Closing Time

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” --Semisonic, Closing Time

 

For me, fall has always signified change.  The leaves change color, the air turns cooler, and the rains come.  Now that I am a farmer, fall epitomizes change more than ever before.  Days on the farm are shorter, both in daylight hours and working hours.  Sleeping in is now allowed, since there are no crops demanding an early morning harvest.  Rolling up to the farm at 8:30 a.m. is no longer shameful; in fact, it might even be construed as early!  

Spring was all about new beginnings and possibilities, but fall is definitely about endings, including the end of the growing season and the end of my contract to manage the farm.  Our last few weeks at the farm have focused on all these endings, pulling out the summer fruiting crops and replacing them with winter cover crops, doing end-of-season record-keeping, cleaning tools, and organizing the office.

 

Fall on the farm, with germinating cover crop seedlings (canola and lana vetch).

As this season comes to an end and I reflect back on the goals I wrote down back in January, I am proud of what Becca and I have accomplished this season.  First and foremost, we met our financial goal of generating $15,000 in sales, albeit by the skin of our teeth!  Thank goodness for our fruit trees, whose bountiful harvests made up for our pathetic tomato crop.  For most of the season, it didn’t look like we were going to meet our financial goal, and I told myself that this was okay, that there were more ways to measure success than by income.  All true, but boy, did my heart leap for joy the moment the revenue column of my spreadsheet hit $15,000!

Another goal I had was to produce a value-added product.  We actually produced several, including 5 varieties of jam (Simply Peach, Spiced Peach, Peach Chile, Peach Butter, Spiced Pluot), and 3 types of sundried fruit (peaches, tomatoes, and raisins).  The raisins were delicious, but quite labor intensive to process, as the tiny stem had to be painstakingly removed from the top of each raisin. Similarly, the dried peaches had to be carefully cut into 1/8-inch wedges, but they dried within 2 days and were a sweet, chewy treat.

Dried peaches, per the Masumoto method.



Grapes completing their transformation into sundried raisins.

A third goal I set was to teach Dakota to be a farm dog.  I’m not sure whether Dakota and I met this goal or not, but we made a lot of progress until the farm’s dog policy changed mid-season and Dakota had to return to spending her days napping on the couch at home.  Compared to her first (and only) day on the farm last year, Dakota has come a long way.  She now understands the command “Path!,” although she struggles (and understandably so) to distinguish between the path and the top of newly planted beds.  Dakota is much less interested in the chickens than she used to be, giving chase if a chicken has escaped its enclosure, but ignoring the chickens in the coop area.  Although Dakota did dig a few holes in the tomato beds, in her defense, she was just trying to create a cool spot to lie down and rest.  I can’t really fault her for that, can I?

Dakota napping in a bed of baby tomato plants, recovering after a stimulating day on the farm.

Dakota surveys the farm, guarding against attack squirrels.

I also set a goal of improving access to healthy food in our neighborhood.  While Becca and I made progress toward this goal, there is still a long ways to go.  We tackled this goal with a “If you build it, they will come” mindset, naively assuming that we could solve the problem of residents in our low-income neighborhood having poor access to fruits and vegetables simply by starting a weekly farmstand in the parking lot of the school next to our farm.  Unfortunately, not many people came, and those who did were mostly middle-class community members, not low-income parents and students.  While I should have known this already from my public health experience, you can’t solve food access issues just by increasing produce availability; you must also address barriers related to cost, and educate families about nutrition and food preparation.  Needless to say, as two busy farmers, Becca and I weren’t able to take on all the steps necessary to really improve access to fruits and vegetables in our community.  But we did make small steps.  Countless community members purchased fresh produce at our farmstand and at a neighborhood farmers’ market.  We also donated unsold produce to a local food bank for distribution to those who needed it. 

Finally, I hoped to create a community around my little farm.  Here, much like the previous goal, we made progress, but much more could be done.  We began the season with grand visions of weekly potlucks, large volunteer groups, a busy farmstand, and lots of school field trips, but these visions were quickly replaced by reality.  We were two farmers trying to care for 2 acres of fruits, vegetables, and chickens.  We didn’t have time to organize or plan for community-building activities.  We did squeeze in a few field trips in the spring, allowing hundreds of schoolchildren to visit our farm and see where fruits and vegetables come from.  We didn’t recruit scores of volunteers, but what we lacked in quantity, we made up for in quality.  We were blessed to have two committed volunteers, John and Sarah, who each came to the farm about twice a week to help with weeding and harvesting.  We “paid” them with fruits and vegetables, but owe them a debt of gratitude for their labor and their company this season.  The farmstand was rarely busy, but we did have a few regulars who stopped by every week for tomatoes or apples, and even more regulars who visited our booth at the Midtown Farmers’ Market on Saturdays.  We also built community through a successful relationship with local restaurants.  One restaurant, OneSpeed Pizza, not only bought produce from us weekly, they even came out to the farm as volunteers! 

A sign in our farm office has a few ideas for building community.  We did at least one of these--we planted flowers.

Students learn from Farmer Becca about what plants need to grow.

 

Sarah, one of our regular volunteers, hunts down weeds with Patches, our farm cat.

John, a dedicated volunteer, harvests arugula with Becca.

The OneSpeed kitchen staff-turned-farmers. Never underestimate
how much a group of hardworking young men can do in 3 hours.

 

Fall may feel like it is all about endings, but these endings prompt new beginnings of their own.  A new job for the winter.  A new farm to start up and run this spring.  As the season wound down, others (and myself) began to ask, “What comes next for you?”  I’m still figuring this out, but I have a few ideas on where I’m headed.  I’m hoping to spend the winter working part-time as a public health physician, exercising the doctor part of my brain, resting my body, staying warm and dry indoors, and earning money to support my farming habit.  As for the next growing season, things are more up in the air.  I love the farm I managed this season, but it is a training farm, and two new farmers will learn from this piece of land next year.  I ultimately hope to own my own small organic farm, but I’m not financially in a position to buy a farm just yet.  I’m looking into leasing land, but haven’t found my dream spot yet.  My most promising lead at this point is with a former surgery colleague who is hoping to start a small farm on land in Elk Grove, with plans to donate much of what is grown there those who need it.  This mission aligns well with my public health values, and I feel ready for the challenge of starting and running a farm by myself.  A new beginning, indeed.

 

Fun with cherry tomatoes, courtesy of Misha, a first-year apprentice.