Project Journal

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.  -T.S. Eliot

Probably one of the most surreal moments of my life: buckling my seat belt on a flight to San Diego three days ago. 

I write this from a cool afternoon at the beach… A far cry from the heat, bugs, cornbread, farmers, close quarters, patty pan squash and chores of The Garden Summer.

The final weeks of the project were filled with trips to the lake, porch dinners, fishing, and visits with new friends.

[Dear friends Christian and Bridget visit the farm]

[Seth and a monstrous catfish]

[Puppies on the porch in the afternoon]

After a light week three, we expected little out of our last harvest.  The deer had taken their toll and our cash crops were still recovering from the devastating mid-month rain.  And then the flowers came on. We had buckets and buckets and still did not harvest all of the zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers.

[Em in the early morning]

[Me]

[Ben]

So although we were light on Patty Pans and cucumbers, we made up in flowers and basil.  We had a great final market.  Throughout the morning we said bittersweet goodbyes to new friends, hugging and exchanging phone numbers. 

We even let down and ordered a hot, and possibly non-local breakfast from the market.

Our last evening we sat up on the bluff overlooking our garden in the moonlight and talked about high points and gratitude.

So long Garden Summer.

This is what we set out to do:

Grow an abundant garden:

We did this.  Our squash, arugula, zinnias, radishes, cucumbers, and beets fed us and our farmers market patrons.

Live zero-waste (or pretty damn close):

We didn’t do half bad.  Two weeks into the project we had only produced about five pounds of trash. 

Eat food grown within a 100-mile radius:

From the beginning we decided to exclude olive oil, coffee, and alcohol from the 100-mile rule.  Aside from a handful of special occasion exceptions, we didn’t use non-local ingredients in our kitchen.  Every once in a while, however, we would accept a non-local hors doeuvres in the home of a friend, or patron a local bakery for the treat of fresh baked bread.  

Sell at the Farmers Market and donate to local food banks:

We were successful at the farmers market.  We did not donate to a food bank.  We simply did not yield the quantity or quality to justify a produce donation.

Make some farmer friends and have some fun along the way:

Boy, wasn’t that the truth.

[Our summer garden]

I’ve blinked and The Garden Summer is half-over. As I knew we would, we farmers have hit our stride in the garden, at the farmers market, and in our community. The last week has been a fantastic blur. 

Friday morning marked our second market harvest.  Seasoned farmers that we are, we were up by five and into the garden and six.  By nine o’clock we had harvested and prepped:

14.5 lbs of Patty Pan squash

23 lbs Crookneck squash

3 flats of arugula

20 bunches of basil

1 lb. radishes

1 lb. of beets

6.5 lbs. Armenian cucumbers

40 lbs. of Lebonese cucumbers

Wow. Way more produce than we had ever anticipated. Then we napped.

AND THEN Chef Mike Lata arrived.  The handsome man-friend of Emilee, Mike is a James Beard Award winner and owner of Charleston’s much celebrated FIG restaurant.  He flew in Friday to an Arkansas thunderstorm.  We spent the afternoon touring the farm, playing frisbee in the downpour, and sitting on the porch. 

Saturday’s farmers market was another wild success.  We doubled our revenue and all but sold out by 11 am. Chef and Seth worked the booth and the female shoppers couldn’t stay away….

All day Saturday, Mike began peicing together our field feast meal.  He thoughtfully shopped the farmers market, stepping behind the sale tables to handpick tomatoes and discuss with local growers.

And then Sunday was upon us.  Kitchen prep and the Mike Lata marathon began at 9 am. Three manned the kitchen with Chef while the rest of us worked on table setting, lighting, and ambiance.

Ten guests arrived by 6 pm. We took everyone on a tour of the garden and our seasoned farmer friends laughed about the size of our cucumbers and instructed us on the proper pruning of okra. All the while, Chef was putting final touches on a nine-dish harvest meal.

And what a meal it was.  As Mike stood at the head of the table, introducing himself and the food before us… our hearts were full. Local, whole ingredients had been transformed into an award winning meal and all around the table sat friends we had made over the course of the summer… Our local cheese man, a restaurant owner, the farmers market proprietor, a local food activist, an aunt and uncle, and one very well dressed grandmother….

The last couple days have been quiet. We said goodbye to Mike and other weekend visitors and have been cleaning and catching up on sleep.

