Smarty-Pants and the Brown Thumb!
March 1, 2009
I have been on jury duty the last couple of weeks in Tucson so I have been very out of touch with the goings-on on the farm. In fact, I went two weeks without even looking in the new greenhouse at the seedlings that recently sprouted. When I finally got over there, I was astonished! Neat rows of kale, boc choy, spinach, turnips, radishes and more are thriving in the greenhouse. After years of witnessing packets of brown, hard, lifeless seeds grow into a variety of edible foods, one would think I would be unimpressed, but the transformation never ceases to amaze me!
I have to confess that my amazement is based less on some poetic notion of the miracle of life and more on my own inability to keep plants alive. Admittedly, I am the farmers wife, not the farmer. This bugs me! After all, I am an independent, college educated, intelligent woman who has been a part of farming for a few years now. The old-fashioned gender rolls of the husband being in charge while the wife waits for his decisions and leadership doesn’t sit well with me. I am a modern woman. Surely I should know enough to make some sound decisions in growing vegetables…? Instead I have learned, time and time again, that if I don’t defer to Stewart, my independent farming efforts fail.
Before I started working with Stewart on the farm, my plant growing had been limited to attempts at a few potted geraniums in our front courtyard and a couple of house plants. The geranium project has never worked out and the 2 house plants have been brought to the brink of death more than once. In the last ten years, I have helped Stewart separate tomatoes seedlings and repot many times. First we sift the soil for the cups and tiny seedlings are separated into the rich dirt, watered and returned to the greenhouse to keep growing before being moved outside. I should know what I am doing! Instead, I am the one – the only one – responsible for that fact that none of our CSA members or customers enjoyed tomatoes last year (yeah, it was me, sorry!). How? – I took it upon myself one day last spring to do the transplanting by myself. Stewart was so busy and I was sure I knew what I was doing. Well, guess what? Each tiny plant withered and died! Apparently the compost pile that I used had not sufficiently composted and the soil was way too hot. I felt terribly inept. I threatened to quit farming and go back to teaching – something that I was good at. In my frustration I blamed Stewart for my mistake since he all but begged me to quit my job to help on the farm. I even resented him for being such a smarty-pants, even though he didn’t say one negative word to me about the destruction of his tomato crop and really didn’t act at all like a smarty-pants at all.
When people visiting the farm ask me questions about growing vegetables like “When is the best time to plant sunflowers? How much water should I give my squash plants? How should I grow tomatoes? ” I answer as best as I can, but in the back of my mind I am thinking my 2 houseplants (and, now also the tomato incident) and I often feel like a fake.
Given my history, I should have known better three weeks ago when I decided to transplant some cilantro from the field into the greenhouse. Hadn’t I learned my lesson? Well, this time I was sure it would be fool proof. The cilantro had volunteered in a field in which we had recently planted onions. The life force in these plants was incredible! This particular garden had had cilantro in it last summer. Since then, livestock had been in there, the soil had been tilled with heavy tractors, new rows had been built up and it was never irrigated, yet, amazingly, the cilantro came back on its own! So, I thought, if the plants could weather drought, cows, tractors and frost, surely I could do them no harm! So, before the onion beds were to be cultivated, (which would tear the cilantro seedlings out of the ground), I decided to move these hardy plants into the greenhouse. I was very careful. I took a pan of water out with me to the onion garden and used a shovel to get deep under the roots then placed the seedlings in the pan with the roots in the water so they wouldn’t dry out. I had prepared a spot in the old hoop-house with damp soil for the newcomers and replanted them there. Two weeks later, after my tour of the new greenhouse with the impressive healthy rows of greens I mentioned, I went to the old hoop-house to see my sturdy cilantro plants. The seedlings are dead! AND – to add insult to injury, beside the withered remnants of the poor plants, healthy herbs are happily growing, (planted by smarty-pants himself, of course!) I give up!
By the way, after sharing this journal entry with Stewart, he laughed. Then he told me that he knows just how I feel. He has been at this farming thing for a long time now. He read a lot and sought the advice of other farmers, but he was essentially on his own. There was a lot of trial and error and a lot of failure and no option to “go back to teaching”, so he persevered. He’s earned his smarty-pants!
So, instead of sharing some farming tip with you – here’s a recipe for a quiche that I made with Stewart’s spinach. (The irony that the old-fashioned gender rolls persist is not escaping me!). Enjoy!
I think that it is important to start with a great crust. Most folks buy premade crusts then boast about their “homemade” pies and quiches, but to me, a fresh, flaky crust is imperative, so I will include my grandmothers pie crust recipe (it was published in an article on us in Better Homes and Gardens a few years ago!). Don’t let my snobbery stop you though, if homemade crust isn’t your thing.
The first ingredients can be refrigerated and used as a “mix” for making more crusts later. The way my grandmother makes it is with lard, but you can substitute 1 cup unsalted butter and 1 cup shortening for the 2 cups lard.
Mix
5 cups flour
4 teaspoons salt
1 pound or 2 cups lard
Store the mix in the refrigerator in a zip-lock.
Whenever you want to make a crust, use 1 ½ cup of mix and 3 tablespoons of milk, stirred with fork.
Roll out as you would any pie crust.
Spinach Quiche Filling
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 green onion, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
bunch of fresh spinach
5 eggs
milk
1 cup grated yellow cheese
4 tablespoons or so of crumbled feta cheese
Sauté onion and garlic in butter until translucent. Turn off heat and add a few handfuls of torn spinach leaves. Stir. In a bowl, wisk about 5 eggs and a splash of milk. Stir in cheeses. Put spinach mixture into prepared, unbaked crusts. Pour egg and cheese mixture on top. Back until crust is golden brown, about 42 minutes. Do not over bake.
Free tour of the farm, March 7, 11 am.
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