To Till and to Tend

David Elcott’s farm has started to produce its bounty. Through a guest-blog partnership with Jcarrot.org, we are excited to share David’s second piece on sustainable local farming with you.  To read the first post, click here.

I couldn’t write this past month. Too nervous. The temperature dipped, I read up on all the pests and bugs and germs that could kill the seeds. The little seedlings looked so vulnerable. When it looked like the temperature would hit the low 40’s I panicked and ran out to Home Depot, bought some metal to make hoops and heavy plastic and actually hid my tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in their own private green houses. The days between Pesach and Shavuot are for counting the Omer – fifty days that according to tradition are anxiety producing because the dry winds or heavy rains could wipe out the crops and people would starve. I certainly identified with that anxiety even if I knew that the green grocer was open and waiting for my business. So, as I said, I could not write.

But now I can. It is approaching the advent of the summer, the sun is warming the earth, the rains keep the Farm, the Cornfield and the Potato Patch generously moist. The vegetation is luxuriant and lush. My son took one look at the rows of colorful lettuces, micro-greens, red rocket lettuce and a variety of multi-colored munchables whose name I do not know, and declared, “This looks just like the finest salad bowl.” Just sitting happily on my little farm, providing fresh salads – meaning about five minutes from earth to plate! I throw in cut herbs – the herb garden is growing like wild – and even a few nasturtium and broccoli leaves. I was showing Liore how the peas are starting to bloom when we both kneeled down and realized that the vines were already resplendent with edible snap peas. The watermelon radishes are sharp and tangy and look just like, well, miniature watermelons. And who would have guessed that by June 16^th we would harvest our first tomato, sliced thin for sharing and sprinkled with top- grade olive oil, Portuguese sea salt and fresh ground pepper? It is a beautiful sight. And if the corn is not as high as an elephant’s eye, the stalks are growing nicely.

The rabbit. He hopped into the garden, through the mesh fence or under the buried black mesh or somehow got in. I ran out – as my wife said, it was a good thing we do not even allow toy guns in our house since she was convinced my eyes gleamed with murder. But when I got out there, he had nibbled a few leaves and bounced happily away. If I am planning to share with my neighbors, why not allow the rabbits a bit to eat as well. A bit, okay. We will see.

Other dangers lurk. I know all about the slimy squash vine borer who waits patiently until the flower blooms and the cute little squash begins to grow. Then it pounces and you come out the next day to see mush in your field. And when I asked Liore to tell me the name of a pretty orange and black beetle, she said that you call it, “Kill on sight!” So I did. To be a farmer is to be vigilant and steadfast, like the colonists fighting the Revolutionary War, like the Israelites in the desert. Up at 6 and out to see whether everything vanished during the night. So far so good.

When Noam and Julie had their first pea or radish – don’t remember what – they recited shehechiyanu, the blessing that celebrates a wondrous new occasion, and then borey p’ree ha’adamah – blessing the vegetables that grow and flourish out of the soil. I love saying blessings, but they sound different when recited over the earth that I tilled and watered, the furrows that I hoed, the seeds and seedlings I planted, and the plants that I nurtured. Along with the rain and sun and wind and pollinating birds and bees. Vaya’ar elohim ki tov—and God saw that it was very, very good. And tasty, too.

This weekend many excited Jewish summer campers will head off to wonderful experiences of Jewish community, friendship, and fun. Jewish camping has been around a longtime, and is one of the great success stories of American Jewish life. I myself am a proud grad, along with Bob Dylan (nee Zimmerman) of Herzl Camp in Webster, Wisconsin. While many Jewish camps have added explicity green eco-programming to their curricula, too many to highlight here, even – though we invite you to describe any great Jewish environmental experiences you are familiar with – I want to focus on some so-obvious-it’s-not-obvious aspects of Jewish camps.
Camping takes kids away from normal suburban/urban life, for a car-free, shopping-free, less materialistic summer. Some Jewish camps are pretty posh compared to the latrine/rustic sort, but still, they’re not resorts. Emphasis is on experience and community, not on consuming.
Camps are in the country, duh. Kids get a bigger sense of nature and the natural world than in their backyard or neighborhood park. This immersion is very scary for some, but for others, it’s a major turn on.
Camps provide a communal experience – some are explicitly socialist, but all emphasize the group. For kids growing up in privatistic American culture, this is a great corrective. One of my favorite aspects of my daughter’s experience at Camp Galil was Clothes Trading. Girls would bring clothes they didn’t wear with them to camp, and all summer they swapped outfits. If a friend got attached to a garment, or looked especially great in it, they often kept it.  No score-keeping – it was truly from each according to her style/size to each according to her mood.  One big floating  Clothing Swap. What you sent your kid off with was not what they came home with, and everyone was happy. Of course sometimes, swaps are often the unintended outcomes of camp laundry, so everyone learns not to get too attached to their stuff.
Camps assure kids they can cope without much technology. (Though some camps are being pressured to drop this.) This allows kids to establish natural rhythms, not mediated by 24/7 cell phones, texting, Ipod music, et al. It’s a good break, anyway.
For the spiritually inclined, being in nature surrounded by community is unparalleled in its power. Forty years later, I still think of Kabbalat Shabbat overlooking Devils Lake….