A Restoration Farm Thanksgiving

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;

They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.                                                                        

-- Marcel Proust

Happy Thanksgiving to All!   

© 2012 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved 

Harvesting Life at Restoration Farm

The morning dawns through silver mist at Restoration Farm.   Before the sun has burned through and stretched into the sky, human hands are already harvesting cabbage and kale, and counting sweet potatoes and butternut squash to divided among members.  It is the final spurt of growth.  Shortly, the 2012 growing season will draw to a close.  

The annual growing season passes all too quickly.   While the fields burst with life, the season feels timeless.  And then, it is done.   At the end, we fondly remember the meals, the beauty and flavor of freshly picked vegetables, the friendships, the conversations, the successes, the mishaps and the life that happened along the way.  

As is my custom on this day, I set out into the fields for a final look.   Steam rises off manure that sits in wait to nourish the soil. 

Some of those hills of “fertilizer” are already sprouting new life.

Up above Williams Field, I encounter Jay Mussman and George Garbarini doing clean up chores.     George has discovered dozens of overlooked flat beans still growing on the vines.  Even though the calendar says the growing season has concluded, there is still plenty of life to be harvested in the fields.  

Jay calls down to Dan Holmes to bring baskets for harvesting the beans.  We snack on handfuls right in the field.  The fresh, crisp taste is incredibly sweet.   Somehow that brief moment – sharing fresh beans in the dew-soaked field – stays in my memory more vividly than most of the events of the past week.  

At the distribution tent, Leslie Steinman places an overstuffed bucket of emerald green kale on the table.  

Even as the farm anticipates a brief time of slumber, the bounty is staggering.   There are rows of butternut squash and Long Island cheese pumpkins.

And, for the first time, gorgeous full heads of broccoli.  

My friend Maria weighs out five pounds of sweet potatoes.

Hearty root vegetables abound.  

And as always, there is crisp, lively lettuce to delight the palate. 

The distribution tent is always a hub of activity and conversation. 

Saturday distribution manager Susan Salem is braiding garlic with Ada.

Glenn Aldridge is gearing up to head into the fields.   He’s trying out a new pair of rubber boots to keep the feet dry.

I linger to drink it all in.  Farming, food and friendships.  That is the stuff of life at Restoration Farm.

It even seems that the dahlias are drenched in color to celebrate another successful season.  

Just for the moment, the cycle of life at Restoration Farm is complete.  

We look forward to the harvest celebrations to come, and then – after a brief rest – the time to sow seeds again, creating new life.  

 (Note:  The final pickup at the farm for the season occurred before the arrival of Hurricane Sandy.  Reliable sources tell me the farm successfully weathered the storm.)

©2012 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Ferocious Weeds, Wandering Bovine and Healing at Apple Trace

Michael Phillips is an orchardist and author of the book “The Apple Grower:  A Guide for the Organic Orchardist,” first published in 1998.  In the introduction to the book, he writes about a low point in his life when a cider mill operation he’d been running had closed and the most of the apple trees cut down:

“Needless to say, I felt like I had lost part of my family.  And yet, it was an apple tree that eventually “spoke” to me at an herbal workshop I attended in Vermont.  Herbalists say every plant being has a spirit, of sorts, and so it is with trees.  My meditations that day focused in part on what to do next with my life.  I sat beneath a garden apple tree I had pruned for a friend earlier that spring.  Deep within a voice stirred.  You, too are pruned, apple grower, in order to become stronger.  Now this cut is open, dripping the sap of your visions and hopes.  It will heal, as all things do in time.  Afterward, you will be stronger to carry the harvest to come.”

The planting of Apple Trace at Restoration Farm – in memory of my father James M. Barritt Jr. – has been a source of healing for me.  The memorial took shape throughout the spring and summer, with a special plaque of living memory installed just before the Autumn Pot Luck.  Perhaps after loss, we do become stronger with a focus and a purpose.

Nurturing the eight heritage apple trees has helped move me from sadness to a place of happier memories and optimism for the growth of these trees at the farm.   “You, too are pruned, apple grower, in order to become stronger…It will heal, as all things do in time.  Afterward, you will be stronger to carry the harvest to come.” 

Throughout the summer, the weeds were often ferocious.   At one point, I returned from holiday to find the weeds so overgrown that I could barely find the saplings among the tangled growth.  

Bent on my knees weeding, I would think of my Dad, and how so often he had to weed, cultivate and nurture the little patch that was me.  He, too, probably had frustrations as he tugged at those weeds over the years, but I’m hopeful he was pleased with the end result.   

There have been bumps along the way as this fledging orchard has taken root.  Early in July, two of the cows from the historic village escaped from their pasture, and wandered all the way up to Apple Trace damaging two of the trees.   I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.   Of the problems I’d anticipated, cow thrashing was not one of them.  The upper third of the Winesap was cut off and the more slender Prairie Spy was nearly toppled.    But, one of the volunteers, Jen Wang trimmed back the Winesap and my friend George Garbarani staked up the Praire Spy.   Then we waited.   The trees have shown amazing resiliency – much like my Dad always did during more than eight decades of his life.   The Winesap has now filled out nicely, and although once almost bare, the Prairie Spy has now sprouted many fresh new leaves at its base.  This little tree is clearly a survivor.  

As autumn arrived, it was time to mulch around the base of the trees.  Mulching protects the roots and deters the growth of weeds.   The gentleman who provides the farm with wood chips left mountains of mulch in between the trees.   It seemed like an insurmountable task. 

Still, I kept pushing ahead, one scoop of mulch at a time.   And, one afternoon when I had almost given up for the day, Glenn, George, Jen and Jay arrived in the truck with shovels and support.   Within no time, the trees were well-blanketed with mulch.   A job is always easier, and more fun, when the community pitches in. 

I’m a bit concerned about the Honeycrisp, which looks quite bare, but Caroline wonders if perhaps it just concluded its growth season a little earlier than the other trees.   The remaining trees are thriving, and the Newtown Pippin and Ashmead’s Kernel are at least as tall as I am. 

My Mom and I had a chance to walk along Apple Trace as the sun was setting during the Autumn Pot Luck.   The trees were bathed in a golden light and I was encouraged that the harvest to come will be fruitful.  It made me smile, and I think Dad is smiling, too.  

©2012 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved