Becky  (not really)

What’s Growing This Week:    Carrots  Asian Pears—% Satsuma Mandarins Salad Mix Potatoes Tokyo Turnips Cabbage Arugula (M, L) Green Onions (M, L) Delicata Squash (M, L) Fuyu Persimmons (L) Onions (L) Broccoli (L) Chard (L)

Wandering the streets of lower Manhattan  two weeks ago while waiting for an old friend to call, I stumbled upon a store that sold nothing but old prints and lithographs cut from the pages of books.  The ones that interested me the most were labeled “fruits and vegetables”.  Included in that grouping were old woodcuts of horse-drawn sprayers, color lithographs of fruit and vegetable varieties, and even pages of notes taken by plant breeders at the turn of the century.  But the print that I loved the most was a Currier and Ives farmhouse scene from 1895.  The scene shows a family harvesting apples and winter squash on their farm, in Queens, now part of New York City.  The print, which I purchased and have now hung in my house, reminded me of a newsletter I wrote almost ten years ago.  I’m going to take the liberty of re-printing it this week.

Over the holidays this year, I finally got my dad to sit down for a few minutes and tell me about the farm where he had spent his summers as a kid.  Greatgrandpa Underhill  and his wife Rose farmed 20 acres of market garden in Longbranch, New Jersey during the first third of this century.   My dad stayed there in the summer, and helped them out with harvesting and marketing their crops.  They grew many of the same crops we grow at Terra Firma during the summer, with lots of raspberries and blackberries in addition to strawberries.  There was also a tiny orchard plus broccoli, carrots, beets, and lots of other vegetables.  The Underhills had a cozy old farmhouse, with planked wood floors and big coal burning stove that served for cooking as well as heating the house.  My dad remembers their life being full of work, but not hardship.  Rose spent many hours in the summer canning the vegetables they grew in the summer, so they always had plenty to eat in the winter.  Great grandpa Underhill traded much of the produce they grew with the supermarket, in exchange for meat, flour, and other necessities that they didn’t grow.  Everything else was sold alongside the dirt road that ran by their farm, mostly to townsfolk who would pass by on their way to the beach during the summer.  There was no electricity, and water came from a hand pump in the backyard.  "Organic farming" was just farming back then, since there were no artificial fertilizers and few pesticides available.  And while most farmers in the area ploughed their fields with horses, my dad remembered with a big smile that his grandfather had worked the soil with a mule, named Becky.

 In remembering all this, my father was struck most particularly by a few things.  First, his grandparents were not poor, although they would be considered poor today.  They had few luxuries but lacked little.  Second, that all the crops were planned so carefully so that they always had something to sell but never too much – they had few if any hired helpers.  My dad remembers numerous varieties of different strawberries, for example.  Lastly, he clearly loved all the time he spent there, and he was amazed at how clearly he remembered the details of their house and farm.Here it was, right in my past – the picture of the perfect small farm that I had never seen or been to, but which existed nonetheless in my mind.  I wanted to climb inside my dad’s head and look for myself at his memories, to see that place and walk around it.  I wanted to sit down with my great-grandfather and talk to him about farming, compare notes and taste the sweet corn and strawberries.  Of course, if my grandfather and father had remained on the land, there would be no such yearning on my part.

Because the knowledge that each good farmer holds about the land is passed on to each new generation, and is built up through time by new experiences.
I would have inherited it along with the land.   Instead, I inherited only an intimation, an urge. The body of knowledge that has been lost as Americans left their rural roots behind is enormous, extremely localized and detailed, multiplied by the thousands of farms that covered the U.S. one hundred years ago.  And while it may not be worth much in the eyes of our society today to me, it is a priceless and fragile oral treasure. Once we lose it, it will be gone forever.  And yet it holds the keys that will enable our society to find some way of living on the Earth without destroying it.  So dredge up those memories, and let’s write them down.

IN YOUR BOXES
Did you miss your TFF produce?  I know I did.  I always try to eat as many vegetables as possible during the holidays, but it never really seems to be enough.  If you suffered power outages last weekend, your fridge probably got even emptier.  For the next few weeks, we’ll try to help you fill up the empty spaces in your fridge and make up for whatever deficit of vitamins and minerals you may have endured during our vacation.

Last weekend’s storm doesn’t appear to have done terrible damage to our crops, despite the high winds.  Mostly, though, our crops just didn’t seem to grow much while we were closed.  With the combination of wet, dreary weather and short daylight hours, the plants appear to have gone into hibernation.  This isn’t unusual — in fact, it is one of the many reasons we choose the end of year period to shut down the farm.  And while the winter solstice is just three weeks distant, the days are already lengthening and with any luck we’ll get a week or so of warm, dry weather to kick the veggies into gear again.

One of the biggest challenges we face during wet periods is trying to get all the sticky mud off the roots and leafy greens that we are harvesting.  We bring more mud into the wash house from the field, and it’s harder to get off when it’s wet.  We recommend that you give everything an extra rinsing at home just to make sure.

 We filled our coolers up with Satsuma Mandarins before closing the farm — a good thing, since they don’t really like getting pounded by wind and rain.  We hope to feature the mandarins for another 2-3 weeks, and we will also begin harvesting Navel Oranges this month.  We have also stockpiled several weeks worth of Coco Ranch Pink Lady apples as well as the remainder of our own Asian Pears.

 We’re looking forward to another great year of growing healthy fruits and vegetables for all our wonderful customers!

    Pablito
 
 

Please make sure to include your account name, the one on the sign off sheet & on the box, in every correspondance to Valerie

Recipes............................

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Contact Valerie through voicemail at (530) 756-2800, or e-mail Goldenbell@aol.com.  Include your account name in full (what's on the sign off sheet).

Account Balance Inquiries The account sheet is hiding under the sign off sheet each week with your account balance on it.  Mid month I've been e-mailing statments, so if you're not getting it send me an e-mail requesting to be added to the list. To be able to read the statements you need to be logged in as an administrator on a PC, and virus programs may corrupt the file. Some Mac operating systems do allow the file to be viewed.  We can't resend them, and it wouldn't work any better the second time anyway.

MAILING ADDRESS:
Terra Firma Farms, Inc
P.O. Box 836
Winters, CA 95694
(530) 756-2800
www.terrafirmafarm.com
Goldenbell@aol.com

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