What it's all about

Radish seed in the hopper, ready to sow

             
I've pretty much been running non-stop since my last post.  Well, not running, perhaps, but walking, bending, digging, squatting, weeding, lifting, pulling, watering, driving, selling....

Basically, the rain stopped and it's been all farming, all the time, ever since.  

An almost-ripe Pluot

The fruits of our labor so far have been incredible.   Walking through the field and seeing nearly ripe cucumbers on plants that have been quietly growing for weeks and weeks is an occasion for joy.  Making a huge meal of sauteed summer squash with Cippolini onions and garlic, steamed Red Russian kale and a tomato-basil salad with fried eggs--all of which we grew here at the Hurley Farm--makes meals doubly delicious.  Upon hearing feedback from a picky chef that he thought our strawberries were "amazing," our faces light up with involuntary, blushing grins.  As anyone who has ever cooked, built, or made something for an audience, it feels so good to see your hard work come to fruition and make people happy.

Our two newest farmily members, Chicha and Boda

When we finally got all of our summer vegetables in the ground a few of weeks ago, we walked around the farm and took a breath for the first time in months.  

The season has brought with it daily lessons.  We've grown some beautiful veggies, as well as entire beds that failed completely.  We spent hours thinning fruit and pruning our apple trees when their branch tips started drying up and dying only to discover two weeks later that codling moth had bored its way into nearly all the fruit.   Farming this season has been an entirely different experience from farming last year.  While a half-acre of 200 foot-long beds is shaped by a tractor in a half hour over at the Ranch, Eric and I, with the help of our generous volunteers, spend half a day shaping three or four 90 foot-long beds with a tiller, shovels and rakes.  Luckily, we have the help of some awesome, enthusiastic friends and volunteers.  We couldn't do it without them.  

A view of the garden back in May

Meanwhile, we're constantly bumping up against our own beliefs, ideals, and goals.  Is it possible for us to make a living farming sustainably without running ourselves into the ground?  Would we even enjoy farming if we had the pressure of producing and hustling to make a profit?  Can we nurture the land and raise happy animals using methods we believe and still run a business?  Every couple of weeks we manage to pull up a bit from our labor and daydream to each other about how we'll incorporate farming into our lives in the future.  Fruit trees or vegetables?  Pigs or cows?  For income or just for ourselves?  Compost business?  Bed and breakfast?  East Coast or West Coast?

It's so easy to get wrapped up in how the plants are doing, and how much we're selling or not selling to restaurants and farmers' market customers.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that this year, selling veggies is not the point.   All the lessons--the bed of bolted radishes, the realization that selling kale might never really pay the bills, the harvest morning spent training and managing ten new volunteers--


that's the point.  And with all those beautiful, delicious berries we didn't sell at the market the other day,   it's a great excuse for strawberry shortcake.

Perfect berry