PLOWING ALONG

Today on the farm I made my first notable mistake. Charles asked me to harvest the remaining Swiss chard. He wanted it to come up so he could plow that area. “Do you know where the chard is?” he asked. I didn’t. “You’ll see where I was plowing before, it’s to the right of that.”

I walked out into the fields and easily found where he had been plowing. But to the right of that looked like a giant weed patch with nothing resembling Swiss chard.  I walked back to the barn to ask him again but he had gone off on an errand. His cell phone number is posted for calling him with questions but I figured I could find the chard on my own. I went back to the field, back to the recently plowed area and back to the right…and again found weeds. Okay, maybe he meant to the left or maybe I heard wrong? I walked to the left and found something that looked kind of like Swiss chard. I squatted down to inspect…well, the stems looked a little skinnier than I was used to but maybe we’re cutting them early so Charles can plow? Or maybe this is a skinnier variety? After all, I had never prepared or eaten Swiss chard before getting it from the farm; there could be several variations I don’t know about.

I dutifully got to work. Cut, cut, pull a weed, cut, cut…what’s that? Sticking up out of the ground here? GASP! That’s a beet! I’m cutting the stems off of all the beets! Thankfully I only did a few before realizing but…how embarrassing! I went back to the barn again, Charles was back. No big deal was made about the beets and he walked me out this time. The Swiss chard was in fact to the right of the plowed area but it was in half rows along the back of the field and yes, very hidden by weeds!

Sometimes I wish some things on the farm were a little more streamlined. For example, signs marking each crop or perhaps reference cards explaining the harvesting (or other) processes. Charles is almost always available (and, like I mentioned, by cell phone if not physically available) but newcomers wouldn’t have to worry about bothering him too much if there were some other techniques employed.

Will I make these suggestions to Charles? No way. Because as I mentioned in my last blog, he’s very receptive to new ideas and I know exactly what he’ll say: “That’s a good idea. Go ahead and do it.”

Seeing as how three hours a week is about the limit of what I can dedicate to the farm right now, I’m keeping my mouth shut on these kinds of improvements! I’ll keep plowing along and hopefully plowing the correct field.

—Written by Gina Sampaio a CSA member in NJ