field notes
cold is in the air cold too has movement in blue golden gently falls
Volume 17 | Number 20 | October 12 & 16, 2012
Ecosystem Farm at Accokeek www.accokeekfoundation.org
3-Season Pick List Salad Mix Sweet Turnips Tomatoes Big Tender Beans
Hello CSA Community,
Cut Flowers Mixed Asian Mustards Savory Herb Mix
Farm Manager Becky Seward Apprentice Farmers Susan Cook, Sky Harman Farm Intern Crystal Proctor Farm Assistant Blain Snipstal
Well, we are still planting. We have almost succeeded in getting all of our baby plants in the ground for the fall, and the low temperatures are creeping downward. The slowing of growth is evident all around the farm, although I notice the sweetness this evokes in the greens and roots, despite the cracking it causes in our tomatoes. I seeded an early October planting for an interesting challenge we are undertaking for the cold season: a winter market. We will be selling a sampling of winter-hardy and –tolerant crops once a week during January and February as the practical component of a Winter Farming Lecture Series. Please stay tuned for details. For the Three Season Staples’ CSA: please also keep on your radar that the day we have scheduled as the last of your CSA is November 2/6. We will be sending you an email reminder soon, as well as presenting you with an option to forgo the last pickup in exchange for participation in the pickup right before Thanksgiving. Again, details are on their way. The Summer Drama, Fall Green CSA continues until November 30/ December 4, as we provide you with the best we have of the late fall. Tis the season for many interesting events at the Foundation, and it has been really great to see some of you at these occasions. I hope to see more. Please see details for some upcoming events in this week’s Field Notes. Love and arugula, Farmer Becky
Countless Green By Becky Seward This is a poem I wrote in 2006 for my undergraduate thesis at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, but I still find it relevant to the farm life I live today. It was written about my last day on a farm I worked on for nearly five years.
Countless Green It was my first and last day on the plow in the secluded North Field our dream space Behind me behind the buzzing machine lay many pearly crests Her underbelly On my last farm day I sat baking in the warm sanctuary of the greenhouse pulling the tendrils of chickweed from between the little mustards I lost myself for a minute in the dusting of lichen on the black soil shimmering with silver bits
I wiped away the green then the first and second layer of silver-speckled black Each layer a mosaic of unraveling silver and loam This life is living sculpture it is plotting and planting like so many blooming brushstrokes It is toiling towards the perfect convergence of pride and people and wild It is unpredictable art with a menacing palette of blood, ice, feathers, sweat, manure, soil, tears, mud, rain, and countless shades of green