Over July, the farm bloomed. First, a wall of vines grew up in the fields, dense with green tomatoes.

Flowers at the edges of the fields started to tower and flame.

Soon we were picking tomatoes. We sat at the foot of each plant, because each plant held so much fruit. The vines were strong and fuzzy, the tomatoes in tight clusters. Four or five of us filled our padded crates, stem side down,  then stem up, so that the stems wouldn’t poke through their soft skins. We ate a few, dusty, on the way.

All of this led to a perfect Saturday afternoon, eating a caprese salad with Kara in the sunshine, and it tasting like the best caprese I’d ever had in my life. Maybe because I had worked enough at the farm, and felt connected to their creation. But I really think it’s because they had just come off the vine, and the tomatoes were really that damn good. Kudos to Fred, and Sunol soil, and all the chickens and greyhounds, etc., etc.

 

 After a late (and hopefully final) rain, we set out to pick amaranth, sticking our necks out and peering at the ground like birds. The plants were hard to find. The field was still too young, and its doppelganger, a weed that looked incredibly similar,  kept rearing its face. Amaranth is a salad green, with a burgundy sheen underneath it’s smooth edged leaves. The weed we were to avoid had a rougher edge to the leaf, and were brighter purple beneath. They frequently looked exactly the same to me. Finally  Rico, who spoke mostly Spanish, sweetly led me away from a huge patch of weeds that I was so intent on harvesting, over to the amaranth, further afield. It seemed to grow in tufts, for in some places it was  still quite young, while in other places, it rose up like miniature hills.  I picked their crowns.  We also picked purslane, another salad green. Four boxes of that. 

After we got those back to the farmstand, we were sent  back to Rico, who kept smiling as he taught us our next task. It turns out that underneath the thick carpet of purslane that we had just harvested, tiny little lettuces and cilantro were trying to establish themselves. He took his hoe, and deftly sheared away the purslane, revealing the tiny cotyledon beneath. He did it quickly, and neatly, as if he were cutting hair instead of hacking the purslane out so that the crop had some space to breathe. 

It turns out not to be so easy. First I had to find the plant, which I couldn’t. I asked Katrina to help me. Once identified, I found it hard  to reveal them with my hoe. Instead I had to keep dropping to the ground, to sift through the purslane with my fingers to find the next cilantro.  And the purslane and dirt I had just clipped away often found itself laying onto other little sprouts. It took me ten minutes to do two square feet. Meanwhile the paid farm workers were working steadily away, while the interns shuffled about doing our best. Whoever thinks farming is unskilled labor has obviously not done it.  In the distance, I can hear Ross telling the interns (the new summer interns, who are all amazing and as sweet as the last bunch) something about how this was a lesson in farm management – “if we had only got to this a week ago….”

Later, purslane found its way into my salad bowl, and I finally bit into its thick leaves, so tender and fresh. They give way so beautifully when you bite into it. Such a lovely green. 

 

Amaranth?

 

 

... or amaranth?

 

I picked Fred’s brain today, as we planted peppers. How much money to start a farm? How much is a tractor  ? How long before a farm starts to run well? How are your knees? Are you making money? Do you have health insurance? 

It’s obvious you need a nest egg (ostrich-sized) to comfortably start a farm. From visiting and talking to farmers, most started with money from a previous career, or an inheritance. Fred mentions that there are other options. One farmer at the Berkeley Farmer’s market took out loans, and progressed to larger and larger plots until he arrived at his 4 acre farm. Four acres? Four acres, Fred tells me, is possible if you farm intensively. Fred needs eight however, because tomatoes require rotation. I am not quite so sure if intensive farming is the way to go. My ideal would be something that is best for the earth. 

I have my ears pricked up to see what opportunities avail itself. I hear whisperings of people desirous of starting farms. Meanwhile, I attempt to build a nest egg. Anyway, there is much to learn before I could feel confident about becoming a farmer, so I’ll continue down the row, planting. 

