Signs and Miracles

In the evening of my first day at Caretaker, a perfect rainbow spanned the valley as I stepped out of the house to walk down to my cabin. At the time, I took the Biblical interpretation, and inferred that it was a promise of a wonderful season, definitely one without too much precipitation. Well. I've seen about 10 perfect rainbows since, and I have now come to the conclusion that rainbows are actually a promise of lots and lots of rain. It's raining now, as I write this, as a matter of fact.

But we have a new sign on the farm, so I'm not worried. A few days ago Katie mentioned that she had seen a dove fluttering around the farm. As anyone who graduated from Sunday School can tell you, a dove brought back an olive branch to Noah, indicating that dry land was nigh. All week long, the sun has shone and the fields have flourished. My garden has been churning out eggplants; we're eating raspberries by the pint; Chloe isn't even kicking the bucket any more. Today brought the greatest miracle of all, however.

While pulling up black plastic yesterday afternoon, we noticed something red though the opaque plastic walls of the hoophouse. We closed the hoophouse 3 weeks ago in defeat, convinced that the blight had finally invaded even that safe haven. The plants were beginning to die back from disease, and the fruits lacked even the merest pink blush. In their prime, the hoophouse tomatoes had grown into a jungle, so we anticipated a huge hassle in removing the dying vines. To simplfy our task, we decided to hasten their death by roasting the tomato plants to death. We left the sidewalls down, the doors shut. We stopped running irrigation to the plants. We imagined their leaves shriveling from 145 degree heat, the blighted fruit withering even as it rotted.

Instead, we seem to have created juicy, sweet, California-style dry farmed tomatoes.

Late blight is a fungus like disease, technically classified as a "water mold." It spreads through the air, but can only really infect a plant when the leaves are wet and the temperatures are between 60 and 80 degrees. Our benign neglect prevented the introduction of cool, humid air, and the brutal daytime temperatures within stopped the blight in its tracks. Even better, the sudden stress seems to have kicked the tomatoes into high gear. When we opened the door this morning, we found plants so heavy laden with fruit that they could barely support themselves on their trellising. Sure, there are some blighted fruits and dead leaves in the hoophouse. But to haul a cart full of ripe, red slicers up the hill felt like the greatest victory of the season.

Oh and that dove? It is actually a white pigeon with an affinity for compost piles. Better than a rainbow, I say!

Because these tomatoes are such precious commodities, I can't offer recipes that utilize the normal summer abundance of tomatoes. For us, raspberries are the wonder crop this year, which has inspired me to try an unusual take on chilled berry soup. While I'm sure it seems crazy to put jalapenos in a berry soup, the peppers actually add the perfect piquancy to turn a dessert soup into something a bit more substantial.

Chilled Garden Berry Soup with Lemon Verbena
Recipe courtesy of Homegrown Pure and Simple, by Michel Nischan
Note: Lemon verbena is an unusual herb with lanceolate leaves and a heavenly lemon aroma. It is a perennial, so if you can purchase a plant and find a spot for it in your garden, you will be richly rewarded.

1 cup honey (I imagine that you could reduce this a bit, depending on the tartness of the berries)
1 cup lemon juice
2 Tablespoons grated lemon zest
1 cinnamon stick
4-5 teaspoons seeded, finely minced jalapeno (the seeds are where the real heat of hot peppers is, so do NOT include them in this recipe)
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 pints garden berries (I used raspberries, but the recipe assures me that any combination of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, or strawberries would be delicious)
1/4 cup loosely packed lemon verbena leaves, sliced
whatever lemon verbena stems the leaves were on

In a small saucepan, combine the honey, lemon juice, lemon verbena stems, lemon zest, cinnamon, the chopped pepper, and the verbena stems. Simmer for about 5 minutes over low heat. Season with the salt, remove from the heat, and let sit for 10 minutes to cool.

Put the berries in a food processor or blender. Add the honey mixture, pouring through a fine sieve. Process until smooth.

You can sieve the soup again to remove some of the seeds, or simply stir in the sliced lemon verbena leaves and chill until serving.

Trial By Fire and Ice

When I arrived at Caretaker Farm one week ago, I was hailed by swirling currents of snow flurries as I walked the frozen path to my new home (an unheated, unpowered cabin in the woods). I hugged a hot water bottle like my life depended on it that first night and did my best to think springy thoughts.

The power of positive thinking, however, was not apparently strong enough to dismiss Old Man Winter, who still had a few tricks up his frigid sleeves. Monday and Tuesday vacillated between a snowy drizzle and general overcastness, which prevented us from doing anything plant-related outside of greenhouse seeding. In the meantime, we worked to prepare the farm for spring: cleaning the barn and greenhouse, clearing brush, splitting logs for next winter's wood supply, slogging our way along the fence line and cutting back the thorny multiflora rose branches as we went.

Now to a New Englander, the past week's weather was nothing out of the ordinary. Half-frozen mud is ubiquitous this time of year, and no one expects to wear white summer dresses for Easter. Unfortunately, it is a proven fact that we Georgians lump all temperatures below forty as "unfit for human habitation," while simultaneously believing that all we really need at such times is a warm winter coat. As a cultural outreach gesture, I think that there ought to be a schematic drawing somewhere near the Mason-Dixon line that demonstrates the proper way to dress for winter. It has taken me years to overcome this heritage and comprehend "layering," a complex maneuver that requires more than a simple a t-shirt and a decent coat for winter attire. Since arriving at Caretaker, I have embraced layering to a comic degree, to the point that I am virtually unrecognizable under long underwear, a t-shirt, fleece, winter coats, and rain gear. And since then, I have not been cold.

This may also have been a function of Wednesday's chief occupation, burning the brush piles we had created in the cow pasture and down by the apprentice cabins. Once the wood finally caught and my hair began to frizz slightly from the heat of the flames, I felt a bit like the title character of "The Cremation of Sam McGee". I think I even removed some layers.

While the weather has certainly given me pause (particularly at 5:50 AM, when my alarm goes off and I come up for a breath of cold morning air from beneath a mountain of blankets and sleeping bags), my first week of farming has been splendid, exhausting, utterly satisfying. Caretaker's apprenticeship program is intensely communal: we rotate cooking duties 5 days per week and share the bottom floor of the farmhouse with Farmer Don and his family (the top is theirs and private, just as the cabins are ours). Caretaker is strictly a CSA farm, and the 250 shareholder families participate throughout the season in celebrations, harvesting, and occasional odd jobs around the farm. My excitement for this year is more nuanced that was my bright-eyed enthusiasm last year, when I began at Serenbe. I have a better sense of what I don't know, and a clearer idea of how to augment my knowledge. I'm not so scared of the greenhouse, nor totally clueless when it comes to compost and tractors. (though I imagine that Caretaker's manual transmissions will prove trickier than our deluxe little John Deere at Serenbe was).

Monday night, as I was washing the dishes, Katie and Margaret called me outside to witness the most stunningly complete rainbow I have ever seen. It and its fainter secondary rainbow spanned the farm in brilliant colors against the dusky sky. Were I a more adventurous sort, I would probably have felt compelled to scale the mountain beyond the farm and dig beneath the single fir tree that seemed to mark one end. But I've got more important things to do than chase after leprechaun gold--Spring is peeking quietly out of the fields, and we've got a long, full season ahead of us.