Back to the Woods

My fourth and final home, Sky Meadow Retreat, could not be a more ideal place to end my summer vegetable expedition. I conclude my journey at a Buddhist-based meditation retreat in the northeast kingdom of Vermont, surrounded by trees and mountains and raspberry patches. Around every bend in the seashell-marked forest trails lies a swimming pond or a teepee or a meditation gazebo. Or more fruit trees that call to be explored.

Every morning begins with 30 minutes of meditation followed by 30 minutes of yoga to prepare our minds and bodies for a day in the kitchen cooking vegan meals or in the sun working in the garden.

I'm transitioning from living room couches to a cabin of my own. A cozy cabin in the woods, with running water and electricity, a rocking chair and a gas stove on the porch, a lofted bed, a mini kitchen. And lots of windows that stay open all day to let the cool Vermont breeze in.

And......TAAA-DAAA, the garden. It's quite beautiful. Well kept and manicured, but still lots of wild spaces. Highly organized system of planting, lots of mulching, mounds, and love.

There are actually 2 gardens. Wait, no, soon to be 3. Dubbed: the upper garden (pic below), lower garden (above), and lower field (a soon-to-be garden, which I will delve into at a later time).

OK, time to meet the faces behind this beautiful place. Miles bought the piece of land and began Sky Meadow about 25 years ago, and since then, has built every building and pond on the property. He teaches meditation, communication skills, and generally runs the place. I curse myself for not getting an adequate photograph of Miles, but here he is with Cella and Emma, cheeks stuffed, trying to find the most effective way to eat an overstuffed burrito.

Cella, his wife, and her 3 daughters moved here from Quebec about 3 years ago. She is the kind soul who apparently took a virtual liking to me and convinced Miles to let me come to Sky Meadow for a couple weeks, because they usually only take interns for a whole season. I am enormously thankful for her kindness.

The girls have only been speaking English for 3 years, but you would never know it from their impeccable accent. They are 11, 12, and 13 years old, but at times I feel like they're my age. They are self sufficient, live in separate houses from Miles and Cella, any one of them alone can cook an entire vegan meal for the whole community, and they happily work alongside me 6 hours a day without a complaint. We've had some awesome weed-talks ("Weed Talk" definition: the process of talking about anything and everything while hand-weeding. Stories, riddles, philosophy, problems, spontaneous song, anything is fair game).

Lydia and Emma:

Cassandra:

Jon and Amy, the long term residents, have been at Sky Meadow since February, and plan on staying indefinitely.

Amy, yoga instructor, masseuse, also a prime weed talker:

Jon, the main cook and weed-wacker extraordinaire:

Ben, one of the summer interns:

And Carolyn, another summer intern who has taken me under her wing, told me the secrets of the place, and fed me hummus, which is the way into my heart.

An intro for now, more stories and garden tales to come!

but I don't wannnnna leave

Once again, it’s time to say goodbye. And as always, I was just getting settled and resisted a little. But it’s time and I'm ready to move on and I know I'll be back. Staying in one place for too long is dangerous anyway.

My last day was Saturday, farmer’s market day. I didn’t really do much work-wise, just weighed a few cabbages, watched people pick up kohlrabi with a frightening expression, explained how to cook kohlrabi at least 31 times, traded some salad mix for almond butter, and walked around admiring art and jewelry and maple syrup and the general hippie splendor.

The carrots are beets were looking exceptionally ravishing

This is Doug Knapp, a famous figure around Burlington. I've seen this comical, colorful, Vermont-inspired artwork around the city, in my couchsurfing homes, and on tshirts. I'm quite fond of the prevalence of dogs and cows in his artwork, often satirical messages, and simple, almost childlike illustrations.