I’m slower than Fred, but I don’t let it bother me much. The soil this time around isn’t so clayey. Fred had grown cover crops here for two years before he began this first planting of the area. Padron, tangerine pimentos, and some of Rommel’s purple peppers. I walk on my knees down the row. I’m covered in dust, in the end.

 

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted. One of the more significant things I have heretofore failed to report is my second internship at Green String Farm. One of Bob Cannard’s farms, it’s 140 acres of vineyards, artichoke patches, lambs and goats, chickens and chicken whisperers. Allie, the intern coordinator, has been incredibly gracious, in letting me work in the fields with the resident interns in the morning, and attending classes in the afternoons. I am still interning at Baia Nicchia as well, and I feel like I get two views of farming: a pastoral 140 acre ideal, and the reality of a new farm just establishing itself. Fred has been farming for under 10 years, and Bob has been farming for 30. There’s something to be gotten from both experiences.

Green String is named for string theory. Everything is energy, and has a vibration. The style of farming comes from this foundational belief, that the plants are energy, that each plant is connected to a larger whole, everything influencing everything else. Considered a “beyond organic” farm, the approach to farming is unconventional to say the least. One of the more obvious testaments to this is the weeds in the fields. They only weed about 4 inches around each crop plant, and only when they crop plant has to compete for sunlight. Otherwise, weeds, like cover crops, are beneficial to the soil. They increase biodiversity and help keep down pests. It is true, it does seem rather unnatural when the soil of a  traditionally farmed plot is so naked between the rows.

So there I am, in the mornings, trampling on vetch and other cover crops, as well as other weeds, as I trundle down the rows with a box and a knife, harvesting artichokes. Indeed, sometimes it’s a struggle to advance, my sights on a particularly large and fully developed choke a few feet away, atop a 7 foot shrub. Big as my heart, and silvery green. It seems as if the leaves of the shrub have almost a grip on each other, holding me back, so dense are the mature plants. I make it there, wrest my prize, and peer into a birdsnest tucked into the plant. Three small blue eggs. 

I confess I am a little starry-eyed at this farm, with its baby goats sucking my fingers deep into their mouths in search of milk, the Peruvian shepherds moving their sheep with border collies, and chicken trailers carting their chickens to fresh pasture. I’m happy to be a part of it.

The five of us clawed the mud out of the deep groove that Fred had prepared in the earth. We had dropped the transplants next to the holes in the drip tape, about 2 feet apart, or every third hole. The water was running as we planted up the rows, and though it didn’t look as if it much water had spilled into the earth, as most of it had run into the groove, the holes were quite deep and filled with mud that clung to our fingers. It was like clay. I wondered if it was as full of magnesium as Bob Cannard had mentioned mud like this often was. I had  to get each tomato plant out of the pot before sinking in the mud, because the webbing between my fingers was filled with it, and I had to free myself of it before trying to do something as rudimentally simple as getting a plant out of the pot.  I was glad I brought my gloves.

We were Rommel, Miya, Rose, and Fred, and we leapfrogged up the rows, planting three full ones before we stopped. Because it was so windy, Fred was glad that we planted between rows of mustard and mizuna gone to flower and seed, because it offered a windbreak for the young plants. The second one was planted with “second bests” simply to gather their seed, should any prove to be exceptional, and also to see if the new varieties that Fred was planting was “breeding true”– meaning that the seeds of the variety are ready to sell in a catalog such as seeds of change. We planted them deep, because the places where the lower leaves grew from the stem would then produce roots, and create a better root system for the plant. Also, it would help prevent the plant from blowing over.

What we were in fact planting was Blush, and Prinipese Borghese. The first, a pink and yellow marble cherry tomato, bred by his son and gaining lots of favor at the last Tomatofest. The second, a drying tomato, meaning that the tomatoes can be stored on its vines, upside, for months later. For tomato paste. I’m looking forward to both.

But meanwhile, we dunked our hands into the earth again and again, goopy, sticky, soft and warm. I hope the plants do well.

