Why Are Tomatoes So Expensive?

This isn't really an answer to that question, but people who eat tomatoes might not really imagine what happens before the tomato gets to them. 

For about a month, Hannah, the worker who can do almost anything, spent a little time now and then working on moving the tomato tunnel to its new location.  The tunnel is made of metal hoops that are stuck into two parallel lines of posts that are pounded into the ground. A big sheet of plastic is draped over those hoops and secured so it won't blow away. The tomatoes grow inside the tunnel.  Last year was the first year for the tunnel, so we learned how to put it up for the first time.  This season we had to move it because you can't grow tomatoes in the same place two years in a row.  We move it by putting in a third parallel row of ground posts and then moving the hoops (like ribs) one tunnel width over so then last year's tomato ground is exposed to the weather.

But you have to understand -- this tunnel is 294 feet long and almost nine feet tall at the peak. It is a big structure, with 3800 square feet under cover.

Think of this as a slow motion video, over many different days:
Hannah's job was to pound in the new third row of ground posts.  A while later Michael came along and made sure they were all pounded to the right height.  Then before we moved the hoops, Ellen spread compost and spaded up the area in the new tunnel space, using a big tall tractor.  Then Hannah and I laid two long strips of black plastic to plant into, using a smaller tractor.  Then, even though we hadn't finished moving the tunnel yet, I planted tomatoes by hand in one of the rows because the tomatoes were ready to go and the days were warm. Then Hannah set up the irrigation because it was hot and dry at the time.  Then she laid out a long strip of landscape cloth next to the new posts and poked 50 holes in it so she could push the cloth over the top of the posts and then others could secure it to the ground with staples. Then Hannah and Ecole moved those 50 ribs across to the new location.  The next day was a cool day, between rains, and Ecole and Hannah and Amy spread hay between the plastic strips so no weeds will grow inside the tunnel.  Then Michael moved the ridge pole, standing on a ladder, tightening bolts over his head.  Then Jon and Hannah moved the wires that hang inside the tunnel, from one end to the other -- these will support the tomato plants in a while. Jon built the wooden structure at the ends, like a cross, that supports the wires and stabilizes the tunnel when we pull the plastic over.

Finally, we were ready for the last step.  This one can't be done with one or two people. This one takes a team.  We knew there was a four day stretch of rain predicted so it would be ideal to get the plastic on the tunnel before the rain, since the point of the tunnel is to keep the tomatoes from getting rained on and getting diseases.

We were a little too cocky, since we have covered many hoop houses and greenhouses in our time.  It always works because Jon is there and he makes sure we have everything we need and we do things in the right order.  We had the plastic, the rope, and the people (that's my job, the people).  It was warm and sunny, with a chance of rain sometime in the afternoon.  As soon as we got there, I could see that we needed a few more people. That much plastic is really heavy, and it takes a lot of muscle to pull it over the top, and to hold it down if the wind comes up.  I called Susan and Chip, our retired farmer friends who live right next door, and they were home and they were glad to come on a moment's notice.

We started to get the rope ready and that's where things started to go awry.  The rope was tidily wrapped up from last year but it was impossible to stretch out straight without tangling and getting more tangled.  We are talking about two pieces of stretchy nylon rope, each one 1200' long.  It took us well over an hour to get those ropes untangled, probably more.  Ciara said it was a team building activity.  We all stood out in the sun, our heads bent over this project that seemed endless and possibly impossible. Jon went into the barn to work on something else for a while. 

I could see there was a storm coming sometime because the sky was getting dark to the west.  I yelled to Jon that we needed to get the plastic up.  I didn't consider the possibility that we shouldn't even try to get this done right now.  Who can tell how long it will rain for?  The four days might be starting right now.

We pulled the plastic over the top and the cloud got closer.  Carrie and Ciara started to secure the tunnel from the east end, throwing the rope over the top, looping it through the J-bolt at the bottom of every other ground post. It was a slow and laborious process.  It got windier.  We put a golf cart on one edge of the plastic, Chip held one corner, Hannah held another, I held some place in the middle.  It got darker. Then it got really windy and the plastic blew upwards in the middle, where no one was holding it.  In an instant, we lost control of everything.  The part that was roped down stayed put but the middle slid back over the top of the ribs, exposing the middle 75% of the tunnel.  The rain came pelting down as we struggled to keep the plastic from blowing any further, but in fact the rain secured it, filling the folded up mess with puddles. We were soaked.  Jon was not happy.  We decided it wasn't going anywhere and we walked back toward the barn, and at that moment the sun came out again. We took our soaking wet phones out of our pockets and put them in a dry place.  Chip and Ciara and I returned to the second rope that was still not untangled.  Carrie and Hannah heroically went to dump all the water off the plastic and somehow the two of them managed to reposition the plastic, making everything look normal again. 

Slowly, slowly we put the tunnel back together. No harm done to anything.Instantly the area inside the tunnel was a hundred degrees and steamy.  Our cotton clothes were heavy and wet, which made walking sort of cumbersome.  Jon and Hannah secured the ends, pulling the plastic tight like a ponytail and cinching it down between two pieces of wood.  When the second rope was finally untangled, they threw it over in the opposite part of the criss cross pattern, making a 294' long caterpillar, securing the rope on the alternate ground posts. I rolled up the sides about two feet, so air could move in and out and the tomatoes wouldn't cook.

The whole thing took about four hours. If we had known we had to deal with all that tangled rope, we would have made that a separate task. If we had known it would only rain for about ten minutes, we would have waited for the storm to pass before attempting to start.  But in the end, the tunnel is secure and ready for a long season of keeping tomatoes protected and warm.

And that is why those particular tomatoes are so expensive.  That is the heirloom tunnel.  They get the best real estate.

48 Shades of Green

This morning when I was driving home from the rec center, I was bowled over by all the expressions of green.  In the last day or so, every tree has burst into leaf, and every tree has its own version of spring green -- that color that we all remember from the crayon box.  In the crayon box I think there was one particular spring green, but they could make a box of 48 crayons with names like lilac leaf, two day tulip poplar, tired evergreen, honey locust explosion, willow oak, April barley before seed head, chickweed gone to seed, blueberry with blooms, bolting spinach, post-blossom cherry tree. Every one of them would be different, with more yellow mixed in, or brown, or blue.  Out in Loudoun you can just stand in the middle of the huge expanse and be surrounded by all the hues of agricultural green.

This is part of what makes April my favorite month, in addition to all the other wonders.

April is a moody month, with stifling humidity one day and cool rain the next.  You never know what will happen tomorrow. All plans are revised when you wake up to the sound of rain on the roof, on a day that was predicted to be sunny and warm.

It is rare to have two days in a row filled with the same work.  It is rare to have five days in a row of work, actually.  There will be an unplanned full day of rain. Weekends can still be for fun.  For four days straight we will work fast and hard, putting as many plants in the ground as we can before the next interruption.  It is the opposite of boring.

The days are getting longer, by leaps and bounds.  Soon it will be light at 5:30 in the morning -- I love that the best.  And it will be dark until 9 PM -- I love that too.  It makes the outdoors so much more welcoming to all the people who don't get to work outside all day.  We hear little kids yelling on the Greenway at dusk. A crowd of young and old people play basketball outside the Common House until they can't see the basket anymore.

And it is finally warm enough in the evening to lie in the hammock.  There is nothing more delicious than letting every bone and muscle melt into a hammock for a nap before dinner.

April is when we do all the most fun farming -- we create the big quilt, one field at a time, getting ready for the next months of filling in all the gaps. The greenhouse is alive with vigorous vegetable plants.  Once we finish a task, we don't look back. It's mulched. It's planted. Move on.  There is always a new series of challenges. Tomorrow we hope we will put the plastic on the long tomato tunnel. That only happens once a year.  Jon just finished putting up the siding in the new office in the Green Barn. That only happens once in a lifetime.

In May we return to the weekly cycle where we have to get ready for five markets on the weekend. It changes everything. Suddenly each weekday has a purpose and a plan.  It gets even more structured in June when the CSA starts.  No more random freedom when it rains. We work in all weather from June through November.

I guess that's what I really like about April. It is spontaneous and leafy, full of memories and associations, and every day feels special because it doesn't have a name. It's just a sunny day or a rainy day. And with each passing moment, the trees on the edges of the fields fill in the spaces and the houses that surround the farm begin to disappear.  Suddenly they are gone.  It is magic.

Not Part of the Plan

I am writing from a relatively familiar post, although Jon would say that is an exaggeration.  I am sitting in a Kaiser examining room, just a few feet from my grubby husband who is lying quietly on a narrow stretcher-bed, getting his brow stitched back together.  This is exactly why we belong to Kaiser.  On many occasions in the last 30 years, we have needed medical attention.  It is never quick, but it is always better than going to an emergency room, or so we believe. It is familiar and comfortable and they have all our records.

