This Monday I had an opportunity to visit another farm. I was doing double duty as a writer covering the event and a farmer hoping to learn from it. Yer Vang is a Hmong immigrant from Laos. She has been farming 7 acres in Dakota county for over 4 years. This year she is taking part in a “cabbage project” a study about alternative methods of pest control on cabbage. This is why she was hosting an open house.

For me though the highlight of the day was the food. Served under  simple canopy on the edge of the woods surrounding her field the simple fare tasted like a feast. Vang had set up a little shack for the occasional over night gardening and to provide shelter during the day. She and her sisters arrived early the morning we were all set to arrive. They harvested and prepared it the same day over an open fire at the edge of the field. There was steamed squash and green beans, Stir-fried mustard greens, Hot chile sauce, sliced cucumber and my children’s favorite, sliced watermelon.

After a grace said in the language I didn’t understand we all dug in. The atmosphere was perfect. The kids were dirty from playing in the woods before the meal but no one really cared.

Afterwards I decided to purchase a watermelon. I am not sure what variety it was nice something was lost in translation but it was fabulous. I asked if I could save the seeds and she said yes, so next year I will grow watermelon I do not know the name of. Obviously good, fresh food spans many cultures.

This growing season it seems like we are always playing catch up. We hurry to get the field ready, hurry to get the plants in, hurry to get the seeds in, hurry to get the trellises up and now weeding. As we have been focused on getting all our plants and seeds in and set up the weeds have quietly been growing. When we go to the farm frequently you don’t notice them so much. But after our last camping trip we knew that was where our focus would be for the time being. On Monday after our return from the camping trip we intended to focus entirely on weeding. However we were late getting out there and it was already too hot to work–not for Proeun and I but we didn’t want the children out in the hot sun. Our day was cut short.

On Thursday we returned and realized that our focus had to be getting the weeds under control before we moved on to anything else. We would have to come out whatever time we had every day until the weeding was done. We have now completed our 4th day in the row of weeding and the task is accomplished. Well we still have the border areas on the end of our rows that are harboring interlopers and already we are noticing the lucky few we missed and the baby weeds growing up where their parents had been. Next on our agenda, trellising again. Then likely weeding again. It’s hard to believe but pretty soon it will be harvesting. We now realize no matter what don’t let the weeds get like that again. It was a completely exhausting 4 days and we still have chores around the house to do!

Yesterday I was talking to my mom. We came home around 3:00 and were completely beat. The idea of staying up until 8:00 pm seemed like such a long way away. Mom was talking of Father’s Day plans and wanted to know if we would like to come over for dinner. I knew we still had at least one more solid day weeding and would like be exhausted at the end. Then Monday it was back to work for Proeun. I had to decline for the first time a dinner invitation on the basis of exhaustion.

Later I was feeling sorry for myself. Thinking about all the people who get to do what they want on the weekend. They don’t have a farm to go to. They don’t have plants that need care, or animals that need tending. But then I was reading an article in Countryside magazine about self- sufficiency. About knowing how to take care of yourself and meet your basic needs. I thought back to my recent reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She said in the book biologically speaking parent’s completely fail if they raise children that can not take care of themselves. I don’t want o be a failure.

On the way home today I was driving by the local playground. I realized it has been forever since my children have been to a playground, or zoo or anything resembling entertainment. But today they hauled weeds with us. They saw tomato plants, bean plants, eggplant and peppers.They may not be able to point them out yet, but at least they know how food grows and the dangers of weeds. They played in the dirt. They saw a mother kildeere pretend to have a broken wing to lead us away from her nest which was in a neighboring field. They felt rain falling on us, cooling us and cleaning us (sort of) as we continued to work. At times it is still hard to make decisions so far from the mainstream. It makes you question choices (especially when you are exhausted). But then what is the ultimate goal we are working for? If we chose ease and pleasure then we are failing. It we chose a life of hard work, self-sufficiency and the health or natural living, maybe we are on our way.

