Field Notes | Our land serves as an outdoor classroom for our educational programs, research, agricultural and conservation projects.

The End of the Season Comes

December 3, 2012 by Meg Leave a Comment

The Fourth of December is my last day of work on the farm. Although you might see crops growing out in the new field, the place has been getting tucked in for the winter for a while now, and should be ready for the winter when I leave. Machines are being winterized and the irrigation system will undergo the same. It’s all part and parcel with the end of the season. The earth subsides from its state of ecstasy, the farmers slow their manic pace, the sun sinks deep into the southern sky.

For myself, the path before me is a blank canvas. I have a vision for what that may look like, but the reality is still elusive. My plan is to begin a CSA next year outside of Morgantown, WV, where I am from. I’ve worked out the numbers, from how many seeds to buy, feet to plant, dates of sowing and harvesting, harvest containers to be purchased, irrigation lines to be run, but some numbers are still elusive. Some numbers seem as though they are always elusive for the farmer. It is a cold hard fact that money is the hard part of farming.

As I have calculated, I have made around the federal minimum wage, which is actually pretty good for most apprenticeships. It’s less than I have made since I was fifteen years old, other than last season when I was volunteering on farms. I talked to a prominent farmer recently, who sells at the largest farmer’s market in D.C., and he told me to expect to make less than three dollars per hour working on my own (as he does currently). People in America struggle to make a living on much more than that. Poverty seems as though it will be my reality in the short term, and that is something that I will accept to pursue my passion. I have faith and determination to make a living being a farmer, but have no illusions about it being an easy or secure way of life.

I won’t trouble you with all of the numbers that I have calculated–from how many tomatoes I would need to grow to purchase a tractor, or a pair of new work pants, or pay rent, but it’s quite a few. What I would like to share with you are some thoughts about value and agriculture.

I farm because I want to help nourish people’s bodies and souls. It is a calling. I accept the low pay and the long hours, because I am trying to do what I love and share that love with you. When I go to a good grocery store, or a farmer’s market, I tend to look at the prices on the produce. Sometimes the prices seem low, sometimes they seem high. But when I think of the hours of labor that have gone into those vegetables, the passion that farmers have for what they grow, and how hard it is to make a living farming, I pay willingly because I know that that is the only way local agriculture works. I am sure you all value farming in similar ways to myself, so I urge that when you go to shop at MOM’s, the Accokeek Winter Farm Market, or any farmer’s market, when you consider the cost of a head of cabbage or a bunch of carrots, also consider how much fifty cents per pound more means to your pocket book and how much it might mean to a farmer trying to make a living, trying to buy a bigger tractor to grow for more people, or someone like me just trying to buy a new pair of work pants.

Thank you for the chance to grow with you.
— Sky

Filed Under: Agriculture and Farming, Blog, Featured Blog Tagged With: csa, Field Notes, sky

In Circles

November 2, 2012 by Meg Leave a Comment

by Blain Snipstal

In the field notes that the reader is most familiar with, we, the collection of writers, usually write from the perspective of the “farmer.” We may, quite frequently throughout our writings, use the phrase “as a farmer,” or “I’m a farmer,” or “the thing about farming.” However, I want to be frank. I’m speaking as a ‘being’ first and as a ‘being that tends the land’ second.

As mentioned before, I came to this community of learners and lovers of food after a crash; after a period of tumult, of distress and uncertainty.

I believe in circles, in cycles; ellipses of itinerant paths that connect in ways that couldn’t be predicted or planned. Traveling in those circles, never repeating the same step, brings power to our character, and groves to the paths that lie ahead of us.

I was once in the same position as Sky and Susan are now, as apprentices. My apprenticeship was in Lawrence, Kansas, on Moon on the Meadow Farm. I started in March of 2010 with no real production agriculture experience under my belt. There were two apprentices that year – myself and another fellow. The farm had one tractor that mostly served as a place holder for boxes and seed trays. The field labor was left to our hands and backs. We were 3.2 acres of veggie production with a CSA the size of the Ecosystem Farm. During this time I was still a full time student-athlete.

The apprenticeship was to last from March until November. For me, this ended in August without warning. I started pre-season training for the upcoming soccer season, unable to do both soccer and farm; I stuck with prior commitments and discussed this with my farm manager before taking the apprenticeship. We discussed taking two weeks off in August and returning in September. September came. I never received the call to return to the farm. “So it goes,” I thought, but in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t complete.

