Category: Writing

LAKE MACBRIDE— For two nights, I’ve covered the Swiss chard, arugula, parsley, collards, peppers and turnips with old bed sheets to protect them from a hard frost. The temperature hasn’t dipped down, so no damage. Not that we’ll eat a lot of this produce, but one more meal made with arugula, another soup stock of turnip greens, and one more dish made with flat leaf parsley would stretch the food budget and taste good as we go into winter. Snow is forecast for Tuesday, but I doubt it.

The work at the orchard will end soon. An abundance of apples remain, but most trees have been picked clean. The customer count reduces each weekend, and with it, so slowed my work until it was done yesterday. Except to drive tour groups on the John Deere tractor next Sunday morning, and to join my cohorts in the end of season staff potluck soon thereafter.

Work in our local food system has been a new connection to nature and agriculture. As if the world outside our compact geography slipped away and I’d gone native. It’s something I should have done long ago.

A trip to the county seat seems a long excursion. While a number of gatherings of friends there have been unattended, there are no regrets in staying local. There are new friends to be made in the environs of our life in Big Grove.

As the moon sets, and the day begins, much work lies ahead. The frost will come, and soon. In the meanwhile, the challenge is to make the most of each day’s diminishing sunlight— splitting time between intellectual work and the reality of temperate climate and the geography of local friends.

LAKE MACBRIDE— During 2013, in addition to our own garden, I spent time working with or studying the following fruit and vegetable producers that are part of the local food system in our area. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Abbe Hills Farm, Mount Vernon, Iowa.

Jack Neuzil, Solon, Iowa.

Kroul Farms, Mount Vernon, Iowa.

Rebal’s Sweet Corn Stand, Solon, Iowa.

Turtle Creek Orchard, Solon, Iowa.

Wild Woods Farm, Solon, Iowa.

Wilson’s Orchard, Iowa City, Iowa.

ZJ Farm, Solon, Iowa.

LAKE MACBRIDE— Johnny Appleseed’s birthday is on Thursday, and there has been a lot of apple action. The economy of apples is on the move in late September and October.

The windfall of apples in our yard created three groups. I picked the best for out of hand eating and making apple butter and apple crisp. The seconds went into a big cart and down the street, where a neighbor pressed them into four gallons of cider, with the apple pumice planned for livestock. The rest went into large plastic tubs to be traded for eggs. If a person is going to have apple trees, something should be done with the fruit.

Growers no long plant apples from seeds. The use of selective breeding, resulting in cultivars, or branches grafted to root stock has become the norm. Heirloom apples like Red Gravenstein, Wealthy, Cortland and Saint Edmund’s Pippin have given way to Honeycrisp, Jersey Mac and Jonafree. When I chat with modern apple connoisseurs, they eschew my humble Red Delicious apples, discovered in Iowa. More’s the pity, as naturally ripened and off the tree, they are some of the most flavorful apples to be found.

As summer turns to fall, now is the time to harvest the crop and use it. Participating in the apple culture is one of the benefits of living on a planet hospitable to our species. We should take advantage of it.

LAKE MACBRIDE— Only time for a brief post before heading out to job three of a four job day. Already this morning I finished proof reading the newspaper and worked on preserving bell peppers. Next the orchard, followed by work on the farm and then canning if I am still up to it. Sunday is anything but a day of rest in Big Grove.

My biggest ever crop of apples is turning into something of a bust because I can’t make time to harvest and preserve the first two trees. Then yesterday I read about Arctic® Apples, the genetically modified organism that is designed to repress creation of the enzyme that turns apples brown when exposed to air (after cutting or biting into) or bruised. In other words, the traditional way of knowing an apple is going bad is repressed, and this creates a longer shelf life for the fruit.

Not an issue here, where in the race against nature’s clock, I hope to eke out one or two dozen more pints of apple butter before the first picks go bad. I need the browning action to know where I stand. But in the industrial food supply chain, shelf life matters… a lot.

The new cultivar is going through the regulatory process in Canada and the U.S. presently. Friends of the Earth created an on-line petition to encourage Gerbers to continue to use non GMO apples to make applesauce and other products. From the perspective of having my own supply, and working in a large local orchard that produces cultivars going back to the  17th century, what the hell?

Gotta run off to the orchard!