Snow Peas, Sugar Peas, Greens and purples and so much more...

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Before I ever decided to leave Manhattan for the farm I wanted to learn "real life skills" as Matt and I called them.  Skills like growing food, building things, getting our hands dirty and having a more balanced understanding of how life worked, things that were always left for other skilled people to handle and things that we viewed as obviously important for any human being to be introduced.  Where does our food come from and how was our house built were never questions that crossed my mind growing up, there were more important things to me at the time.  There were basketball games to win and miles to run, girls to find and basically other experiences that never led me to slow down and ask these simple and seemingly innate questions, instead I had trust.  I started having countless conversations with people about how little we felt we actually knew outside of the city world, a world of dependency and an unwritten trust that someone was taking care of these answers.  It wasn't until I stepped outside of my reality that I realized that there was much more going on behind the scenes.  It's funny to look back and think how much I assumed the world had taken care of over the last few thousand years.  I grew up just assuming that people had already sorted through the tough questions about health, food, medicine and land and it was time to go into outer space, yet once I stepped off this island I realized that as a society we are only just beginning to see the results of our actions.  Time is so relative and with an 80 year average lifespan, there just isn't that much time to develop from the past.  I mean we spend the first third or more of our lives learning how to speak coherently and many of us never quite get there, then we're supposed to play catchup by sorting through the puzzle pieces the past generations left us and figure out solutions to problems we can't even understand why they were problems to begin with.  It's pretty amazing to think how far we come and yet how far we still have to go.  Nevertheless, I say le me take certain matters into my own hands on this journey and let me tell you nothing feels as good as seeing a project through from start to finish.  Whether it's seed to carrot or wood pile to trellis, the opportunity to build something is a validating and invigorating feeling.  This week I was given the task of building a trellis for a plant breeding experiment...

Pic of The Week

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Stand out from the crowd...

Winter Hearty Transitions and Crops

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It's December, which means it's officially been six months since I've traded in my tie and the bustling concourse of Rockefeller Plaza for a rake and the rolling hills of the former Rockefeller Estate.  It's been six months since Matt and I spent our weekdays foraging for delicious street food meals and fought with tourists over awful punchcard lunch salads I am ashamed to call salads and even more ashamed to have paid for to get a 10th one free.  And after six months, I've decided to stay onboard at Stone Barns for another unique 6 month adventure.  Now the fun really begins, the pressure is on, my faithful teammates have taken their talents out into the world and all the learning, prepping, making harvest lists, watering and developing we did together is going to show.  It's just me, the Captain and the greenhouse left for the next few months before the new batch of apprentices come on.  With this added pressure, comes the beauty of...

Who Knew Garlic Came With Instructions?

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It's IN the garlic clove...it's so simple.  The winter is coming and it's already time to plant for the spring, it's kind of like working in the fashion industry,  we're already preparing for next season's new flavors.  Although I haven't had much time to write while being out of the country and off the grid for a few weeks, last time we discussed different techniques for saving heirloom tomato seeds. Similar to tomato seeds, Garlic also has a protective outer coating, but it can be removed by hand, something most of us have done if you've ever eaten garlic.  As I walked into The Captain's office holding a garlic bulb, I heard him discussing the winter's garlic plantings.  I had never planted garlic before and had no idea that the fall was a good time to do it.  Being the novice farmer I am,  I asked him to tell me where the garlic seeds came from, but to my surprise, he told me...

Saving Sweet Summer Seeds

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This summer we talked about the beauty and diversity of heirloom tomato varieties and how they differ from hybrid tomatoes.  Heirloom's are selected for desirable traits such as color, shape, resistance to disease and/or flavor (of course).  Since these specific varieties are perpetuated and passed on from one season to the next and one generation to the next, the seeds must somehow be stored and saved during the winter in order to sow them the following year.  Although you can clearly see the seeds sitting in pockets of the tomato above, the gel that surrounds the seed is actually...

Clever Corn: How Seeds Travel

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Weeds have been one of the most common topics and chores discussed on the farm since starting to document this experience almost two years ago.  As we now know, weeds are simply plants that have unintentionally made there way into a plot of soil.  There are a number of ways in which seeds travel and as we saw a few weeks ago, some varieties extend for hundreds of miles.  Sometimes seeds are blown by the wind, dropped and kicked around, or moved by insects and animals all depending on how the plant has adapted and evolved to survive.  Sometimes it can be tough to understand how a seed can really move like this, but this week everything finally came together...

"Foraging" for Mushrooms in your own backyard Part II: Let's Eat

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According to Paul Stamets, one of the leading minds in the study of mycology, humans are more closely related to fungi than any other kingdom.  We both breathe in oxygen and release carbon dioxide and even share many of the same pathogens, which is why some of our greatest and most useful medical discoveries have come from fungi including our strongest and most important antibiotics, penicillin being the most common.  Medical, delicious and environmental mushroom discoveries seem to be sprouting up all over the world including the use of oyster mushroom mycelium to detoxify industrial and petroleum waste whether near a factory or a farm.  Mushrooms can be used to not only preserve our environment, but more importantly to help it flourish.  So mushrooms are incredible, good, let's celebrate by...

"Foraging" for Mushrooms in your own backyard Part I

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Last Friday the autumnal equinox led us out of summer and into the fall, a time that I generally find myself reflecting on the past 12 months and projecting what I want for the next 12 ahead.  For me, the beginning of fall is more of a yearend than December 31, with the summer's close feeling like the end of a chapter in my life.  All the winter planning and summer fun come to a culmination here in the fall.  School starts again, people come back to a more full time schedule at their office jobs, even the media industry reigns in their "summer fridays" (yes, this really exists).  There is a sense of completion and review as everyone discusses how they just spent their warm summer days, what went right and what they would look forward to changing for next year.  Completing my first summer season on a farm, I can see a natural connection between my fall feelings and those of the plants I am working with.  Although this is a time of completion, it is not a time of sadness longing for more summer days, instead it is a time of great celebration.  Winter planning led to spring seeding into summer growing and harvest all culminating here in fall where the full harvest can be enjoyed.  In my opinion, early fall is the best season for food.  The diversity of flavors is incredible and delicious.  Summer tomatoes, peppers and potatoes finally meet fall squash, kale and mushrooms.  All the summer plants are pushing out their last fruits and at the same time all the fall and winter crops are starting to show up.  A great celebration where all of the plant families come together.  Almost 5 months to the date, these amazing...