Today we float the Buffalo River in the heart of the Ozarks. I’m looking forward to relaxing and spending downtime with my dearest friends. We’ve all worked so very hard to make the last week a success and it hasn’t been easy.  There have been moments of hunger, exhaustion, and the weight of a never-ending list of to-do’s.  We are all learning to work together, communicate, and go easy.  At the very beginning of the project, Emilee said that a lot more than a garden would grow from The Garden Summer.  She was right.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit. -Aristotle

I’m afraid I’ve had enough trouble keeping up with my farm life to keep up with my online life… WE FARMERS HAVE BEEN BUSY!

A few notables:

Success at the Argenta Farmers Market! We sold patty pan and crookneck squash, Genovese basil, arugula, a bucket ‘o’ cucumbers, and nosegays of the prettiest zinnias you’ve ever seen. We sold out of arugula in the first two hours and only went home with a few bunches of zinnias and a couple pounds of cucumber. High fives all around.

[Setting up]

[Patty Pan and Crookneck]

Sunday was Fourth of July magic. The five of us were invited to the Shuffield’s family farm outside of Little Rock. Christian Shuffield and his lovely wife Bridget are co-parents of the Argenta Market and one heck of a couple. BBQ, fireworks, volleyball, campfire, trampoline, homemade ice-cream, and four-wheelers were had by all. We had a marvelous time.

[Fourth of July Bubbles]

We’ve been learning all kinds of things!  Take refrigerator pickles for example.  We bring in buckets of cucumbers on the daily. As we all know, one can eat only so many cucumbers. And so we spent last Sunday afternoon with grandma, listening to stories and learning how to pickle.

[Get ready to pickle]

[Dora’s Pickles]

The trick is diversity. We have been eating wonderful whole meals but definitely have to work at keeping things interesting….  This week we’re working on peach pie, corn bread pones, and buffalo burgers…

Today we spent the morning at Honeysuckle Lane Creamery with our best pal Ray Daley. Ray is our neighbor and local cheese man. We’ve spent quite a bit of time at his place down the road, drinking his muscadine wine and checking out the inner-workings of a real farm. So today we learned about raw milk cheese! What a treat. We went home with a pad of local butter and a wheel of tangy gouda.

[Mr. Ray Daley]                                                           Photo by Ben Williams

In general, us farmers are a work in progress. There have been moments of disillusionment, tension, and flat-out exhaustion. We are learning about one another, the dynamics of five distinct personalities, and about the rhythm of slow food and a big garden….

[Serious farmers before a meeting in the garden]

We are slowing down, sure… in the way we consume, connect, and experience. But slowing down certainly hasn’t come in the form of a lot of sleep and boredom…

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. -Thomas Edison

Yes, it’s work, but boy is it satisfying. This week we are hard at work preparing for our Garden Summer Field Feast.  More on that soon…

The more help a man has in his garden, the less it belongs to him. -William M. Davies

All but one farmer has arrived. Seth and Emilee have been here four full days and Ben is working on his second. I have quickly realized that the daily journal should happen daily. The days are quite a bit more interesting with farmers around.

[Emilee, Ben and Seth fish the pond]

Seth and Emilee arrived road weary and farm ready on Thursday night. My brother also flew in for the long weekend and it was fun to introduce the two parties… Brother and Farmers! We took a quick tour around the garden, made a haphazard, non-local dinner, and fell into bed.

In the wee hours of Friday morning, we harvested! Mostly basil and squash. (I have a feeling we’ll all have our fill of squash by the end of July) Then, with an early morning sweat still on our brows, we drove to neighboring Conway. We brought five basil bouquets, 7.5 lbs of squash, and a healthy bunch of arugula to Oak Street Bistro, a lovely local eatery. We haggled over dollars and cents and made the sale. $35 never felt so good.

Still missing two farmers, we opted out of selling at Saturday’s farmers market and attended as shoppers. And so we begin our 100% local diet. To supplement the garden harvest, we bought local meat, peaches, milk, flour, wheat berries, and beans. Seth was mostly excited about the beef, I was most excited about the mung beans. Hah.

Ben arrived Sunday night. Seth and Emilee caught bream and small-mouth bass from the pond and we fried it with some garden squash. Fresh caught fish with local corn, and a gigantic arugala salad. My oh my.

One would think that this so-called limited diet would make things difficult come dinner time. Not so. We have been eating like kings and queens. We giggle every time we sit down to yet another bountiful meal. Here is yesterday’s breakfast of jalepeno sausage, hash browns, corn bread and peaches. It was a Monday even!

In the early stages of the Garden Summer, I had decided on three fundamentals that we could buy non-local… coffee, alcoholic beverages, and chocolate. We have unanimously decided to substitute chocolate for cooking oil in the non-local essentials. No chocolate for a whole month? Child’s play. We’ve even discovered a local coffee roaster and a Little Rock brewery. Not to mention the impressive brew kit Emilee hauled from Charleston.

With all these rich, whole food ingredients, meals become very exciting. We talk about meals hours in advance, cook together, and make quite an event of it all with flowers and a beautifully set table. I like it.

The garden is lovely. I can hardly remember the hot 9 hour days of early June. Many hands make light the work! Isn’t the the truth. (read as a statement) Aside from a little TLC to the struggling plants and some light watering, garden work has been a breeze. We’ve even had RAIN!

The spare hours of the day have been glorious: fishing, guitar, water skiing, bikes, and a lot of porch time. This is Seth after a mid-morning corn-shucking.  

This evening we pick up Marie. And so it begins.  We will drive straight from the airport to our local country store to milk some goats.  Loving this garden summer. 

Here are some photos….

[basil bouquets]

[post nap on the porch]

[Ben’s first fish. Ever]

[Emilee. Ready for battle]

[And Sethro]

More very soon.

It is hot. So hot.

Hot enough to get me out of bed by 5:30 and into the garden by 6:00.  I’m actually growing quite fond of the dew and pockets of cool in the early hours of the day. And there’s nothing better than a midday nap in a cool house when you know it’s 98 degrees and muggy out.

The heat index today is 110. Mercy. Things get a bit wilty around noon in the garden and I get nervous. The well is definitely dry. There has been gas exploration in the valley and it has fractured the water table.  I have resorted to the dribble dribble of gravity-fed pond water.  It takes almost three hours for me to water the garden by myself and I finish smelling like… well, pond water.

I’ll have farmers in days!! Seth and Emilee arrive Thursday afternoon and Marie and Ben will be here Monday. It’s been such a long time coming that all this feels slightly surreal. I have been thinking on these late June days since last November. To say I am excited would be a gross understatement.

In the hot afternoons I have moved into our Garden Summer house.

I’ve been washing quilts, hanging lanterns, clearing out the pantry, and with the help of my handy parents,  installing an outdoor shower. 

And how does the garden grow? In leaps and bounds. Sunflowers are head high and blooming, I am barely keeping up with the harvesting of squash, and the pole beans are a-climbing.

And this is a Zinnia bud… hopefully our showstopper at the farmers market….

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
— Jane Austen

My thoughts exactly.

I think this is what they call the home stretch. I’ll have major help arriving tomorrow (garden-happy parents) and the farmers arrive in one week. Hallelujah.

I’ll say this. There was a solid three weeks when I was sure that we were going to starve and The Garden Summer was going to be a horrendous flop. 

This terrible notion has passed and last night I picked an eggplant the size of my arm. Thank goodness.

Here is how the garden grows:

The sunflowers are up to my waist and I’m beginning to see the little buttons of buds.

Round one of radishes is harvested and more to come soon.

Cucumbers are flowering like crazy… already harvested two.

Squash… how I love you. Up to my waist and blossoming.

Bell peppers have taken on a comical lean due to fruit and blossoms. I like it.

The peanuts, beets, arugula, collards, marigolds, zinnias, onions, pumpkins, beans, sweet potatoes, corn, and herbs are all cranking now. A few minor casualties from last week’s break-in but no worries.

There wasn’t a chance that I was going to post pictures of the garden a few short weeks ago.  Simply put, it was ugly and I was embarrassed.

Now that I’m feeling a touch more secure and self-satisfied, here is some before and after:

This is early on. Ick. Notice the rectangles of green towards the back…. Those are weeds.  Our plants were choking.

A little later…. Weeds still rule. For a while, the best we could do was clear a little circle around the plants to let them breathe.

And hallelujah… we have arrived. The two beds in the foreground are young pumpkins.

Gratuitous beauty shots:

And so the farmers shall eat.  More soon.

I have spent the last week thinking WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO!?!

Unfortunately:

I got heat stroke.

The well has gone dry.

Despite torrential rainstorms in mid-May, no rain.

Weeds grow faster than anything else.

And there’s a critter stealing chickens.

That said… the garden is mostly under control. And when I say garden, I mean weeds.  I’ve killed a lot of them. 

Here’s the thing. The garden is too big.  It’s definitely too much for one person to maintain. Also, it’s simply to much space.  We could have packed everything in 70% of the land. Maybe even 50%.  I’ve been kicking myself. Despite all this Small is Beautiful talk… I said TILL ANOTHER ROW! THE BIGGER THE BETTER!

….I suppose I wasn’t practicing what I preached. Bah. And so I take a step back, reassess, and learn.  That’s the point right?! To LEARN.

On a more positive note… the basil is looking mighty fresh.

So here’s a little window into my world:

Tonight Charlie the bull and one gutsy gal cow broke into the garden.  I was sitting up on the porch (a healthy 1/4 mile away), cleaned up and eating dinner when I saw Steve the caretaker hauling across the pasture in the orange tractor. He was waving his arms wildly and my heart sunk.  There they were, like two impish children , tearing up cornstalks and trampling sunflowers.  I yelled (at nothing in particular) and took off down to the garden.  I arrived a moment after Steve. He had picked up a hand trowel and was whacking Charlie over the head with it. He’d yell, then whack. The female cow was a cinch to chase out.  She’s skittish like a normal cow.  Charlie on the other hand, is like an obstinate child.  If you hit him with a hand trowel, he’s going to buck his head, stomp his feet, and dare you to hit him again. 

I picked up a rake and joined Steve, yelling in my most serious farmer voice. Charlie went… eventually. Then he stood outside the fence for the next thirty minutes watching me while I watered. Flirting or threatening… I wasn’t sure.

I can’t stop giggling about the whack whack of the hand trowel on Charlie’s massive head. That bull could pick up the front end of a tractor with his neck. I mean…. look at him!

And so I weed, shovel mulch, rake, plant……  I’ve had help the last couple days from family. Lauren, my cousin’s girlfriend, is spending the mornings weeding with me.  She makes excellent mixed tapes. So that is a bonus. My aunt Maura has also been in the trenches.  She’s planted two pumpkin beds and knocked out whole cities of weeds.  Boy am I grateful.

Despite the lack of rain, the weeds, the misbehaving bull… The garden is coming along.  I have already harvested a bucket of bright red radishes.  The tomatoes are blossoming and tiny green globes are appearing.  The sunflowers are thigh-high, and the arugula is lush and fragrant. I am tired, overwhelmed, and a bit sunburned but WE’VE GOT A GARDEN.

Here are some tomatoes. Notice the weeds in the background. The word weed is even taking over my vocabulary. Weed weed weed.

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. -Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Well isn’t that the truth.  I have been weeding with such fervor that my pointer fingers and thumbs are puffy and sore.

The garden is coming along.  The heavy rain last week really put a damper on things (farm pun) but now the sun is shining and things are starting to perk up! We have peanuts, sweet potatoes, green beans, squash, tomatoes, radishes, onions, okra, herbs, collards, arugula, eggplant, bell peppers, and beets! We lost the cocozelle squash and a few of the eggplants… ah well. 

My handy dandy sonar deer-away is really working. I saw deer tracks on the far side of the garden a couple days ago but it was only a drive-by. “And stay out!”  Tooty the guard-dog takes herself quite seriously when it comes to critters. She’s a bonafide farm dog.

Not much else to report.  I’m really liking the quiet rhythm of the days.  I’ve got a wicked sunburn, sore biceps, and I’ve fallen asleep by 9:00 on a number of occasions.

I’ve been keeping in close contact with all the farmers… we swap ideas and get fired up on the daily.  Emilee has been working on some farm art… Take a look!

Deep Breath. The Garden is planted. The suburbanites have come and gone. Spring semester at Georgetown is complete.  I’ve finally caught up on sleep.  I would have loved to have been updating the project journal every day.  Instead I am writing for the first time since *cough* mid-april.  Ah well….

I suppose things really started cranking when I picked up the big bad truck on the 28th of April.  A dear friend and I rented a car (PT CRUISER. damnitall.) and hauled up to Allentown PA to pick up the truck.  It is an old work truck of my aunt and uncle’s and has been waiting to become a farm truck.

I giggled the entire three hours back to DC.  I’m a small gal and I was bouncing around each time the F-250 hog hit a pebble.  Truck: Check.

Two days later I was on the road to Charleston with miss tooty (my pup) in tow.  She seemed a bit nervous starting out… still wearing her city-girl pants I suppose….

I arrived late and slept an hour in Charleston.  (Really. An hour.  I was too damn excited)  At 4:30 AM I scooped up miss Emilee (suburbanite #1) and we got on the road.  The drive was long and rainy.  At one point we were stuck in a deluge on a bridge and our windshield wipers stopped working. That’ll get the adrenaline pumping.

Fourteen hours later….We arrive at the farm (road weary to say the least) to a candle lit dinner party under the pergola.  Thank you to aunties and mothers.  I cried at dinner from sleep deprivation and gratitude.  We had arrived. This was the beginning.

In the morning we got straight to work.  At this point the garden was a giant rectangle of dirt.  Nothing else.  Under the guidance of mom and Barb, we measured, staked out beds, and mulched our paths.  Then (a bit dirty and tired) we charged to the airport to pick up Mark, our beloved cameraman.  Mark is an old friend of mine from Chapman, a ridiculously talented photographer, and one hell of a dancer.  That night we filled our glasses with wine and took a golf cart tour around the property.  The fireflies were thick in the pastures and the air smelled like honeysuckle.  

Tuesday was a town day. Emilee, Mark, and I spent 2 hours at Lowes, loading a big cart with rakes, shovels, hoses, an overly expensive water pump, flower seeds, a wheelbarrow, rope, buckets, and bug spray.  Whew!  THEN we put antifreeze in the truck.  I’ll tell you, I would have REALLY liked air conditioning during my 30 HOUR DRIVE from Pennsylvania.  Ah well…

Wednesday we planted sunflower seeds and mulched around a bit more.  Mark managed to put together a water pump system that could probably water a 30 acre plot. I’m still giggling about our ridiculously sophisticated pump and knock-you-over water pressure.  

That evening we drove to the airport to pick up Ben and Seth (suburbanites #2 and #3).  Seth came first. He called me as he was walking off the plane and told me he had accidentally flown to St. Louis.  I believed him.  Ben came a few minutes later.  He was flying in from a week in Mexico and certainly looked the part.  Short nylon shorts, a sunburn, and a bottle of tequila.  Hello Arkansas.  

That night we got a little rowdy.  Mom and Barb swore they were going to have an early night but by 11:00 pm and with a little tequila under our belts, we were all howling at the moon. That’s farm-bonding for you.

Thursday morning we were straight to work (despite our headaches) in the garden. Marie (suburbanite #4) arrived by 10 am and jumped right in. Seth retilled the beds, Ben worked on the garden gate, and the gals planted seeds and starts.  Midday we took a spaghetti break and sat on the porch. When we got back to the garden, Charlie the bull had broken in and we had to painstakingly lure him out with chicken feed.  (When I say we, I mean Aunt Barb…Big Charlie scares me)

Photo by Mark Samuels

That night we had another dinner party in the pergola with Mom, Barb, my Uncle Robert and my kick-in-the-pants grandmother Connie. Barb made a frittata from Connie’s garden and henhouse eggs. Plus good wine and chinese lanterns. It was delightful.  We went around the table and each talked about how we became involved in the Garden Summer project. It was a wonderful thing to listen to my family and newly near and dear friends and to realize that it is all really happening.  There we all were!

Photo by Mark Samuels

Friday we woke up and split into two groups.  Ben, Mark and I made a run into town.  Emilee, Marie, and Seth hunkered down in the garden to plant more.  We all reunited over hotcakes at grandma’s house and then hit it hard again for the afternoon.  That night we were tuckered out and early to bed.

We spent Saturday morning at the Argenta Farmers Market in Little Rock.  It is a verified-local group with quality produce, meat, and dairy.  It was heaven.  We bought the fixings for our first ALL LOCAL meal.  I took my mom to the airport.  She was headed home to San Diego and mighty sad to leave her farmers. (a name we took to calling ourselves…)  We explored town for a little bit and then headed back.  

That afternoon, covered in bug spray and armed with afternoon wine, we went digging around in the woods for old pottery and glass jars.  My great-great ancestor’s old homestead land is prime for digging up old bits and pieces.  I am still covered in poison oak from that afternoon but boy did we find treasures…  

That night we made our first local meal and took a picnic on the hill.  We watched the sun go down from the overlook and toasted our last night together. We are already family.

