Terroir

Terroir: in short, “place-ness," the essential character of land and environment that is expressed in products from a particular place.

Trying to entice a food co-op’s produce buyers into stocking Rock Spring Farm’s vegetables in their store recently, I found myself struggling to explain why our carrots taste so good. We have known that they are good for a long time, but why? – that’s a different question.

“Well,” I stumble, “it starts with better genetics.” We grow high-flavored carrots bred in France, too brittle and with tops too weak to mechanically harvest. Carrots designed for great flavor and texture, not just ease of harvesting. I tell the buyers about our selection of varieties, and they tell me that everybody else in the area uses the same types. I knew that, but that’s not why our carrots taste great.

“We have great bottom soil,” I try again, “a wonderful silty loam down by the creek.” It’s heavier than most vegetable soils, which tend to be sandier for better drainage, which makes it easier to do the multiple yearly plantings that vegetable production requires. “It has more clay in it, more minerals, more stuff.”

“Down in our valley,” I ramble on, noting the produce buyer’s skeptical expression, “nights are almost always a few degrees cooler than the they are on the ridge. And cool nights cause carrots – and other storage-type crops – to get sweeter. I think that might have something to do with it,” I continue. That seems to be a somewhat satisfactory answer, but not fully.

So I think carrots. Pushing a seeder for miles of row. Waiting for the seedlings to emerge. Lying down between rows of carrot fronds, I can feel the warmth of the soil on my back. I can hear the trickle of the creek. Cool air flows down from the ridges and along a side draw, and pours over me into the creek bed. The setting sun dips between the neighbor’s barn and the hillside, up the valley. The donkey brays. The carrots hear it, see it, and feel it, too.

Through fifteen years of raising vegetables all over the country, in deserts and maritimes, in floods and droughts, in heat and cold, I have learned to appreciate the differences of vegetables. Not the difference between a carrot and a parsnip, or even the difference between a Chantenay- and a Nantes-type carrot, but the difference between a carrot grown in California and one grown in the Midwest, or even between one grown in a broad, warm valley and one grown where the first frost always comes early.

The eating quality of manufactured foods results from an industrialized effort to create uniform results through processes that are essentially chemical in nature; the same could be said of the irrigated vegetable and fruit production in the western desert valleys. Eating quality in real food result from the complex interplay of genetics and environment: soil nutrients and moisture combining with heat, sunshine, and humidity to influence the genetically-controlled biochemical pathways that result in the molecular compounds and physiological structures that we associate with texture, flavor, and nutrition. In other words, in tasting the food we taste the soil, weather, genetics, and a thousand other pieces that go into any living thing.

And that’s why our carrots taste so good.

Goings on on the Farm

The dry weather was great, and we finished getting in our first big round of cover crops, as well as planting some spinach and salad greens, and getting in a round of weed killing.

Then, on Tuesday, we got 4.3 inches of rain, so now things have gotten a bit soggy again. We needed the rain, but not that much. Not anywhere near that much.

My mom, Karlla, and my dad, Bob, conspired to paint the endwall on the transplant production greenhouse. The north end of our transplant house, which we called Toad Hall, is sheathed in plywood, since it never needs to let sunlight through. Over the years, the original coat of red paint had cracked and peeled and just generally gotten shoddy looking. Now, it’s got a beautiful new coat of Rock Spring Farm-red paint on it, which has changed the feel of the whole farm yard.

The other side of the story of my parents painting the greenhouse together is that they’ve been divorced for over thirty years. They’ve always gotten along pretty well, but it was especially enjoyable as an adult to see them working together and enjoying each others’ company. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful and supportive family.

In this Week's Box

When this box gets home, put the peppers in the crisper drawer; they don’t need a bag. Melons go in the fridge, but they probably won’t fit in the crisper; again, no bag necessary. You don’t want to refrigerate melons for more than a couple of days. Tomatoes go on the counter or on the windowsill to finish ripening; open up the clamshell of Sungolds. Basil wants to stay warm, so maybe you’ll want to double-bag that. Yellow Onions go in a cool, dry place.

Sweet Red Peppers – The red sweet peppers have finally come into their own, so we are pleased to have a good number in this week’s boxes. Red peppers are fully ripe green peppers; while physiologically mature, green peppers haven’t finished the ripening process that makes fruits so much more attractive. Of course, that ripening comes at some risk to the grower, increasing the opportunities for decay, sunscald, and insect damage, but along with modest risk comes great rewards. As peppers ripen, not only do they taste better and look prettier, but they’re better for you; a ripe pepper has ten times the vitamin A and almost twice the vitamin C as a green pepper.

Jalapeno Peppers – These are the small green ones. We grow a variety with modest heat and very good flavor.

Melons – Hey, we’ve got melons! We lost a key melon variety on our farm three years ago when the hybrid seed was pulled from the market. Ever since then, I’ve been a really lousy melon farmer. But this year, we’ve got some melons. Almost everybody got a cantaloupe in their box this week; we had to substitute a small watermelon in a few of the boxes. (The watermelons are not performing so well, and I don’t expect to have enough to do much with putting them in the shares. Sorry.)

Paste and Saladette Tomatoes – After some experimentation with shelf life, I am feeling more comfortable putting these spotty but tasty tomatoes in the boxes this week. I’ve held some very spotty tomatoes on my windowsill for the better part of six days now, but I would still recommend using these on the sooner side of later.

Round Red Tomatoes – Still mostly coming from the greenhouses. As the days shorten, production will continue to decline on both the round reds and the Sungolds; we have definitely passed the peak of harvest on both of those now.

