Ear muffs protect my hearing from the roar of a tractor’s engine. Sunshine has warmed my body on an early spring day. I am incorporating a sudan grass mulch, grown last summer, into beds destine for early brassicas. A set of discs cuts the dry plant material and flips soil over top, creating a mixture of black and yellow. The recent moisture has left the ground a great consistency and glowing dark with fertility.
Farmers are interpreters of land, growing crops from the ground and delivering them to the people. We speak in languages of soil, pollinators, water, and wind breathing creation into seeds. Each year we ask the land to provide, offering cover crops, compost, or fertilizer. We guide growth from seed to harvest. Each year is a gamble. Each year has its moments of beauty and destruction. Our job is to play the hand we have been dealt, work with nature, and grow the food.
We translate weather patterns, signs of seasonal change to our crop plans which are interpretations of the marketplace. As a grower develops, you first learn what crops you like to grow, then crops your customers like to buy, what crops you need to learn, and which crops you need to learn to sell. Whether through sales records, conversations, market data, this information shapes the crop program.
While today I make the first cut into the land, effort has been duly paid under the protection of plastic. The buffer against seasons allows a head start, from other farmers to market and backyard gardeners. When someone has ripe tomatoes in their yard, they aren’t buying. However, if you have those luscious fruits a week early, you sell out and create customer loyalty. Today we will be harvesting the first fresh crops of the year, weeks ahead of planting outside. All made possible to protection from weather.
Working ahead we will prepare the ground. Weather windows and soil consistency dictate when this can happen. Waiting for snow to melt or the ground to thaw can leave you itching with impatience. Last year the struggle was rain, even forcing us to plant into mud. This year the challenges will likely be different, yet reminescient to another season of the past. Farmers remember, and act through past experience.
Once the crop is planted interpretation shifts back to the land. Monitoring growth, checking for pests, fertilizing, and weeding. Interacting with nature and directly communicating with the plants. Crops speak in yellow leaves, browned edges, excessive foliage, lacking foliage. Problems need to be addressed, or not, in real time and results are not noticed for sometimes weeks as the plant heals.
Knowing when to take action is critical. Is there enough of a pest issue to warrant spraying or will these pests attract the predator? There are losses and wins. Not to mention each year often brings new challenges for some crops and offers bumpers to others. The trick is to keep planting, keep going, never stop learning.
As the harvest begins, communication returns towards the customer. Packing, washing, bunching, cutting, and presenting the crop to appeal is an artform. Sorting from the field to the market, culling produce, and presenting quality is common practice. Organizing a market stall requires an eye for color and texture. Today’s harvest is destined for a wholesale customer which is entirely different than retail.
When we communicate the value of a product we are starting back at the soil, explaining how years of stewardship have impacted the fertility and health of the ground. We are speaking from the soil itself, transmitting its own living energy through the craft of growing food and our words. Communicating the hands that planted the crop, the eyes that watched over, and the backs that harvested. All done, ideally, in a conversation that unfolds over seasons as the land always has something new to teach.
Springtime especially is a potent time for communication with the ground. Waiting for the opportunity to sow the first seeds, and preparing the soil to receive them. Too early and they could die, too late and the window has been missed. All plants desire is growth and reproduction. We help guide that process in the unending journey of improvement.