The Wisdom of the Radish (2 page)

Which brings me back to my own little corner of the movement and why I'm here in the first place. My problem is that I love a farmer.

Well, a sort-of farmer.

Like many Greenhorns, I'm not a farmer's daughter, not a farmer's wife—in fact, I'm pretty sure I'm not even a farmer's first cousin, second cousin, niece, granddaughter, goddaughter, or aunt. To identify my class, I prefer to spin off from the more common concept of “farmer's wife.” Just call me the “aspiring farmer's girlfriend.” The awkward tentativeness of the phrase reflects the awkwardness of the movement. On our best days, we're toting tubs full of gorgeous, ripe organic produce to a hungry market. But on many days, we're not nearly as triumphant, trying to lay the groundwork for new
sustainable agriculture systems in places they haven't been tried before. (And on
my
worst days, I'm downright confused, arguing over whether the long, skinny things coming out of the flaccid potato are roots or sprouts. As it turns out, Emmett had the better sense of direction.)

Emmett—the sort-of farmer I love—and I are both twenty-five, with a healthy appreciation for the environment. We enjoy cooking and eating food. Emmett even likes growing things, and has had success doing so in the past. So far, so good. But while he tended beets and radishes on the windowsill of his dorm room, I was busy pulling volunteer strawberries out of my mom's backyard, thinking them weeds.

Like a lot of young people, we had every intention of saving the world after graduating from college. But the more we thought about it, the less appealing it seemed to save the world from within the walls of a cubicle. I've always kept a mental tally of hands-on, worthwhile opportunities that can also potentially provide a living wage. For years, Emmett and I have sketched out innovative sustainable business plans, from a bicycle bagel-delivery service to an heirloom-garden planting business that would turn your lawn into an organic paradise.

Looking back, it seems inevitable that sooner or later we'd consider starting a sustainable farming business of our own. Theoretically, farming fulfills many of our shared lifestyle desires: to make the world a bit better, to become integral members of a local community, to spend time outside, to help people. We envisioned a farm that would provide the community with food healthful for both humans and environment, a farm that would also serve as an educational tool, a place for community members to visit and learn about sustainable agriculture. For people who couldn't afford the local, organic premium, we'd offer a work-trade program—a program in which
participants work a few hours alongside farmers in exchange for a week's worth of free, fresh produce.

A farmer's job description holds considerable appeal to both of us. Emmett appreciated the idea of flexible work hours, since he'd previously been a nine-to-fiver. I appreciated the opportunity to write—even if just a farm blog or newsletter—and the potential to have more pets in my life (think: chickens) than I could in our previous tiny rentals. As a vegan who never stopped craving eggs and cheese, I could try to find ethical alternatives to confined large-scale production. And of course, add to these desires the simple joy of growing: the improbability of a tiny seed turning into a sprawling squash plant, the gloriously dirty fingernails, the satisfaction of an honest day's work.

Just as important, we needed an income, and a small farm business now has the proven potential to make money. The local food economy is looking up. (And my alternative vocation, newspaper journalism, isn't.) For better or worse, Barack Obama made arugula a household name. But even before lettucegate, people were getting hooked on the idea of open-air farmers' markets with tie-dyed tomatoes and pasture-raised poultry.

It's not surprising that, in these uncertain times, Americans are increasingly craving a personal connection with the farmers who grow their food. Like passenger trains and Thanksgiving, farms occupy a particular place in the American heart. They ferry us back to the time when our predecessors staked out small squares on a vast, wild continent—when neatly tended crop rows were the only thing standing between a settler and his own mortality, between conquering and being conquered.

But farms are romantic even without the sense of history. As a microcosm for life's greatest dramas—birth, death, love,
the struggle against insurmountable odds—the farm is hard to beat. Consider the childhood classics:
The Yearling
,
Old Yeller
,
A Day No Pigs Would Die
. In each, a farm forces the question of what it means to become a man. But if you dig a bit deeper, the stories aren't just about boys growing up. The act of farming requires an examination of humanity, a delineation between us and other, civilization and the natural world. In two words: self-definition; in three letters: art. And like poetry, farming is an ancient choice but a fluid line, granting each new generation both heritage and a unique personal challenge.

Where there's art, science is never too far off. And if a farmer is something of a poet, he or she is a scientist, too. A true interdisciplinarian, a farmer manages ecosystems for personal benefit and must grasp the practical applications of populationresources theory, meteorology, biology, chemistry, and ecology. Scientists should thank farmers more often: a layman's understanding of artificial selection paved the way for Darwinian theory and the modern field of genetics. Long before biologists realized the potential of genetic cryopreservation, farmers preserved the population diversity of plants and animals through hundreds of years of intergenerational commitment.

And while it's an extremely unworldly thing to say, something about the farm is quintessentially American. Farms embody the can-do work ethic that's so near and dear to our capitalist, American selves. The farm always looks forward, sacrificing long hours in anticipation of a good harvest. It knows what's important: on a farm, worth is judged not by where you start, but by where you end up. A runt chick is valued if she grows up to be a good layer; a poor layer, beautiful though she may be, ends up in the stew pot. And there's something in it of American stubbornness, too—a small, well-rounded farm says, “Trucks may stop in their tracks, cargo ships may drift in the sea, grocery
stores may shutter their doors, but that won't stop my hens from laying, my orchards from fruiting, my corn from ripening.”

That sort of stubbornness gives me hope.

Still, at first, the idea of our
own
farm was the kind of thing Emmett and I only whispered about in bed at night, half-afraid that it would sound too romantic in daylight, too ridiculous if we uttered it while wearing clothes like the responsible people we pretend to be. I should note that at the time of said whispering, our bed was actually a futon mattress in the back of a 1989 Toyota minivan, and I had only two pairs of pants and one rainbow-striped skirt to my name. Over time, though, even in broad daylight, the idea started sounding—well, not exactly s
mart
per se, but not exactly crazy either. With a little bit of help and a lot of luck, it just might work.

Emmett's father is in the grape-growing business, and he had recently ripped out two acres of old vines. The space wouldn't be replanted until spring, and in the meantime he offered it to us. We could test-drive the organic farming life for a year, before making a long-term commitment. In our spare time, Emmett could help out his dad and I could write. (Nobody—except maybe Emmett's dad, who was too kind to mention it—realized then how little free time the farm would leave us.)

After the idea solidified sufficiently to be spoken aloud during daylight hours, we began mentioning it to family and friends. Although I braced for disapproval (“You went to grad school for
what
? I thought you were going to be a journalist!”), I was met with a host of well-wishers: My hippie grandmother dubbed starting a farm “a fan-fucking-tastic idea.” A neighbor offered an environmentalist's stamp of approval, saying, “This town needs more people like you—ready to work out the best local food production system.” Other friends, getting a bit ahead of themselves, vowed to come visit for our glorious
end-of-season harvest party. Even my mother, who approves of very little, gave her blessing—after encouraging me to buy a farm with a guesthouse so she could visit. Oh, and by the sea, so her allergies wouldn't act up.

Armed with good intentions, two master's degrees in environmental science, and what at the time seemed like considerable farming experience (one year organizing educational food gardens, three months of a work-trade program, and four months of working on farms in exchange for room and board), Emmett and I set off to start our own farm. We didn't exactly end up with an ocean view, and our farm income won't afford a guesthouse anytime soon. (Actually, we're more or less living in Emmett's parents' guesthouse.)

Broadly speaking, the farm nestles on the floodplain of a small valley, surrounded by rolling, oak-spattered hills and Northern California's coniferous coastal range. On the outskirts of Healdsburg, Foggy River Farm's approximately two acres more specifically sit between Eastside Road and the Russian River. (When we named it, we didn't know it was going to be one of the hottest summers on record—and that smoke, not fog, would most frequently cloud our sky.) The farm is framed by Emmett's family's vineyard, and if you walk up the hill from Eastside Road a little, you just might be able to squint and make out one higgledy-piggledy postage stamp of staccato vegetation next to three skyscraping poplar trees in the midst of hundreds of acres of clean, continuous, perfectly parallel grape rows. That's us.

And this is our story.

Chapter 1:

 

 

 

 

 

Standing behind a rickety card table, I found myself wishing for a hole to crawl into—preferably one with a comforter, pillow, and foam-topped mattress. Or perhaps a giant tractor beam could split the sky and I'd find myself transported to a Hawaiian beach, or at the very least to Berkeley, where rumor has it the customers actually value hole-pocked produce. (They consider it proof-positive of organic growing practices, as well as evidence of superior flavor: if the bugs like it, it must be good.) There, my bumbling excuse for a farm would be prized and coddled—not given the stink eye by customers who immediately bustled on to bigger and brighter stands.

We were tucked at the end of a long farmers' market row in Windsor, California, standing behind a borrowed card table covered with a borrowed checkered tablecloth beneath a borrowed cream canvas umbrella. On the table rested a few clear plastic bags filled with two different types of mixed greens.

The bags we purchased by the thousands for fifty dollars at Reynold's Packaging. The greens, I regret to say, we grew.

“Good morning,” I said, fluffing the top leaves on a bag of baby brassica mix. I couldn't hide the holes that peppered the leaves' surfaces, thousands of tiny imperfections. But damned if I couldn't make the bag look pert.

The customer, a middle-aged woman in gray sweats, gave the hole-pocked greens a sidelong glance and kept walking.

Surveying my meager display of bagged lettuces and rubbing my lower back, where a low constant throb had set up shop for the past few weeks, I was reminded that it wasn't just my salesmanship skills that were lacking.

I wasn't a born farmer, either.

I grew up in suburban San Diego, culturally (if not literally) as far away from a farm as an American can get. Neither of my parents were hippies, and neither of them were in the habit of cooking vegetables or dishing up fresh fruit for supper, let alone growing such items. My mother, who became a single working mom when I was sixteen, grew things that were mildly attractive and difficult to kill, like bougainvillea and geraniums. She wouldn't even dabble in roses: too much pruning.

Until very recently, my entire agricultural heritage could have been summarized in a couple of portentous anecdotes. My grandmother was the closest thing I had to an agricultural influence. She grew parsley and carrots in terra cotta pots on the deck of her second-story apartment. Although I do remember munching impossibly tiny carrots, which somehow never got bigger than my pinky finger despite being planted in Miracle-Gro potting soil and enhanced with Nutri-Grow fertilizer, those memories are largely dwarfed by
the overwhelming disgust I felt at the invasion of snails, and my grandmother's consequent joy in their demise.

Sometimes she'd scatter the pots with snail poison pellets; other times she'd go on a gleeful rampage, following the gleaming snail trails to their source. “Be free!” she'd say, chucking the unlucky invader over the deck railing to crunch on the alley below.

Then, when I was in high school, my mother put on a family gardening day. She bought gardening tools for everyone and brought home plenty of root-bound six-pack flowers from a local nursery. The plan was to beautify the narrow side yard of the house.

While digging holes to transplant geraniums, I uncovered an earthworm, which convulsed and contorted itself in a rather terrifying way. I screamed and hurled my shiny new trowel at it. Judging by my brother's shouting (“Jesus! You idiot! You nearly cut off my middle fingers!”), my velocity was good but my aim left something to be desired.

I promptly abandoned digging duty and took up weeding. After my mom chastised me for uprooting the volunteer strawberry plants (“I was in charge of weeding that patch. Did you stop to think I might have left those plants there on purpose?”), I decided I was a hopeless black thumb. I went inside to make lunch, my gardening experiment concluded presumably for the rest of my life.