Sungold Cherry Tomatoes – Most boxes got these, but not everybody.

Yellow Onions – more fully cured this week than last, which won’t affect the flavor at all but will allow you to store them longer. Again, cool and dry are the keys to long shelf life for onions.

Purple Kale – Use this just like green kale. Purple means it should have some more antioxidants in it. Plus, it looks neat.

Basil – again, keep the basil warm. Very dirty this week, due to the heavy rains on Tuesday. Sorry about that. Basil can go bad pretty quickly once it’s washed, in my experience, so we chose to bag it and deliver it dirty. Give a quick rinse and pat or spin dry before using.

Recipes You Can Use

Roasted Tomato Pasta Sauce

2 lbs tomatoes
Some olive oil for roasting
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 400. Cut medium tomatoes into quarters, or large tomatoes into eighths. Arrange on a rimmed baking sheet (do not use glass) with cut sides up. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt. Roast tomatoes for 40 minutes to an hour until cooked through. Serve with any pan juices.

Combine all ingredients and serve over pasta.

Spicy Sauteed Kale

To make a quick meal add to cooked rice and steamed carrots.

1 bunch kale
2Tbsp Olive Oil
1 small red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 dried hot pepper, chopped
1Tbsp red wine vinegar
salt to taste

Stem the kale and chop coarsely. Heat a large skillet, add oil and onions, and cook until softened, 6 minutes. Add garlic and hot pepper, saute 1 minute. Reduce heat to med-low add kale and cook stirring occasionally. When the greens are fully tender—from a few minutes to fifteen, depending on maturity—remove the lid and allow any excess liquid to cook away. Turn off the heat and add the vinegar and salt.

Fruit Salsa

This salsa can be made with nearly any fruit: melons, peaches, nectarines, plums, or mangos and makes a nice sauce served with pork.

1 - 1/2 cups fruit, cut into small diced pieces
1/2 fresh jalapeno, seeded and minced
1/4 cup minced onion
1 tablespoon minced cilantro
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients, including salt and pepper to taste, in a medium bowl. let stand for 15 minutes to allow the flavors to blend.

August Fade

Here at the end of August, July's riot of color, temperature, and rain has reached its end. At long last, the relentless summer heat and moisture have given us a reprieve, and I find, dodging beer cans in the road as I drive the slow tractor down to the rental ground for another round of weed control, that even the green of the grass at the roadside has faded in a covering of grey gravel dust.

Where a month ago a rainbow of colors splashed against a background of deep green, late August finds that the bee balm has shed its petals, and the rugosa rose has simply disappeared into the background. Thistle flowers have turned to down, and the multi-hued roadside of summer's peak has given way to fields of goldenrod, spiky dull-yellow flowers atop stalks of dull green leaves. Bright yellow parsnip flowers and the rich browns of flowering grasses have given way to grey stems oxidizing, waiting to fall to the soil. Even the green has begun its slow fade into autumn, the field corn showing yellow leaves at the bottoms of the plants, and spots appearing on the spring's oak leaves. The goldfinches, abundant in the countryside, have lost their full brightness, and columns of black and white vultures climbing thermal columns up into the bright blue sky seem more and more common every day.

A cold late-morning breeze leaves me wishing for my vest while I'm working on the tractor, and the sun shines under the brim of my hat, even at 10:30. Already the days have grown noticeably shorter, the sun lower in the sky as we slide toward the equinox. I rise in darkness.

Although some planting remains, the weeding is all but done. Our work now shifts to the work of preparing for winter, cover crops of rye and hairy vetch, oats and barley, to do the work of holding the soil against winter's ravages. Soon we will begin to plant next year’s crops of spinach and garlic. Acorns litter the driveways and field edges, and speak to the harvest that began just last week with shallots and onions pulled into the greenhouse to dry their outer leaves into rustling skins, sealing the fleshy bulbs against the drying winds of Asia's central plain. The still-growing fall harvest beckons, and although it has much more growing yet to do, I feel the urge to dig in, to hoard the colors and the harvest against winter's ravages. Save the memory of the warm rays of sunshine, savor the flavor of tomatoes, relish in even the faded colors of late August, this pale shadow of summer's fullness. A cool wind foretells the bleak days of winter, of loss, of emptiness and hunger somehow combined with the refuge and comfort gained in the year’s work completed and put to rest.

And still, an indigo bunting flashes into the trees, and an unseen chickadee calls from a distant corner of the yard. The scent of fresh-mown hay drifts across the road, the wind carrying the fading smell of the sun.

Goings on on the Farm

A brief downpour on Friday afternoon put a stop to carrot harvest, but we have absolutely reveled in the lack of rain these past two weeks. Really. You get to thinking you never left Seattle behind, and then this happens. And this week has been wonderfully mild and even cool at times.

We harvested all of the shallots and got a start on the onions on Thursday; Chris was driving wagonloads of shallots home from the rental ground until almost eight at night. We brought in some extra help to pick up the onions, but Chris ended up dumping fifteen bins of onions into their bins all by himself. This kind of thing was easier five years ago than it is now, at the ripe old age of forty. We are currently curing them in the greenhouse with some forced air and a little bit of heat. We expect to harvest the rest of the onions early next week.

Chris’ mom, Karlla, came to visit. At home, everybody says to her, “Oh, you’re going on vacation!” and she replies, “No, I’m going to the farm.” She’s spent most of the week so far working to straighten out some issues in QuickBooks, which she does for a living back in Seattle. We appreciate her help!

Once again, a nod needs to go out to Sarah and Ben and Eric for getting all of the unsexy stuff done: harvesting, cleaning, packaging, tilling, and seeding.