Red Wagon Farm

This Friday was my first time this season picking basil. Our target weight this Friday was 15 pounds for market and 4 pounds for restaurants.

We have three beds of basil with four different types. Each bed is covered with a white slightly transparent cloth we call row cover. This cover helps protect the plants from the elements and from an creepy crawlies that are wanting to make a quick snack from the crop. The row cover is held down with sand bags. Along with the basil, many of our crops have row cover protecting them, so the fields sometimes resemble more of a white sea than the green fields one might envision. When the wind blows hard, this sea swells with remarkably uniform sine waves, which is quite mesmerizing.

We start by uncovering the beds, which releases the sweet and savory smell of basil.  I try to work with both hands, pinching. Sometimes I work with my right hand and collect a bunch in my left and then dump the contents into a small gallon bucket. One bucket weighs, to my best estimate, about two pounds when completely full.

These three beds will continue to grow and will soon resemble more of a hedge of basil than anything- close to waist height. By then, we barely have to bend over at the waist to pick.

By the time we were through with harvesting, everyone’s thumb nails were blackened from the juices of the stems. On to the next crop on the harvest list. Sugar snap peas….

One thing that is important on the farm is transportation – in the form of our farm trucks. From depositing coolers in the proper fields for the next day’s harvest to delivering restaurant orders to dumping compost in the compost pile at the end of the harvest day, these vehicles are crucial to maintaining working order on and off the farm. The big white beast you see at the CSA pickups is our market truck. This truck, an old ’83 GMC, weighing in at over 23,000 pounds and about 25 feet long, can hold close to 75 of the large white coolers and is responsible for carrying the contents of our CSA shares to our pickups 3 days a week and all the produce to the market on Saturdays. I, being a vintage one year older, but of a much smaller stature, am responsible for driving her to and from the pickups with all the freshly harvested veggies.

Learning to drive such a large old vehicle was a daunting task, but I have grown to like the tri-weekly event. Before each outing, I go through a check list. First, check the headlights and turn signals, among a few other items, to assure all are in working order. Check the oil and fuel level and fill if needed.

Though old and sometimes temperamental, there is a finesse in driving this large truck. Getting her to start may require pulling out the choke, give her two pumps from the gas pedal, but not much more or risk flooding the engine (which I am guilty of on occasion). From inside the cab, when the truck turns over, I think it sounds much larger and meaner than from the outside. As I drive, I am aware of every sound, especially if there is a new one, and I constantly check my periphery in the mirrors. When I shift, I listen to the engine and watch the RPMs to be sure I don’t shift too late and push the engine too hard. This year, with a new clutch, shifting is much easier and doesn’t require me putting my whole body weight behind my foot.

There is always a little bit of relief when I pull into the pickup sites. The target time to arrive is around 3pm, which gives us about an hour to unload the contents of the truck. Set up of the tents and tables. Weigh the greens, like lettuce, arugula and sorrel and get ready for the 4pm pick up time. We’ll see you this week!

This Friday we harvested sugar snap peas for the first time this season. The harvest list read: “pick all ready.” With the plants usually producing for about two weeks, these surprisingly sweet little green pods are a short-lived treat of the spring. Harvesting them can be tricky and their very thought can inspire backaches for those whose bodies remember last year’s crop- but boy are they worth it!

On the north side of the farm, there are six long beds of sugar snaps that are each, to my best estimate, close to one hundred yards long (though this estimate may be hyperbolized based on the six hours I spent in them on Friday). Each of these beds is about four feet wide with about eighteen inches between them- just enough for one body to work up and down the row. Each bed contains four lines of plants. When harvesting, we work two to a bed with each worker responsible for the two lines closest to them.

Not that long ago, this field, now teeming with green pods of various sizes, was blanketed with a snow of sweet-smelling white blossoms. The first of these blossoms have quickly turned into the round slightly curved pods we know as sugar snap peas. The first fruits develop close to the ground and work their way up the plant as it matures. When harvesting them, either kneeling or bending at the waist, one must gently pull back the plants to reveal the peas that are ready to pick. A little game of hide and seek. Be efficient, but careful not to pull the plant out of the ground and don’t miss any that are plump and ready.

Being able to differentiate between pods that have reached their peak and those who need to remain on the plant to fatten more is probably one of the more difficult tasks. Pick them too soon when they are thin and they won’t reach the potential of their full sweetness- wait too long and their outer pod turns an unappetizing yellow and slightly translucent with the pod sometimes splitting to reveal the wrinkly individual peas inside. When over ripe their taste is close to bitter and their texture, woody. Quality control of the utmost importance. The pod on the farthest right is the sweetest sugar snap pea you could possibly taste and what were were looking to harvest.

Along with deciphering the sugar snap peas’ ripeness are two other anomalies. They, too, are pea pods, but are pale in comparison to the sugar snaps in taste. One is a thin skinny pod that looks similar to a snow pea, but has nearly no flavor, and the other is a long straight pod that looks like a boat and feels like a biting into a bunch of tiny woody threads. Eating either of these is usually followed by spitting them onto the ground, especially after snacking on the real thing. We do not want these to make their way to the market or into a CSA share. Tasting the produce is important to understand the differences- a boon when you are waiting for lunch.

This Friday we methodically went through each of the six beds once, followed by a second run through. We came away with a half cooler- to guess, approximately sixty pounds. Many of the pods that were in the field on Friday were so close to being ready. The harvest for this coming week’s CSA should be bountiful.