I actually ran into Doug the night before, as I sipped on my Grey Goose martini and he his lemonade kale juice concoction (could I make this up?). I remember thinking he looked very intelligent, sporting the white beard and thick crewneck sweater, his light green juice in one hand, a book in the other, and perhaps preparing his syllabus for fall semesters Literature class. Well, I was browsing through the art section of the market and stopped at the stand of prints I had seen all over the city. I looked up at the artist, and low and behold, it was the Lit professor. He must have ditched the book and crewneck for a ghetto hat and paintbrush. He remembers me from the night before, we spark up conversation, and he begins to enquire about my travels. I look through his work, consider paying $20 for a print just because he seems so interested in my summer endeavors, then realize I don’t even have $5. We talk some more about his art and as we’re saying our goodbyes, he asks me which print I like best. I say, Oh, I don’t know, this one reminds me of my roommates next year and I like cows. He grabs the print, signs it, and hands it to me. So I’ll be heading south with a Dug Nap print and Emma and Vivian, we’ll have to find a deserving place for this:

some more prints:

http://www.dugnap.com/prints.html

Anyway, story time is over. I must admit, Burlington provided me with some quality memories, some new hobbies, and a fondness for sleeping on short couches. And the realization that being nice gets you a long way, lots of new friends and free things. The necessities, like food and booze and art. Or maybe that’s just unique to Burlington’s little utopian hippie world, where everyone is up for a cheerful conversation at any given time.

Either way, I thank you Burlington, for taking me on daily dumpster diving excursions and giving me more synthetic powdered cheese puffed corn than I will ever know what to do with.……….but it was free.

And bravo, Burlington, for having the most generous people I’ve ever met. People who are willing to take in a homeless soul and take me on bike excursions and teach me dumpster diving strategies and accept carrots as currency and turn me into a beer snob and show me the best places to watch the sun set.

Trekking north, back to the woods!

Warshin'

As it turns out, I've been working with small scale agricultural systems - Michelle's garden, Alison's mini farm & CSA, and where I'll go next, a meditation retreat garden. I didn't really plan that intentionally, but couldn't be happier with the assemblage of place I've worked. As it turns out, the urban farm in Burlington, in all its 6 acre glory, has been the largest and most....in a way, commercial farm. I've gotten to see such a variety of techniques and growing systems, but the most apparent distinction I've noticed between small scale and large (well, larger) scale is in the harvesting and preparation.

Michelle's garden was primarily for personal (and B&B guest) use, so washing was done in the kitchen sink.

Alison had some big outdoor sinks for washing, but rinsing the radishes was still fairly self explanatory.

Pitchfork Farm's method of cleaning, I assure you, is not self explanatory. It involves three giant bathtubs, overhead water facets, and two old washing machines. No, not washing machines for washing. Washing machines for drying. Let me explain. We harvest greens for the mesclun based on what's available, usually a 1 to 1 ratio of lettuce to mustards, with some arugula mixed in. We chop them in handfulls with a knife, pick out the weeds, fill the bins, and weigh them, each one weighing about 12 lbs. Harvesting is usually done by lunch, then we load up the truck and drive down to the communal Intervale washing center where we fill up the three giant bathtubs with freezing cold water (from Lake Champlain, I believe), and start dumping a couple of bins (1 lettuce, 1 mustards) in the first tub. This gets the first layer of dirt off the greens, and allows the different kinds to mingle into mesclun. Then, with the nifty scooper nets, we transfer them into the second tub, then the third. This 3 tub system assures that the greens are squeaky clean. Then, about 3 netfuls at a time are loaded into a washing machine on the spin cycle, and aha! a giant version of a kitchen salad spinner! From there, the mesclun is bagged by hand, weighed in 10 pound bags, and distributed into boxes accordingly to be circulated around Burlington restaurants and markets.

Washing other things, like radishes, garlic, fennel, etc. is a bit simpler because of the smaller quantities. Just rinse by hand, dry, bundle, and box.

La Casa Verde

Intervale provides it’s farms with an option to rent greenhouse space. For those tomatoes that are no match for the unpredictable Vermont weather. Or the seeds that aren’t seeded directly into the ground. Farms can rent entire greenhouses or a number of “tables” in the common greenhouse. Or, if you’re Pitchfork Farm, an entire greenhouse plus a few tables in the communal one. I've only been inside for a short time to plant a few cabbages, but just for future reference, not somewhere you want to be found on an unseasonably hot Burlington day.

Here's the lovely lane of Intervale greenhouses:

Inside of Pitchfork's personal greenhouse (tomato plants abound):

Inside of the communal greenhouse. Note, behind Sophia's badass dreads, the tables available for rent:

Zak, planting red and green cabbage seeds in the greenhouse.

And Sophia, watering the baby seedlings:

For the Love of Veggies

Well, I now know how to aggravate Eric. My good ole southern hospitality (funny…. I’ve found altruism to be more prevalent here than in the south) has taught me to ask politely when I desire something….say, a handful of kale or a garlic clove. I know I’ve worked hard enough to earn more than the few carrots I’m requesting, but no one likes a mooch, so, might as well ask politely like all those childhood manners classes taught me to do. Not to say those classes that my mother so kindly invested in weren’t important (because there does come a time when one must decipher which of the 84 spoons at the place setting is dubbed “pudding spoon”), but Eric’s generosity has resulted in a little feud involving said manners and my love of veggies. He recently told me that if I were to ask for something one more time instead of just going and grabbing it from the field, that…..well…..I don’t recall the threat, I just picked up on the fact that I should be more assertive in my vegetable bartering.

So look what I so stylishly toted home last Friday. Navigating through the Burlington traffic (ahem, lack of bike lanes), barefoot, dirt stained, but proudly bearing my Pitchfork Farm canvas tote filled to the brim with stir-fry ingredients. And I didn’t even ask.

All of this is to say: look at all of my beautiful options!

Kohlrabi, which resembles an alien, but tastes delightful in a stirfry.

red cabbage

radicchio, used as a filler for the mesclun if they're running low on other greens, or the head lettuce bolts.

kale, which is my new favorite green. roughly chopped and sauteed for 10 minutes, or tossed in olive oil and baked to make kale chips!

green cabbage

garlic

fennel, which I have not yet tried. I am doubtful, as it smells like licorice.

broccoli, absolutely diviiiiiiine.

beets, which I have not done much experimenting with.

rainbow chard makes me religious

It's so beautiful! I feel like I'm walking through Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. The nutritious version.

Wheel-Hoein' and Flame-Weedin'

Pitchfork Farm was set into orbit six years ago, and since then, Eric has been experimenting with what crops he grows based on the success of his sales. He and Rob now focus on salad greens, which they have found to be the most productive and promising crop. There are a few different types of beds for the mesclun, including a mix of lettuces (seen below), a mix of mustard greens, and then the beds of single greens like arugula, radicchio, and head lettuce.

There are also many other things growing, just not in copious amounts like the greens. Things like: beets, radishes, carrots, kale, chard, kohlrabi, broccoli, cilantro, cabbage, squash, watermelon, cucumber, fennel, garlic, what am I forgetting???

Eric, Rob, and Sophia managing the beds with the plastic coverings, using my new favorite tool: the wheel-hoe.

Correction...I take that back. My new favorite tool, which I could have delighted in operating if I weren't so fond of working sans shoes: THE FLAME WEEDER. Apparently it’s more common than one might think, but, as my enthusiasm can attest, very exciting to behold.

The way it works: a bed is rototilled. Then, the first round of weeds is demolished. Then, they wait a few days, or a week, for another round of weeds to come up. Plant seeds with a tractor (over second round of weeds). Then, the flame weeder is unleashed and used to buuuuuurn all of those little pesky weeds to a crisp. Here, Rob is flame weeding the walkways after we wheel-hoed them. Exciting, yeah?

Oh, here's Zak: