Today is the first of May and while I like the beginning of summer and the opening of the neighborhood pool, I’m also looking forward to a new kind of season: harvest.
I never thought I would be the one saying this, but I am actually looking forward to harvest this year. Well, I want the good food part and not the heat, rain, and scratched arms and legs that come with it. And snakes. I hate the snakes. The whole farm laughed at me when I saw the “harmless” black snake last year and screamed as if in mortal danger.
About a year and a half ago, my husband and I decided we wanted to eat better and be a little more aware of what food we bought. I found a local farm that had a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. For a season’s fee, each family gets a share of weekly organic vegetables. I signed up for the harvest helper fee, which reduces the fee in exchange for several hours of work each month. I figured I would learn a bit about plants and farming while getting quality produce out of the deal.
The first week, when my alarm went off early and I slipped my rubber boots on, I thought I had lost my mind. When I handcut lettuce for two hours, I was sure of it. But I liked the washing. Everything had to be washed twice: once to get rid of the dirt and bugs and once to clean it. It was a refreshing monotony of putting the lettuce in cold water, swishing the dirt free, patting everything dry. And our fridge was so colorful when I got home, that I thought that this wasn’t so bad.
The foods changed with the weather. Later, there was swiss chard in neon shades. I had never eaten the stuff and definitely didn’t know how to cook it. I quickly learned that if sauteed in butter and used in a omelet, I liked it quite a bit (though to be fair, most things sauteed in butter are pretty tempting). The bok choy, though, wasn’t a favorite, while the fresh peas were so almost candy. A memorable harvest was the purple cherry tomatoes—best eaten as dessert.
As expected, I learned quite a bit about plants and vegetable farming. I knew that working in the summer was not going to be pleasant, but the washing and company helped. Of course, there were some unexpected lessons as well: that tomato plants are very irritating and can cause arms and hands to swell, that garlic scapes exist, and that there’s never such a thing as too much fresh garlic.
Last year proved to be a bounty crop of tomatoes, so when I wasn’t picking them for my harvest share, I made piles of them at home. We ate what we could, and I made sauce for days and days. I still have several quarts in my freezer nearly a year later.
It was an interesting season: watching the weather affect the plants and doing things I never thought I would do willingly. Watching that lettuce and that carrot go from my basket to my table was more work and more fascinating than simply buying a bag at Target. Food is precious, I learned, and while we can’t all be farmers with a field of organic vegetables, it can only serve us to know a little more about it.