Two years later, I found myself in Southern Maryland after returning to the country from living abroad. I came here thinking things were to be anew, fresh – starting from a new place. I was mistaken. There was the crash, and the phone call came. Unlike two years earlier, I was on the receiving end of the call. Then came August and I was back on the farm, full time. Within the first week, although I didn’t speak this to anyone, I realized what was happening. I was continuing a circle.

We all share in these types of moments, I believe. Those moments where we get the sense that we are continuing something we started but did not finish; that we are moving in a direction that is supported by our past experiences. And, I suppose that this is always happening; that we are either continuing circles, finishing, or beginning new ones.

These motions of continuance, finishing and beginning circles and paths are simultaneous. They’re not linear, they’re not perfect and they’re not singular. Often, I feel, we believe that we have “a path”; a journey divinely scribed in the heavens, uniquely crafted for each us. Perhaps we do. Who am I to say otherwise? But, I like to perceive that we have several, maybe even an infinite number of paths. Paths that shift and shake after every step we take, like moist soil depressing underneath your footstep. It’s a matter of seeing them.

This is my last field notes with the Ecosystem Farm crew. Because of them, and the land, I am able to see more than I did when I got there. Thanks to them, and unbeknownst to me, I have completed one circle, all the while starting and continuing infinitely more. For that, I extend my heart and hands to all those who did that without knowing so.

Thank you.

Click here to read more from Field Notes

Filed Under: Agriculture and Farming, Blog, Featured Blog Tagged With: circles, csa, Field Notes

Roasted Cherry Tomato Soup

September 24, 2012 by Meg Leave a Comment

from earthandstyleblog.com

Ingredients

4-6 cups of cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium sized onions, cut into large pieces
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 cups chicken stock
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, divided
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. dried oregano
2/3 cup of grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
salt

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Place the cut onions, cherry tomatoes, oregano, 1/4 cup of fresh basil leaves (whole) and salt and pepper to taste on a small roasting pan. Drizzle 3 tablespoons of olive oil over the tomatoes, onions and herbs, and toss to coat.

Place the pan in the oven and roast about 15-20 minutes until the tomatoes are soft and blistered. Remove from oven and pour into a medium to large size sauce pan. Turn the burner on medium-low. Add the minced garlic and chicken stock, and remainder of fresh basil.

Using a counter top blender or an immersion blender, blend the vegetables to the consistency you prefer – chunky, thin, or in between. Once it’s blended the way you like it, add the parmesan cheese and heavy cream. Stir to blend and heat through. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Serve immediately.

Yields: approx. 4 servings

A Change is Going to Come

September 17, 2012 by Anjela Leave a Comment

by Sky Harman, Farm Apprentice

Tonight a chill is in the air. For a week or so now, the chilled nights, the cold mornings require long sleeves and rubber boots to keep the heavy dew from our socks. It may pass, the heat may yet still return, as some of us at the farm predict, but fall is certainly in the air.

For me, fall is a melancholy time. It means many things, but it alludes to a passing of the season and the eventual return to the short days of winter. Already the days have grown shorter. No longer do we have the hours in the day to work until weariness overcomes us and yet still have the light to take care of the chores at home, not to mention a moment of respite and a long view of the setting sun. For many days now, I have rolled home with my headlights ablaze, and my chickens have had to skip their second meal of the day.

All of this aside, I am a bit excited by the change, even if it may be coming too soon. fall weather means ripe apples, root crops coming to maturity, and my new favorite thing: salad. The leafy greens are not quite ready for harvest, but one of the few fringe benefits of the farming life is being the first one to taste the harvest. I have eaten the spicy mustard leaves, succulent with moisture, almost tender enough to make me spare them from the imminent demise that they find in my mouth, but I am not so pardonable. The gift of their being is welcomed with thanks and praise.

Lettuces aside, fall means other things as well. The end of my apprenticeship is fast approaching, even though it feels like just a week and a day removed that it began. This time of year means for every farmer, a long look towards a future even if it may not come. For me it is thinking of my own practice in farming and how I will make this dream a reality.

Farmers are a pragmatic lot, and even with my misplaced hope and quirky skew on reality, I consider myself among that lot of people. It is the hows rather than the whys which most concern me, and so I have set my mind to addressing those things. It would be a daunting task for anyone to dream so big, yet so concretely, as I am doing. It is almost overwhelming but I must because I dream and because I believe that farming is not so much a livelihood, as a calling. I am called. I am called to feeding people so that they may sit around a dinner table, that I have not seen, to enjoy what I poured my soul into. I am called to care for the tender seedlings as they make their way from pot to earth. I am called by the tobacco hornworm, that I must crush on the tomato vine. I am called by the roosters crowing before the dawn outside my bedroom window. I am called by the cloudless sky. I am called by the weeds that always encroach the fields. I am called by the heat and the cold and I look forward today to another changing of the season when we again will plant anew.

