Nourishing Bites | A Well Seasoned Pot Part I
Seeding Abundance | Garlic seed, ready for planting. One clove grows into one bulb. Nature has a generous spirit.
Part 1 of 4 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
We are on the cusp of October, and my fingers are sore and reek of alliums. On Saturday, Brad and I cracked open pound after pound of seed garlic, graded and sorted the best for planting, and then set out to the field to get next year’s crop seeded. Clove by clove by clove, we make our way down the long bed. We plant in a 6 inch by 6 inch grid. 6 rows wide, half a foot at a time, we travel the length of the field. One hundred and sixty feet. One thousand nine hundred twenty cloves.
Like anything at the farm, planting the seed garlic is but a small part of the greater work. The breaking apart of bulbs takes a few hours of steady work. Then we spend hours carrying oak and maple leaves and covering the bed. Oak and maple leaves that have taken hours of collecting-- two years worth of leaves. This work, these experiences, collect inside me, layer by layer. Moment by moment. The leaves fall off the big Maple tree in October. Then time passes. Then more leaves fall. Just like with garlic planting. Every year, it’s the same, but all together different.
I am on my knees, in the field. In my left hand, I pick up cloves from a small bucket and open my palm wide. With my right hand, I pluck each one, orient it correctly and nestle it into the ground. As I work, I hear the Sandhill cranes passing overhead. I hear the crackle of the dry garlic skins, and the guttural song of those graceful flying milky birds. I feel the fading heat of the sun charging down on me. I pick up another clove, and another, and another.
Flash. I am three years into my farming endeavor. I am on a ladder hammering nails into the rafters of the packing shed to hang the bunches of my first substantial garlic harvest. My Aunt Dusty is at the truck bed, tying baling twine around the stalks, binding tightly nothing less than my confidence in this work and my fledgling efforts. She is singing; an undaunted presence.
Flash. My heart is full of pride and pleasure, my nose full of garlic aroma, my hands are sticky with fresh oils of the garlic I am peeling at the kitchen table. My nieces and my parents are filling jars - each one unique- with cucumbers and sweet peppers and dill flowers and chiles we have just harvested from the farm. Across three generations, we are making pickles.
Flash. It is July. I am passing hurriedly by the drying shed in a rush to get too many things done. I look over and see my friend Kaylene working quietly within. Porcelain colored bulb by bulb, she is clipping stems, trimming roots— helping with garlic harvesting just as she has done since she was eight years old. She and the garlic are old friends by now. She remains focused on her work, but I can see the warm curve of a peaceful smile. I am happy.
Flash. I am a beginning farmer. It’s winter. I am alone, pouring over seed catalogs at the kitchen table. The firebox is empty and the rain is coming down in sheets. I will not turn on the furnace. It is too expensive. I am working through expenses for the coming season. My cold fingers punch numbers on the calculator. One pound of certified organic garlic seed is nearly $20 every place I look. I need at least 20 lbs but realistically more like 25… and then there’s shipping. Three months of health insurance premiums? Or garlic seed? I start to worry with the realization that I am not alone. Fear cloaked in a hundred thousand decisions I must navigate is now sitting directly across the table, peppering me with questions. I feel myself rise and go out into the rain. I gather another load of wood from under the leaking roof of the lean-to. I fill the fire box. I stoke the fire and my resolve.
Flash. Over a decade later. It is Saturday. Brad and I are waiting for CSA members to arrive and collect their shares. I am hauling 56 lbs of seed garlic grown entirely at the farm into black crates so we can break the bulbs open for planting. Year over year, I have been saving the best cloves for planting, and only selling what is left. Year over year, one clove turns into one bulb. 1 pound turns into 1 1/2 pounds turns into 3 pounds. Year after year I do this. I play this game of patience and hope. I can never profess to experiencing true hardship, but with garlic in my hands, I think of what farmer Frank Morton once said about agriculture. “You can make a living, but it takes a long time.” He said, “Eventually the poverty starts to go away.”
Flash. I have returned from the field, the requested garlic bulbs in hand. Brad is at the cutting board, sharpening the knife. There are jars of canned tomatoes, onions and dried oregano and bunches of parsley and celery and fennel seed spread across the island- all from this farm. It is Sunday and we are making spaghetti sauce. I think of all the families across our community peeling garlic from our farm this day. I think of all the connections our food has brought to my life, and to the lives of those who eat it. I see things fresh for a moment-- a literal harvest of my work and of my time together with so many that I love.
Flash. I am kneeling again, on this soft Earth. The Sandhill Cranes are still singing. Clove by clove, I am planting my hopes, my good intentions, my future, into this precious ground. ~AJ
2009 | Hillary, Old Green and I with our leaf harvest ready for the garlic. I carry so many good memories of garlic and leaves— all are made richer as they are seasoned by time.
Excerpt from How Love Blows Through The Trees
By Joy Harjo
We lost ourselves when we crossed the river
My grandfather use to say
He would smoke to the east, north, west, and south
And touch the earth and the sky
To bless.
He’d be standing in the kitchen
And there’d be no one listening.
Pass this love on, he’d say.
It knows how to bend and will never break.
It’s the only thing with a give and take,
The more it’s used the more it makes.
My grandfather flew like smoke to the sky side of earth.
He left us here in this place he blessed.
What stories he carried, what laughter wrapped memory:
Of a people who never knew themselves
As strangers in these lands.
Now I’m standing in the kitchen
And I can hear him singing,
Sometimes it takes a while for us to hear.