Sunday was Mothers Day.  In our Sunday best, we walked over to brunch at Connie’s with my aunts and uncles and cousins.  The farmers fit right in with my crazy family.  After a few mimosas it seemed like a good idea to caravan over to the cedar grove and set a dead tree on fire.  All in the spirit of Mother’s Day. Hah.

In the late afternoon, I took Marie, Seth, and Emilee to the airport.  It was hard to let them go. Ben, Mark and I had dinner with my various uncles and aunts and called it an early night.  Around midnight a big storm rolled through and soaked our garden.

Ben and Mark left and now it’s friday.  I have finally caught up on sleep and am in the thick of garden chores. My little city-girl arms are getting stronger by the day and I have a healthy farmers tan in the works. Patiently waiting for my farmers to be back in June.  I’ve never felt more at peace.  More later. xo

Photo by Mark Samuels

It’s halfway through April!

I suppose I’ve lost myself somewhere between school and project planning. Last weekend I drove down to Charleston to meet with Seth, Emilee and Ben. (Marie is in Northern California) We met at my favorite Charleston coffee shop, Hope + Union, to brainstorm and make travel plans. 

Everyone will be arriving the first week in May to help plant the garden. Our cameraman Mark will be there to capture the process.  

Next week, I fly to Arkansas for a family shindig.  It’ll be nice to take some spring photos, get out on the lake, and poke around the farmers market. The last time I was on the farm it was still wintery and grey.  The pear trees in the weaning pen were just beginning to show signs of spring.  

They are in full bloom now.  More soon.

Just took this photo of the late afternoon….

I had big plans to fly out this morning but little did I know, the rest of the world was SPRINGing FORWARD.  So a farm day again. :)

The last couple days have been relaxed and rainy. We spread some manure on the garden plot, made plans for a new gate, baked cookies, and picked daffodils. My grandmother is suddenly adamant that she wants me to include sweet potatoes and peanuts in the garden.  Really? Peanuts? Game on I suppose. 

Today my mom and I unscrewed the cover of my great great grandmother’s old dug well. I was blown away. It was full of cold, crystal clear, blue-green water.  It is right next to our garden plot and we mapped out the logistics for a pump.

This evening my Uncle Gary taught us city girls how to shoot guns.  I was rather petrified and not the best shot.

Despite the pump-fake this morning at the airport, I have really settled into the ebb and flow of the days here.  I can’t wait to be back.

This morning I mastered the weedwhacker. I weedwhacked until my little city-girl arms turned to jello.

Brenda and I spent the afternoon in Little Rock. I hadn’t left the farm in days and it felt a little jarring to be out amongst the traffic lights and Waffle Houses. We met with Sarah from the Arkansas Foodbank. What a dynamo.  She gave us a tour of the bank and spoke passionately about statewide food programs. We should be best friends.  She promised to find us a local foodbank near the farm where we can donate surplus produce after farmers market Saturdays.  

It felt good to situate myself within the larger context of hunger and food in the state.  I want to understand the whole picture. Sarah explained gleaning… an old fashioned process where hunger aid agencies show up to a veggie farm that has surplus and can walk away with a free truck load of sweet potatoes or what have you. If only we could glean our way to full tummies and optimum nutrition. More on this later.

Next we met Christian. He and a partner started the Certified Arkansas Farmers Market (CAFM) and the Argenta Farmers Market in North Little Rock. The thing about the Argenta Market is that every vendor is source certified. That means Christian and his board members trek out to each and every farm and make sure that the strawberries that show up on Saturday morning were, in fact, grown in-state.  This has been an issue at the Little Rock River Market. Vendors have been known to hawk a pallet of eggplant from the loading dock at Sam’s Club and call it local. As far as I’m concerned, this is cheating.  More on that later.  I’m looking forward to participating in the good juju of the Argenta Market. http://www.cafm.locallygrown.net/

Today was an education. Sarah is a committed and compassionate advocate for the hungry. Christian is a downright pioneer. I wonder where and how their professions intersect?

Tomorrow we prep the flower beds.

We never did plant the peat pots Monday evening.  By the time we worked out our water situation down in the garden, it was getting dark and we were “plumb wore out”.  I was asleep by nine. Imagine that.

Tuesday morning, my mom and Barb were off hiking through the swampy parts with a fence man so I took the liberty of jumping on the tractor.  My allergies have been killing me so I’ve been wearing this creepy Michael Jackson face mask whenever I’m around grass. I drove down to the garden site and “bushhogged” (I suppose this is a tractor term… or perhaps an Arkansas term… but really it means tractor mowing) the whole plot.  It felt good.

The garden is going to be in the old “weaning pen”. I’m not sure who or what was actually weaned there but we’ve always called it that. It has had two previous gardens there. Barbara planted one in the mid-seventies and my mom grew sunflowers there when I was a kid.  My great-great grandmother lived in a small farmhouse there circa 1920. It’s quite a picturesque spot. Twin pear trees shade one side of the pen.  I’m imagining a table and chairs between them. Or better yet, a hammock. Something to sit back and admire hard work from.

But I digress. After the bushhog I spent the better part of the morning back up at the main house scanning old photographs of the farm.  I found this classic of Barb. 

This is circa 1975. Not much has changed.

Around two, our new friend James from down the road arrived to till up the garden plot. I must say… I was terribly excited.  Hurrying down to the weening pen, I almost crashed the golf cart three times. One doesn’t realize how fast the unassuming little electric vehicle can go.  My mom, two aunts, and I sat on a bale of hay and we watched James and son Loomis tear up the ground.  It is very satisfying to see the hard ground peeled back to expose such rich soil.  The air was practically perfumed with the smell of dirt and humus. Then again, I was wearing my Michael Jackson mask like a weirdo.

In the afternoon, my mom and Barb slapped on some lipstick and we set up a little outdoor interview.  The wind was bad so we settled in the woods near Patricia’s house at a weathered stone table. From behind the camera, I asked them nearly an hour’s worth of questions. They were a bit stiff in the beginning (Barb purses her lips, my mom touches her face) but after a half an hour, they had loosened up and were cracking jokes and telling stories.

Last night after dinner we finally knocked out the peat pots.  We set up in my grandmother’s kitchen. It’s quite a curious process. First you dump these little hard discs of peat into a sink full of water. They expand into chubby little pots of soil. We set them in rows on metal trays and, with chopsticks, push seeds down into the pot and push a little peat over them. We label and chart which rows are which plants.  We planted 120 pots of bell peppers, tomato varietals, cucumbers, basil, chile peppers, and pole beans.

Today, I write. Barbara will fly home to CA this afternoon. This morning I’d like to spend a little time getting manure spread around the newly tilled plot.  Sounds smelly but I suppose I’ve caught some kind of gardening bug and I’m itching to head down there with a shovel. More later….

It’s Monday afternoon on the farm.  I’ve been here since Friday afternoon. Where to start?

Aunt Barb picks me up from the airport on Friday. She immediately informs me that the natural gas lease that my grandfather signed five years ago is finally coming to fruition.  Great. (sarcasm) So all of the sudden, the possibility of a 6 acre drilling site is looming over my summer garden. Just fantastic. (More sarcasm)

We get to the farm and immediately start drinking wine.  Lordy, I am grateful. I pull out my flipcam and start recording.  Which is fantastic because I’ve got four of the five sisters and they are outrageous.  We drink a lot of wine. My grandmother vies for camera time…that ham.

Saturday is a wild ride with Mr. Toad. We plant lettuce at the main farmhouse. I get an education in tractoring.  I love it.  Mom and I take a golf cart ride to the garden site, squint our eyes, and get excited. We plant three pomegranate trees on the hill. I stacked a helluva lot of wood.

Saturday night we host a dinner party with the Doc Beasleys.  They are our friendly doctor neighbors and we love them.  We laugh. More wine. We all pile into cars after dinner and drive out to another drill site in the valley.  It gives me the willies and I get a sick feeling about the possibility we may have one on our property.

Sunday is hugely productive. I stack more wood for grandma. Like a whole winter’s worth. This involves more tractoring which makes me very happy.  Then everyone (three aunts, two uncles, and a mom) caravans down to the cedar grove and we build a huge burn pile to tackle later in the week.  I learn how to wield a chainsaw. Recognize.  Per usual, we have happy hour at our worksite.  Wine and cheese in the cedar grove.

Today I find out that the gas drilling won’t be happening anywhere near my garden and I am hugely relieved. Hugely. We are off to set up the drip system at the garden site. Because I will not be here until the beginning of May to plant, we have to germinate seeds early. This means peat pots.  If you don’t know anything about peat, they come in little round disks and they expand into short, chubby pots when you soak them in water.  Then you plant your seed straight into the pot… no soil needed. This process happens this  evening.  Perhaps with more wine and cheese. :)  More Later….