Food Is Everywhere

September 11, 2012 by Anjela Leave a Comment

by Becky Seward, Ecosystem Farm Manager

Harvesting is my favorite farming activity, tied with transplanting seedlings. The tactile element is exaggerated when parting a wily tomato plant for fruit, or prying apart delicate lettuce babies for relocation into a bigger flat. I find I have the same feeling: of training my eyes for aesthetic abundance, when I take walks in the woods, searching for medicinal and edible plants. The two methods of food gathering, that come about through very different processes, evoke the same basic desire within me. It is something as primal as sitting around a campfire. It is the gatherer part of me, and it reminds me to consider the overlapping relationship between wild and cultivated food.

Every plant we grow on the farm began somewhere in the evolutionary scheme of things as a wild plant, indigenous to some part of our planet, settling into its ecological niche. At some point humans came in, plucked out the plant and developed it into a tastier or hardier version of itself, in the process changing the chemistry of the plant for human consumption. The tomato, which has no direct native species (the primogenitor is the tomatl of the central Andes), came to Italy around 1522. It did not make it into the hearts of Americans until the early 20th century however, as it was considered poisonous and generally too luscious for public consumption.

The garlic we know now in its cultivated form originated in Asia as long as one thousand years ago, but there is no shortage of native edible plants all around us with that potent spicy savory flavor. Ubiquitous garlic mustard in early spring, ramps from the Appalachians, wild onion, and chives all are wild and delicious in this region and can be found safely and in abundance in our woods and fields. While we may not find the cucumber growing wild in the nearest cleared land, it has been common in botanical history as long ago as 7750 BC, when it was cultivated near its native southeast Asia. This plant, taking many different shapes in many different food cultures, often interbreeding with other members of its plant family, the cucurbits, has survey benefited from such long standing human attention, to the point where there are pests of several different families of insects that thrived on our cucumber crop this season!

In my engrossed delight at finding a rare carnivorous plant in the swamp, I find the gatherer and also the mad scientist. In their prolific diversity, I am able to see why plants have inspired us to manipulate (breed) them with as much creativity as there are vegetable varieties. Grab a field guide and go try something wild today with your cultivated veggies!

This article was published and distributed in Field Notes, a weekly CSA publication.

Filed Under: Agriculture and Farming, Blog, Featured Blog Tagged With: csa, Ecosystem Farm, farm, Field Notes, garlic, tomatoes, wild edibles

Notes from the Field: A School of Motion

September 4, 2012 by Anjela 1 Comment

Envision, Plan, Plant and Cultivate.
Seed, Water, Weed and Observe.
Harvest!
by Blain Snipstal, Farm Assistant

View Field Notes

Movement and motions are the actions of that process that brings us from point A – to – point B, that brings one from their beginning to their end, and back. As farmers, we work to move in a rhythm of cycles and circles, methodologies and philosophies. We strive to find the order in the chaos of agriculture, to find a balance within the dynamics of nature and her ecosystems. Sometimes this can be as easy as prepping the beds, laying down irrigation (lay flat), sowing the seeds and harvest. Other times it can be as frustrating as chopping down wanted plants, forgetting to water at key moments, missing planting windows, poor soil management, unorganized and inefficient systems, overgrown weeds and on. All is in motion.

These motions of movements and actions, which play out on the farm, can also be translated to our everyday lives, off the farm. This translation, at least for the farmer, can be a tough road to navigate in the midst of a season.

I have had the opportunity to be a part of the Ecosystem farm community since the end of July. This puts my time there at just around a month. I came in just after the accident. For the farm, it lost two stewards to the soil, and in return, it received one.

It has been a challenge to step right in and catch-up to the movement and motion of Becky and Sky, of the farm and the land, and of the dynamic between the two. It has been a first for me, one which I am enjoying, and one which I have been learning a tremendous amount from (all the while making many mistakes). However, just as there is a motion to the movement of the dynamics surrounding the farm, so too is there a dynamic to my presence there. This is one I am just learning now.

A farmer, like the life of the individual within society, brings a new twist to the puzzle, a different way of walking and moving, a new interpretation of movement and motion. Yet, this new interpretation must figure out how it is to weave itself into the fabric of its new place, and in this case, the fabric of the farm. I’m young, on the verge of 24. I’ve been diving into agriculture since I was 18. I have had the opportunity to farm in 3 different regions in the interim. But, now I’m here, and here, I believe, is the epitome of my focus. We all face this moment, of maintain presence and being in the now—wherever and however that now manifests. The challenge, perhaps, is not in finding the space for oneself but rather seeing oneself in that space of the now.

On and off the farm, we all subscribed to rhythms and dances, movements and motions and unexpected twists, of ourselves and of others, of our community and of society. This subscription gives contours to our character, valleys to our souls. Our success is not just in the commitment to continue through it all but to learn from the many mistakes and challenges that will happen, and hopefully, not repeat them.

This past Tuesday, I felt the early signs of the changing seasons; a crisp breeze brushed my face, a family of bald eagles sang in the distance and the maple leaves began to carry partial tints of red, mahogany and orange hues. We have our fall plantings in seed trays, in the ground and in our minds (and in the mouth of some pesky caterpillars). The river pump is working reliably and the winter squash are growing nicely. All of these, and more, are signs to the changing seasons and the new movements and motions of the farm and the stewards of it.

Plan, Plant, Cultivate.
Observe, Harvest, Process.
Repeat!

Filed Under: Agriculture and Farming, Blog, Featured Blog Tagged With: Ecosystem Farm, Field Notes

Featured Recipe: Farmer Becky’s Homemade Party Salsa

August 28, 2012 by Anjela 2 Comments

I can use salsa on almost everything, but in this case I made it for a taco bar for a bachelorette party I attended this past weekend. The beauty of a simple salsa is that you can vary all of the ingredients depending on preference and availability. For example, I used a few blemished heirlooms here, but one could certainly use cherry or plum tomatoes or any tomato for that matter, omit the hot peppers, add no garlic. Just an example, but I would say the essential parts are: tomato, citrus, a green leafy herb (cilantro or basil), a garlic and/or onion, some pepper (hot or not). How to determine your variation is up to you! Enjoy this on the back deck as you watch a beautiful late summer sunset.

Ingredients:

Two large, three medium, or one pint tomatoes
Three medium sweet peppers
Two hot peppers
One half medium onion
One clove garlic
Juice from half of a lemon (or lime)
About 5-8 basil leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

Start with a large bowl. Dice the tomatoes to your desired bite size and add them to your bowl. Slice the sweet peppers into slightly smaller chunks. Cut the hot peppers open lengthwise and remove the seeds if you don’t like spice but keep them in of you do! Dice the onion finely and chop the garlic. Chop the basil pretty finely, although you can also slice the leaves thinly. Finally, add the lemon juice and stir it all up gently! Then refrigerate for a half hour or more. Best eaten with others!

This recipe was featured in this week’s edition of Field Notes–a publication distributed to the Ecosystem Farm CSA members.

Filed Under: Agriculture and Farming, Blog, Featured Blog Tagged With: cooking, csa, Field Notes, heirloom tomatoes, recipes

The Patterns of the Farm

August 20, 2012 by Anjela Leave a Comment

by Sky Harman, Ecosystem Farm Apprentice

(An article written for our CSA Members and published in this week’s Field Notes. Download this super yum Aromatic Fig Salad Recipe, also featured this week.)

The seasons turn. The sun rises and moves through the sky in a great arc overhead before it sets beneath the horizon. Clouds circle and swirl overhead as they pass. Time passes. Our labors are more methodical as they become second nature, our routine the same. We learn the rhythms of the day, the week, ourselves, our fellow workers.

That day started like any other—we spoke of the work to be done, we divided tasks between us. We prepared potatoes for planting. We cleared beds. We set up water lines. We attended a staff meeting. In the afternoon we were to prepare our fall planting schedule. It was nearly perfect weather—warm, sunny, just a bit of a breeze. High tide was around 1:15 pm, so after the meeting, as the rest of the farm crew went to lunch together to discuss the afternoon’s tasks, I rushed to the river’s edge to continue my struggles with the pump.

There was an accident.

With one single moment, one moment that might have gone just like the others in our farm life, the rhythm was changed. The dance had stopped. When I arrived at the accident, everyone from the foundation was there standing, watching, waiting, praying I imagine.

Such is life. The rhythm changes. We learn to dance to a new tune.

That is not what this is about. This is about meaning. This is about the moments of our lives that are stitched together into tapestry. This is about what was and what is and what shall be.

For us, I believe, farming is a calling. It is not easy work. It is not profitable work. It can be painful, stressful, and at times too much for the nerves to bear. But it is the moments of warm sunshine, of birdsong, and the swirling of clouds overhead that lend a sweet melody to our days. It is the sharing of labor. It is knowing our fellows, in hand, heart, and mind, in an incredibly intimate way that lightens our burdens to make them bearable. We farm for love. We grow things to nurture them with the same feeling of care and of kindness that we feel in our hearts, with the hope that someone else might share this gift with us. That is what we try to give you—our love.

