(Photo by Shir Feinstein-Feit)

It seems a long time since I wrote about seeding onions…and indeed, the past two months on the farm have been a bit of a blur. But we planted the onions over chol ha-moed pesach, with much fanfare and mixed emotions (I’ll explain), and so I felt it would be good to give you all an update. (If you missed the last post, I am the Farm Manager at Adamah, a Jewish farming fellowship program in Connecticut. The sadeh is our 3.5 acre field where we grow our vegetables.)

The sadeh looks beautiful. Right now there are beds of onions (cippolini, red, scallions, leeks, walla walla…), with their thin, oniony stalks the size of blades of grass standing pertly up from the soil; beds of beets, red and golden; and several beds of brassicas, the family of hearty green-purple vegetables that includes broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards and kohlrabi. Only a small percentage of the field has been planted, and the evenly spaced rows of green and red and purple are beautiful against a background of tilled brown earth. The field looks serene, and betrays nothing of the work it took to get it looking that way.

Because farming is not like other projects that involve long-term planning. True, we plan to seed on a certain day, and to transplant 40 or 60 days later. But 40 or 60 days later, it turns out it is raining. Or it hasn’t rained in two weeks, and the earth is too dry to till – the tractor would spew the topsoil into the air like dust. The tractor – our wonderful, zippy little Kubota – has at times performed wonderfully, and at times let us down. Our spader broke before we could finish tilling the field. The manure spreader compacts beds, so we’ll have to spread compost by hand. This will need people. But the volunteers aren’t coming till next week. And on and on…. at every moment I feel I am dealing with a new set of circumstances, and need to make the best decision I can. It is exhilarating and exhausting.

And the plants themselves are also not predictable. Right when we were about to plant the onions a few weeks ago, we discovered a fungus. Rot had set in just at the surface of the soil, breaking the exchange of oxygen and CO2 from the roots to the tips, causing the plants to fall over. Fall over! Whole trays of wilted onions! We were heartbroken, confused, frustrated. Fortunately, many were salvageable, and the onions we did manage to plant are looking good (more photos below). I am getting used to the rhythms of triumph and defeat, changing circumstances, trying to learn when to be really alarmed, and when to simply say “okay. it’s okay.” With the onions we felt the paradoxical balance of feeling in control of a farm on the one hand, and feeling completely at the mercy of the rhythms of life beyond our control.

All of this I think one might find on any farm. This spring I’ve had the added experience of the Jewish holidays — both Pesach, and Shabbat every week — which punctuate time with tiny commas of pause. There was a lot to do right before Passover, and then it was Shabbat, and then chag for two days after that, and Jewish tradition suggested that I spend three full days in the middle of the spring planting season eating and sleeping and praying and eating and sleeping and praying. And I did, and it was lovely, and I realized that even though it was extremely hard to take that much time away from the farm — and coming back to it after the holiday felt like I had been hit over the head with a frying pan-sized to-do list, where every item was urgent and overdue — on the grander scheme of the whole year it was good to have Pesach. Was it hard to fit in _that_ particular week? Of course…but the broader benefits of having celebrated freedom and springtime are still worth it.

On the smaller scale, Shabbat is also a blessing — and a challenge. It takes me a while to stop driving the tractor in my head. To stop thinking about all the next things that need to be done (brassicas need row cover to protect from flea beetles, need to cover beds with black plastic to heat up the soil for tomatoes, need to till in the stubborn cover crop in a few areas, swiss chard is ready to plant, and….). But it’s impossible to go at full tilt, 24/7. I would go crazy. And even if I did — I would still never get it all done. An enforced day of rest is good for my body, and good for my ego: I am doing a lot down there, but I can’t do everything — I am going to have to trust in the plants to make it through without me every so often, trust that they know what they’re supposed to do, that there is wisdom in growing things far beyond my own, that I am — as Elliot Coleman describes it — the conductor of an orchestra, and not responsible for playing all the instruments.

So….I’m working on it ;0)

In the grand scheme of things, everything is going well and being a farmer is an honor and a joy. I wake up every morning excited and ready for the day. I highly recommend it! I’ll try to be in touch a little more often, and also we are hosting farm visits! More info here.

More Onion Planting Photos

(that’s me on the left!)