plant with each other," Seth responded. I kept thinking the way he moved his arms and adjusted his worn John Deere cap was so typical of a guy I might see at a Phish show but that the southern accent was altogether original and through off any stereotype. His energy was seemingly never ending. I wondered if he'd still have it when he reached James's age which was somewhere in the mid-50's. But then again, would any of us?