I think towards moments like the accident with a detached sense of meaning. I don’t believe in fate. What I do believe is that we choose to live as we do for a reason. We make choices, and those choices have consequences. Some consequences are out of our control, but the choices are our own. We at the Ecosystem Farm choose to farm because we hope to share our love with you. We farm to grow, within ourselves and of the land.

No one can predict the future. Things happen. The multitudes of individual choices that intersect to create a moment in time are beyond our grasp and our control. But what I choose, and what I urge you to choose as well, is love. Make life a conscientious and loving act now, so that whatever may come tomorrow, we can be proud of what was today.

Filed Under: Agriculture and Farming, Blog, Featured Blog Tagged With: Ecosystem Farm, Field Notes

Economy of Motion (or, another apprentice lesson learned)

June 1, 2012 by Anjela Leave a Comment

by Susan Cook, Ecosystem Farm Apprentice

(from this week’s edition of Field Notes.)

photo credit: Anjela Barnes

I have been learning many, many things since I’ve begun here at the farm. I’ve written previously of learning to adjust my personal hygiene standards to life on the farm. I now wake up with stiff hands, achy knees and sore ankles. In fact, I’m sitting on my lovely sofa at the end of a long, hot day and my phone just rang. My immediate thought was that the person calling had better be worth my effort to get up. In fact, it was my mother, and I couldn’t resist telling her that I was turning into her, with all my moaning and groaning about my knees.

But this time, I actually wanted to write about something that Becky mentioned to Sky and myself our first week. She said a big consideration in farming is the “economy of motion.” It makes perfect sense, but probably few of us practice it. It’s about increasing the efficiency in our movement. So when we are out digging up a field, lying out irrigation or harvesting some produce, don’t expend your energy spinning wheels. Think about what you need to have in order to complete your task, and try to devise a way to do it at maximum efficiency. Actually, growing up, my mother was already a practitioner, if I was getting up to go to the kitchen, she’d stop me with a “oh, while you’re up…” She was maximizing my energy!

On the farm, this economy of motion is about conserving our energy. Often times when we transplant our seedlings into the ground, we break our tasks up to maximize our efficiency and effectiveness. One will dig the holes, another drops the plants into the holes, and then the third person comes and brings the soil around the plant. It makes our transplanting go, relatively, quickly. Again, it’s pretty simple and probably for most of us a “duh” moment. There’s so much to do out there that we could easily exhaust ourselves if have to continually go back over something that we’ve already done.

Filed Under: Agriculture and Farming, Blog, Featured Blog Tagged With: Ecosystem Farm, Farmer Training, Field Notes

Dirty Fingernails (reflections of a farm apprentice)

May 25, 2012 by Anjela Leave a Comment

by Susan Cook, Ecosystem Farm Apprentice

(an excerpt from Field Notes, week 3)

It’s a little after noon and it’s time to eat lunch. I look at my hands and they are caked with dirt. I’ve learned by watching Sky and Becky that one quick and natural way to wash your hands is to pull up a bunch of long grass and rub your hands with it. Voila! Your hands are “clean enough” to eat with. (My standards of “clean enough” have evolved.)

photo credit: Susan Cook

Learning to eat with semi-dirty hands is just one of the many adjustments I’ve happily made since becoming an apprentice.

There are the bruises on my legs I discover when I get home. “How did that happen?!!” is my usual reaction. They look terrible and I usually have little idea about how they got there. And on the hunt for the perfect strawberries, my back aches like crazy. So every now and again, I stand up straight to stretch it out. But wow, once you taste those strawberries, you forget all about it. And then there are the stiff hands that come from using the walk-behind tractor (our BCS) all day to prep some new beds. And oh yeah, I’m always hungry.

At the end of the day, I usually pick up my partner at the middle school where she teaches in Northeast D.C. By the end of the week, we often stop by San Antonio’s, a local Mexican restaurant for a quick drink and dinner. (A margarita at the end of the day really hits the spot.) Maybe I’m a bit paranoid, but when we walk in, I feel people looking me up and down. Clearly my attire and level of cleanliness is a bit different than theirs. So I immediately head to the bathroom to scrub up. But no matter how long I wash my hands, my fingernails remain dirty. Oh well, luckily I’ve got some good stories to go along with them.

Filed Under: Agriculture and Farming, Blog Tagged With: agriculture, Ecosystem Farm, Farmer Training, Field Notes, new farmer, sustainable agriculture