In Case You Missed It...

Monday, August 23, 2010

Just 5 AM here on the drippy-from-everywhere mountain. Yesterday's storm brought lots of rain with six tenths of an inch in the rain gauge by yesterday morning and half that again by nightfall. This morning is silent unless you listen carefully. The rain has quieted the woods and fields and animal life, hold up during the great wetness, is out and about now seeking food and companionship. I just returned from a quick walk with Karl the Wonder Dog and I pulled hard on the leash when I heard the squeak of a nearby skunk. Skunks are ok at a distance.

If you have followed The Vermont Gardener this past year you have read about Hardwick Vermont, Claire's Restaurant (blog New Vermont Cooking), Cabot, Vermont's author Ben Hewitt and his book The Town That Food Saved, the Vermont Food Venture Center and The Center for An Agricultural Economy. These are all exciting participants in and around a town that's 15 miles from our home and Vermont Flower Farm.

This past weekend was a super event known as Kingdom Farm and Food Days which was a field days type event where you could visit 20 agricultural endeavors, see gardens, food processors and meet the people that make it all work. The events culminated yesterday afternoon at the High Mowing Organic Seeds trail fields at the top of Wolcott's Marsh Road where visitors could see over 800 varieties of vegetables, herbs and flowers and sample the tastiness of "hybridized, grown and offered" in Vermont.

I got to the tomato table too late in the day and although the baskets had all kinds of samples for me to try, the names that had been suggested to me had already been carved and eaten. Seeing this many vegetables was the problem and respect for such beautifully cared for gardens slowed me down.
There's something about being able to look down a row of produce and marvel at the perfection and thoughts of how many people can be fed good food. In contrast, I also think about how we need to do a better job with raising and sharing crops with those who cannot garden.

I'm a salad person and I kept thinking I left my colander someplace as I stopped to view dozens of varieties of greens that would have matched so well with the tomatoes and cukes and fresh herbs. Somehow I missed the dill someplace and I wanted to check it out for hover flies and tiger swallow tail caterpillars, two insects that love dill as much as I do.

There were tents for New England Culinary Institute to prepare food and serve from, and tents for music, seating and taste testing. Smiles were abundant, little kids with sticky hands from all variety of melons scooted among several hundred people, and license plates from out of state cars suggested that the word is out that Vermont can grow good things!


Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where darkness still holds the morning tightly. Eggs without threat of salmonella from neighbor Mike's chickens, fresh bread from a Vermont oven, blueberries and cream from the side field. Gotta love Vermont!

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
On Facebook as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens
On Twitter as vtflowerfarm