Fields of Plenty

What a strange fall! Well, what a strange year, right? Amazingly mild temperatures, we have dipped below freezing only once, and that but a week ago and with little damage done.   Next week promises colder temperatures—it’s ok, it is December next week! We have been grateful for this milder weather, as it has given us time to work on the new high tunnel. The frame is up, sides are on, now waiting for heaters, fans, and end walls. Then on to the next one. We finished the new unheated tunnel, and spinach is up and looking great. Pomegranate trees will be planted shortly. The outside harvests have continued with barely a twitch, as these crops thrive in cool weather. Broccoli, cauliflower, and salad turnips have filled out those CSA bags, and the kale, collards, mustard greens keep growing and have provided multiple harvests. Kohlrabi is coming soon! We have transplanted a few crops into a tunnel to extend their harvest. In the meantime, the hydro house has been producing many o...

 Another rainy day here in Delaware, with a rainy November forecast. I have to admit, rainy, chilly days make me want to take a nap. A long nap. However, farming keeps on going. Fortunately, we have under cover activities to keep us busy and mostly dry. However, boots and rain coats are recommended! Since we knew the rain was coming—extra rain from Hurricane Zeta—we were extra busy yesterday, cutting kale for the shares, and harvesting everything that did not care to be drowned. I grabbed one of our store employees to pick blackberries with me. I think this is the latest we have ever picked blackberries! High tunnel work. This is a favorite. Easy to harvest, everything is clean, everything looks good, harvesting is fast. Planting in the tunnels—also fun! Today, we planted rows of snap peas and lots more romaine. So far, we have not found a limit on how much romaine to grow—it is a customer favorite. Then, we started a 1000 or so seeds in trays for transplanting into the new tun...

O nce upon a time, a long time ago, back when there were classified ads in the newspaper and people read those ads, my mother saw an ad for fig trees in Wilmington. “Hmmm,” Elaine thought. “If he can grow figs in Wilmington, so can I.” Definitely a competitive streak in the family. Elaine and my youngest brother, Matt, drove to Wilmington to find this gentleman (using a map and my mother’s knowledge of Wilmington) who had fig trees growing in his back yard. “Here they are,” he said. “Which one would you like?” They picked out a tree, dug it up, and brought it back. This happened 1978 or so. This fig tree is still with us, a variety called Celeste, small, very sweet, and delicious. And that was the first fig tree. My mother, of course, is not alone in loving figs. Figs have commanded a dedication and following that borders on the cult edge of devotion. Fig fossils are dated to about 9400 BCE in the Jordan River valley—about 1000 years before evidence of wheat or barley cultivation, ...

  Something about this year makes me vocalize this familiar childhood lament. Can we, please, just be done with this year? I feel pummeled and exhausted and weary from… everything. I try really hard not to complain, for it gains me nothing, but this year is pushing me, along with most everyone I know, to the limits. The weather has been…challenging, yes, that’s the word. We have had deluges of rain, a record number of 90-degree days, and more deluges of rain. We are on the second round of named tropical storms and hurricanes. If I even think about complaining about the weather, I just look at what the Gulf Coast has to endure this year. And the west coast—so many fires! I am grateful that Oregon and Washington finally got some rain. If we could send California some of the rain from Tropical Storm Beta… And yet. Here we still are. Getting through this year one day at a time. Hardly any pears, but a good number of apples. Peaches ended early, but Italian plums are here. Lima bean...

2020, what can we say? Tough from the beginning—47 million acres burned in Australia—through a pandemic (overwhelming on its own)—to giant hornets and spotted lantern flies--to bizarre weather (for us, a freeze in May, tornado in August, heat, rain, hail, etc. in-between)—to working on daily survival.   The weather extremes have been hard on all the crops. Many tree varieties were frozen out by the May weather, and others have suffered through the deluges of rain (9” in one week was our personal farm record this year). The result has been tough on the peaches. I have struggled with getting them to ripen properly—one early variety defeated me completely, although my mother was successful. Not as many peaches as usual. We have been fighting the humidity. It’s just plain been a struggle. This is when we draw on our family history to help sustain us. We, all the grandchildren of John and Rachel Webster, grew up on my grandfather’s stories about peaches: the one year when he and my ...

Welcome summer! July sums up summer here—hot, hot, and hot. I remind myself that it is supposed to be hot in the summer and that heat brings sweet corn, tomatoes, peaches, and all the wonderful summer vegetables. It’s a fair trade. This year has not been super hot (we have seen higher temperatures) nor super humid (we have had much stickier days). This year, we have been dealing with the effects of an unusually cold, wet spring with late frosts and freezes. Very few summer Lodi apples and Methley plums, peaches a little late, and peppers are a little late. On the plus side, lettuce, asparagus, rhubarb, and strawberries went longer in June than we can remember. The corn is fabulous, the peaches are very sweet, and the tomatoes are delicious. The tomatoes are coming from our early planting in the high tunnel. Planted in the ground, but pampered with some heat and covered until mid-June. Then the sides are rolled up and the ends opened. These early tomatoes have carried us through as ...

May this year—so very, very different from all other years. This month has been similar to talking about the 100-year-flood plain. You know it’s possible that a flood can happen, but until you experience it, you don’t realize all the ramifications of such an event. So here we are in the 100-year-pandemic plain. The weather has been bizarre, we all are in disguise, and we are just now finding routines in the new way of living.   Isn’t it great that the plants still know how to grow? With a lot of our customers working from home, gardening is the new activity! As one person said to me, “This is the only thing we can do.” Hmmm, no movies, no restaurants, no gym time, no concerts, no museums… that leaves gardening, meditation, journaling, taking online classes, reading. Gardening seems to be the favorite! Tomato and pepper plants are popular of course, but it is great to see people putting in herbs for the first time, experimenting with native perennials, building their ow...

Wow. An April unlike any other April in our collective memories! Even my mother, at age 91, has no memories or family stories of the Spanish Flu Epidemic, 1918-1920. This coronavirus has hit all of us equally new.  Fortunately for us, the plants that were planted in months past have continued on their way to harvest, blithely ignoring projections, edicts, proclamations, predictions, or other statements. The plants have demanded that we keep up with harvesting. How we get those vegetables to the consumer is not their concern. Here are our wonderful greens—lettuces, baby bok choy, arugula, mustard greens, chard, kale, etc.—as well as the start of asparagus (10 days ahead of last year) and rhubarb. Onions give way to fresh scallions, and mint, thyme, chives, and sorrel are greening up outside in addition to what is growing in the tunnels. The fruit trees look great, and the new raspberry canes promise a good crop. I have spotted our first pair of barn swallows, scouting out l...

Mable as a bride in 1903 Although women make up 51% of the world’s population, and 43% of all farm workers, and grow more than half of the world’s food, little is heard of our women farmers. The land passed to the son of the family and the women have been invisible.  Today, I am talking about a woman who bridged the 19 th and 20 th centuries. She was a smart businesswoman, an expert farmer, a devoted wife and mother, and someone who triumphed over adversity and celebrated life. Meet Mable Garfield Talley Rotthouse.  I am fortunate to have a heritage that honors the women in our family, and I am fortunate to have so many smart, talented, loving, and capable women who have set such a high standard for me.   Mable is my maternal great-grandmother. Mable Garfield Talley was born June 1, 1880, to William Talley (1845-1923) and Rachel Emma Baker (1850-1935). Her two older siblings both died in the first year of life, and her sister Anna, died at age 27....

I am a peach snob. I admit it. I can only eat our fabulous, fresh, tree ripened peaches. Juicy, sweet. I usually eat the ones with a little bruise on them that don’t sell. I cut one open and eat the whole thing. It is because I am a peach snob that we do not carry other peaches in the farm market once our peach season is done. It’s why I say, “eat local.” But let’s face it. It’s a long time between the end of September (the end of peach season) and the end of June (when peaches start again). Nine months in fact. Sometimes the longing for a taste of summer is overwhelming.   A South American peach in February just does not come close to what I want. And hurray, there is a solution! Our good friend, Rebecca, cans a lot of peaches for us. A lot.   And she uses hardly any sugar, just enough to keep the peaches from discoloring. They are delicious. Amazing. Stunning.   They taste like summer peaches because they are summer peaches. And they taste like peaches, not su...

This year, February is confounding us. It is 66 degrees on February 4.   On our farm, that constitutes a heat wave. No measurable snow so far this year. It feels like spring. And we had sunshine today!   February 2 marks the day we are closer to the start of spring than the beginning of winter—and it is sure feeling like spring today.   The additional daylight is quite noticeable now, and we have passed that magic 10-hours mark, when plants increase their growth exponentially. Woo hoo! I hope this means an early spring! But I know all too well that the end of February and all through March can be treacherous. I know you have been keeping track of this also, that March 20-25, 2018, was close to the coldest week of the winter. And March 20-25, 2019, was one of the coldest weeks of the winter. I suspect winter is not done with us. In the meantime, though, primroses are popping up, and calendula are looking at me, and lilies of the valley have been planted. The early...

Apple butter is a unique, old-fashioned way of preserving some of the apple harvest for winter consumption.  It is made by very slow cooking apples, and frequent stirring thereof. My mother, Elaine Linton, remembers her grandmother, Mary P. Webster, making apple butter in the large kettle which hung from a metal stand, over a carefully tended wood fire outside. It took about 2 days and nights for the apples to cook down in an apple cider slurry, turn a rich brown color, and then be ready for canning. No sugar was added, for sugar was quite expensive and everyone liked the flavor of the butter just as it was. People like my mother, who grew up canning with her mother and grandmother, find canning easy. I suppose after 80+ years of practice, it should be easy! Our apple butter is all apples, apple cider, no sugar, seasoned with a little cinnamon, just the way my great-grandmother used to make it. It is naturally sweet and delicious!  I like it on bagels, on oatmeal, ...