This weekend made all the plastic mulch worth it. Somehow turning all that shiny plastic into rows of budding tomato plants validates all the work of laying plastic. While it will still be several months before we taste the fruit of our labor the sight of it is getting more and more beautiful everyday.

The first day we spent entirely outdoors laying plastic and planting I went home with an odd feeling in my body. Whereas I would have expected to be completely sore I really wasn’t. It was more of a tingling feeling. I told Proeun I thought it was all that oxygenated blood coursing through my body. The old sluggish blood was being replaced with a vibrant life giving force provided by healthy labor outside. In several months the fruit of our labor (literally) will provide only the best food to continue to power our body as we work the fields.

Don’t get me wrong, I am exhausted. After several days on the farm the neglected house needs some serious attention. Today it was all about getting caught up on laundry (ala the clothesline), making bread, planning meals for the week and cleaning up all the dirt we tracked in over the weekend. But to see those fields, to know what they will become and that they will provide countless numbers of tomatoes for our family and friends, plus a little income and that we did it, there is really nothing like it. Our farm manager told us each of those plants could potentially provide 25-30 pounds of food. That is 25,000-30,000 of tomatoes. Obviously our work isn’t done yet.

The varieties of heirloom tomatoes we are growing are Brandywine, Black Brandywine, Rose, Ark Traveler, Prudens Purple, Great White and Striped German (my favorite). We are also growing Red Grape and Mojo cherry tomatoes.

This weekend, will plant our direct seed items like corn, carrots, radishes, beets, beans and cucumbers. It is a wondreful to look at a field and be hungry and satisfied all at the same time.

Last year we planted 9 tomato plants in our backyard. The season before we had invested quite a lot (or so we thought) in raised beds. For each of our 9 plants we had a tomato cage and a square foot reserved in our bed. I thought that was a lot of tomatoes. This year we are growing 1/8 of an acre of tomato plants–that equates to something around 800 plants. Obviously tomato cages and raised beds are not going to work on that scale.

Thanks to our training program we have learned about plastic mulch. Plastic mulch is just one of the many ways that modern organic farming works with nature to control nature–if that makes any sense. It works in this way. You buy a role of plastic (agricultural approved). Then start at one end of the row, dig a trench, then put the plastic in and cover it up. Now start unrolling the plastic and shovel dirt onto the edges, all the way down the row. At the end cut the plastic, dig another trench and bury it.

Now you have a sleek looking row of plastic. Aside from aesthetics this plastic serves a purpose. It warms up the soil, keeps weeds out and water in and protects the plants from dirt. As odd as it sounds tomatoes are prone to soil borne diseases such as tomato blight. As it rains and the soil splashes up on the plants the blight can spread. Pretty quickly you can wipe out a whole tomato crop. Who knew? You just don’t have to deal with this when you have 9 plants in raised beds filled with perfectly mixed (and hopefully blight free) soil.

When it comes time to plant you cut a hole in the plastic, dig a hole in the dirt and plant as normal. To complicate things a little you can put t-tape under the plastic. This is used to water your plants under the plastic since rain probably won’t do the trick anymore. The tape is around a 1 in width, flat with holes on one side. When connected to a hose at the end of the row it will provide nice steady water to your plants.

So I know this is really necessary if we hope to recoop any expenses from our tomato crop this year. But let me tell you–Ugh! After working on plastic mulch that will probably be all you can say. Last week we went out and spent 4 hours trying to figure out how to lay plastic. We were not prepared and didn’t have the right equipment, but we made a valiant attempt. It didn’t look pretty but at least we had a row done, 3 more to go. Knowing that this weekend we would have to finish the plastic and get a good start on planting we returned to the farm Thursday morning before work. We knew we would only have 2 hours but hoped to get another row done. When we arrived in our field we found the the wind had riped out Sunday’s work–ugh! We were able to get a row done but now we still have 3 to go. This time we had the right equipment and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it will still be in the field when we arrive. I was exhausted after 1 row, now we have to do 3 rows and plant in one weekend–ugh!