Sustainable Farmer: Digging Up the Lawn
Farmers’ Markets are great, but David Elcott has taken eating local to a whole new level. This spring, he decided to tear up a section of his front lawn to create an organic community vegetable garden. Through a guest-blog partnership with Jcarrot.org, we are excited to have David share his sacred journey towards sustainable farming with us.
I was going crazy today. Tech problems with my printer took hours. Nothing accomplished. A lousy conference call committee meeting. Exhausted. At five in the evening, I took the world into grip and, like Superman, ripped off my work clothes, put on my dirty sweats and headed out to the farm.
Okay, my “farm” is 50 x 18, torn from my front lawn which does not include my “cornfield” - a 20 x 5 plot ripped out from a different part of my lawn. I had my vegetable garden, berry patches and fruit trees in California when my kids were little. All year, crops flourished, beautiful. But New York is different – freezing cold, wet, snow – it never seemed worth it. Until I went over to the good side and realized I do not need to eat food I actually could grow that was being shipped from hemispheres and continents unknown. Michael Pollan added to my passion in describing the petroleum products I am ingesting. Strike a blow for energy freedom along with fresh produce steps away from my kitchen door. So I hauled in six cubic yards of organic topsoil, thirty bags of manure and some mushroom compost as well, spent two days with the pitchfork, the shovel, the hoe. Got everything ready to go.
The biggest hitch? I could not figure out when to plant. I had organic seeds that are kind of growing in my basement and some plants shipped from Petaluma (ouch, I just added a huge carbon footprint). Is it going to drop below freezing again? Is it safe to plant? Will my first New York foray into self-sustaining agriculture go bust?
But today, I was hungry to make something happen after a lousy work day. I checked the weather predictions and there was no sign of sub-freezing temperature (call that a weird faith statement in meteorology). So I flew out the door, took my fragile tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, a zillion different herbs, the radish, beet, basil and broccoli seeds, and dug my hands into the soil. Need I say more? Liberation of the soul; my personal revolutionary Tea Party that says we humans can no longer believe that carrots actually grow in bags at the supermarket. As I write, I am looking from my office window on to the dark soil and the beautiful green leaves—floppy eggplant leaves, small peppers, multi-colored herbs and fragrant tomatoes.
I hope to produce bushels more than I can eat. My plan is simple. I will invite neighbors and friends to harvest what they want whenever they want. I will leave a jar for contributions which will be given to our synagogue’s Fund for the Needy, a fair swap of fresh goodness for goodness “beyn adam l’adam” – from one human being to another.
The sun is about to set over the farm. My soul is content.
Stay posted for Part II of Sustainable Farmer, coming soon….
