Harvest Time

Soma is sporting a back-to-school haircut and the corkbush is going scarlet: fall is here! For all my end-of-summer nostalgia and wariness at what’s to come (vote, people, please), I love the garish magnificence of a northeastern fall. As if the leaves have gone wild, amping up their beauty before saying good bye.

On our farm, the flowers in the field are bursting into their most potent expression.

Below are pails of mini-bouquets Jess sells at the Farmer’s Market. Sales have skyrocketed since Vassar’s students returned (Thanks, kids!). If you’d like a bouquet, we do a pick-your-own at the farm. I’ll occasionally do a delivery as well, provided the order is large enough….

Another good thing about this fall is that Arts Mid-Hudson gave us a grant for a series of workshops to be led by Jory: “Taking time for tea: a journey of inclusive ceramic cup handbuilding.” For the next couple months, Jory will be exploring clay with our group from The Arc Greater Hudson Valley. By November, participants should be able to make tea from herbs that they helped grow and harvest and drink it in their own handmade teacups! I particularly love that the clay being used to make these cups has been harvested from our own field. Here Jory is, showing Amtaj how to refine it.

And now, an ode to garlic, our biggest crop of the season… Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of our many helpers planting it in early spring. But here are Jess and Jory, digging it up.

And Molly and Nicky preparing it to dry:

And Arthur, serenading a group from The Arc Greater Hudson Valley and Ramapo for Children who came to help clean and sort:

The contribution of all these people has made for a particularly excellent garlic, packed with vitamins, flavor, and good vibes—and it’s FOR SALE! 10 heads for $10. If anyone owns a restaurant, I’d be happy to deliver a case straight to your doorstep, provided that your doorstep is near Hyde Park or Brooklyn, New York. Contact me for details.

Here’s a bit of doggerel I wrote to celebrate the occasion:

Supple and slender, with your flowery globe
Curvaceous and hairy, under papery skin 
Sown in one season, dug up the next
You are earth, sun and time transmogrified.

You have given vampires chase
Laid wasted to dropsy and ague
Undone the spells of Circe 
And helped thieves through the plague.

You sing and you sting, a fist sized punch
You are sweetness when roasted 
and sharpness when raw
You are queen of my kitchen
With nary a flaw.

A line that didn’t make the cut: You are most undistressing / in my salad dressing. I know. But it makes me laugh, and as Jason says, “You’ve got to amuse yourself.” Please respond with your own vegetable poems. The worse, the better.