 

Towards noon, we took a break from sorting the seedlings (which do we plant? which do we sell at market) picked up our hoop hoes, and walked down the dirt road, Fred leading with the dogs gamboling. Ladybug and Poppy Jo trotted with their mouths open, revealing a set of teeth too long to look anything but hungry. 

Suddenly the dogs took off at breakneck speed, zeroing in on one honey brown squirrel, fifty yards away. Fred yelled encouragement and I watched in fascination and horror as the greyhounds let loose with all their instincts for chase and blood. Funny how in these moments you get so involved, there’s nothing else going on in your brain. Maybe that’s why time slows down.

The squirrel leapt for the fence and failed; Poppy Jo took it up in its mouth, by the tail, and the little creature let out an indescribable sound, a violent snarl and a tight scream at the same time. I imagined all the air in its body being squeezed out. A squirrel’s throat is really so tiny, it sounded more like  a squeak. But I still registered it as a scream.  The squirrel gets flung in the air, lands by the side of the road; then Bug catches it up. And then they seem to know the game is up, because they leave it breathing at the side of the dirt road. 

All this takes less than a minute. The squirrel is fading slowly, and Fred finishes it off, and I want to look and not look at the same time. I’m creeped out but thrilled and then ashamed that I’m thrilled. Bug has suffered a cut on her lip and is dripping blood from her mouth. Stacy and I go and hoe the flowerbeds near the beehives. The longer we are there, the farther out the bees swing out from their hive, closer to us.  So we make short work of it and come back before they push us off their territory by stinging us.

When we come back. Fred is still rubbing the dogs, congratulating them for killing the squirrel that probably ate the artichokes last year and it all clicks in, all the reasons for killing. Around here, they’re just not cute scampery little foragers skipping along the trees at the park, they’re eating crops. It’s bad for business.

Last week, Fred and I watered all the starts in the hoophouse (which felt like it took the better part of an hour), then worked on a ditch that should help with the run off next winter. I have no confidence with a shovel, but the ground was soft and I found I enjoyed it, though I am not sure my shoulder did. He puttered a little, watering the mint and garlic that ran along the edges, and we sheared all the sorrel at their base, and fed it to the chickens. Who knows why, but the red-veined leaves had grown tough, and not particularly tasty either. We weren’t sure if the chickens would like it, though they did try it out.  

After a short break, we went to Berkeley. It was market day in North Berkeley, right by the Gourmet Ghetto. We set up Jill’s herb starts, Fred’s strawberry starts, and some blue squash. People came by just to touch the bumpy blue pumpkins, and for free samples of microgreens. I realized I was not much of a salesperson. People asked me questions I unfortunately could not answer. I could answer all kinds of questions about the strawberries, but not so much about the herbs, or the microgreens. People were already asking for pepper plants, and tomato plants, though neither of these were ready just yet.

 

 

The other intern, Kimberly, and I chatted about yoga, exchanged money, and bagged microgreens. Fred was good at engaging the customers. For whatever reason, we all had friends drop by at the market. We took turns wandering the market stalls and other stores, Fred making trips to Masse’s for cookies, and the Cheeseboard for pizza. A generous soul that one. I think I made it home with squash, kale, microgreens, and a bellyful of pizza that day. 

Towards the end of the day, everyone had gotten a little tired and quiet. I asked Fred what time he got up that day. 

“Late. Around seven.”

I nodded. That was a little late for me too. “What time do you normally get up?”

He smiled. “A couple of days ago, I woke up at four to go harvest kale in the dark for a restaurant order.”

“I could never be a farmer.”

“You gotta love it.”

“What if you get the flu?”

“Don’t get the flu.”

I am not sure about not getting the flu, but I am starting to think I could possibly get up at four myself.

 

It was a mild day, sunless, and the clouds were little cottonballs spread out on a table. We transplanted tomatoes today, Vesuvio, Principe Borghese, Duro. Their roots smell of cucumbers. We bury their radish-pink stems almost all the way into the earth, because they will form roots all along its length. The work flew by, Miya and I drifting in and out of conversation, a hen squawking its pride at its new egg. A yellow spider idly crossed the table a couple of times. Later Jill, Fred’s partner, came by, and helped out.

 

The hoophouse has been transformed since I had been here last, as are the fields. The mustard is flowering, the bed of mint we had weeded is leafing, and the shallots are looking good. Half of the hoophouse is covered in strawberry, tomato, and pepper transplants, with mature examples of each plant heading each group of flats. The other half of the hoophouse will also soon be full of transplants.

 

Fred’s partner Jill got a new rooster, and it looks like Mr. T, or like some heavy metal dude from the 80s. It’s half Japanese silky, and half Golden Phoenix. It’s currently getting picked on in the coop full of hens, as hens are likely to do. Fred wanted a nice rooster this time, one that wouldn’t attack his daughter, and Japanese silkies tend to be mellow. It certainly looked a bit fancy in a goofy way. They got it for free off of Craigslist. I’m not sure what they are going to name him, but my suggestion is Braveheart. 

Today we harvested romaine lettuce which had grown well in the rain, sawing them off at the base with double-bladed Japanese knives. We took only the largest heads, our boxes filling up quickly. We took them to the picnic tables to be dried and cleaned of all the dead and bitten leaves, so only their pristine hearts were left intact, leaking a milky white fluid at their bases where they had been cut. All the imperfect leaves were for the chickens, who seemed hungry, clamoring at the walls of the coop when we walked by.

Then we set to planting chicories into the fields. Mia and I crouched over the row, with Zach joining later. I dug holes with a trowel, six inches from the center from the row, and a foot apart, while Mia popped each plant out of the tray, taking care not to break its roots, and setting them into the row, which curved a little crazily. Keeping the row straight and the plants evenly spaced was a little much for me. We did our best, periodically admonishing Bug and Poppy when they tried to dig up our plants. The morning sped by, and soon it was time to go, first checking the strawberry plants to see how they had survived our treatment. They were doing just fine.

The February rain still has a cold edge to it, and I’m looking forward to  English peas and salmon season. Strawberries are far from my mind. But farmers think further ahead. Today we are transplanting strawberry seedlings – white mountain berries that taste like candy.  Fred wants to plant part of a row with them, and sell the rest of the plants at the market. 

 

Last year, Fred had macerated berries from the plants that did well on his farm, and soaked the pulp in water. The seeds eventually separated from the flesh of the fruit, and sank to the bottom of the jar. He dried these, planted them a month ago. Now they looked like clover in a brownie pan.

 

In the hoophouse, Mia and I sat on opposite sides of an old table  with two sopping wet pans of seedlings. We gently prised apart the tiny sprouts, some with only two or three leaves and a thread of root trailing. Each seedling got its own little pot. We dug a finger deep into the fluffy soil and carefully dropped in each one, pushing the earth to gently hold it in place. After we finished a flat, Fred watered it. They would take a bit of a beating then, and after their shower, they lay limp. We propped each of them up with our fingers so they would stand straight. Then we set them in the shade, so the plants could acclimate to their new environment. 

 

The first pan of seedlings looked like nothing much would come of it. Most of the pans glowed green, with strawberry leaves as small as ladybugs. But this first pan was full of the remnants from yesterday’s planting, and all the big seedlings had been teased out already. It was a tangled mess of leaves and roots, and could easily have been discarded. 

 

  We fished out every seedling we could find, knowing each one could eventually become a full-fledged, mouthwatering plant with albino berries beneath its leaves. We did our best not to waste one seedling. We moved on to another, much prettier looking flat of seedlings.  The work was faster going then. 

 

  As I drove back home, I dodged a tree branch on the freeway, still with green leaves on. It must have fallen out of a truck full of tree trimmings.  I wondered if it could still be a tree, if I took it home and treated it well.