Anyway, just as we were finally getting into the car to go to Loudoun -- after a very frustrating morning for Jon, trying to fix a tire that refused to be fixed -- I was sitting in the car waiting for him to load up his armload of stuff -- he tripped over a stick and fell hard on his knees.  I couldn't see what was going on, exactly, but he was clearly injured and upset.  When he took his hands from his face eventually, I saw the blood on his forehead and I reached for my phone. Jon's mother knows what this is like, because he had frequent trips to get stitches during his childhood.  He said he wanted to assess the damage himself but I knew we were going to Kaiser.  For a minute I thought that the saw that he had dropped had been what had cut him, and this was a horrifying idea.  He kept saying that it felt like something blunt.  After thinking it through, he decided that the tire in his hands had jammed against his glasses and broken the lens and that is what made the hole.  

While he was in Mom's house cleaning it up and getting something to hold against the gash to stop the bleeding, I stayed on the phone waiting for attention. We don't like to call 911 unless things are truly dire.  Eventually we got sorted out and headed to Kaiser where we have been slowly making our way through the process of determining whether there is anything else still in that yucky hole (I would never be a good doctor), and now she is stitching up the deepest layer.

We had been hoping to go to Loudoun so he could finish a project that he has been working on for a few weeks, and I could plant the first tomatoes.  The tomatoes are out in the car, with the windows rolled down a little so they won't cook.  I think we won't make it out there today, and we will need a new plan.  I am glad he didn't poke his eye out.  He needs new glasses, and that is a pain, but it is not tragic.  

I had just breathed a sigh of relief that we got through the Seders without any health disruptions. This time Easter was the holiday to spend in the medical world.  Very quiet here. While we waited for the X-Ray results, I read aloud to him from the Kindle -- a short story that is based in Boston, about an older man who thinks about Maimonides and Dickens.  It distracted us both until the doctor came in to get to work.

From my own experience getting stitched up here once, his scar might end up being kind of pirate-like but he will be fine.  These are not plastic surgeons, they are emergency stitcher-uppers.  By now I know enough about watching sterile procedures that I am satisfied that everything is to code.  I just hope the local anesthetic lasts as long as this procedure because he will not tell anyone if it wears off.  Judging from his breathing, I am guessing it is wearing off right now. Ugh.

Anyway, that's the news.  It is a deep wound, but it is almost closed up.  Three layers of stitches. Jon used to keep a running count of his stitch total, but I think that number is long gone.  

Seder: Always the Same, Always Different

The other night at services, the rabbi challenged us all to do something different at our seder this year.  I think that our seders are always different, one year to the next, and what changes them the most is the group at the table.  We often use a variety of haggadot, so we aren't all reading the exact same words -- the order is always the same, so you can't get lost, and it is interesting to see the range of interpretation that exists.

About a month ago when I was just sitting around, I decided to be pro-active and invite people to our first night seder.  Then I didn't think about it again until a couple of days ago when I suddenly decided that we needed to make up a menu and be ready for this meal. Jon does all the shopping and virtually all of the cooking but I am always part of the planning and execution, and for some reason Jon wasn't worrying about it as early as he usually does.

Jon decided to make both brisket and a turkey, along with a bunch of vegetable side dishes.  Guests were bringing matzoh ball soup and kugel and Alissa arrived in time to make the desserts.  All I had to do was make sure to pick the spinach and lettuce and get it washed in time, and help with setting up the furniture and the ritual items.

Yesterday the weather was glorious, and it was still going to be warm and beautiful today.  So we decided to have dinner outside on the porch.  Only trouble is our porch has been a dumping ground for everything that doesn't fit in our house or doesn't have an official destination (bags of ashes, for example) or is potentially useful in some fantasy future. But this task has been on Jon's list for years, so it was an opportunity.  While I was at choir rehearsal last night, Jon and Alissa tackled the porch.  Luckily Alissa was there to coax her father into discarding many bags of trash, and they cleared enough space for a big dinner table. It was awesome.

Jon got all the meat cooked just right, in plenty of time.  While Alissa and  I were doing our jobs in the last few hours before guests arrived, Jon suddenly had new priorities that seemed to me to be off track.  He kept going back to the farm for more supplies or something, He wanted to fix that rotting board under the sink.  Oy gevalt.  And then, about a half an hour before everyone arrived, I hear him calling me from outside.  He is finally, finally attempting to remove the four floating, bloated, dead giant goldfish that have been grossing me out for weeks.  I have asked him repeatedly to get those fish out of the cistern but the task was daunting and unappealing.  So now it has become the top priority.  He is standing on a ladder, precariously leaning against a round plastic tank, and he wants me to hand him a bucket.  He has fashioned a fish-catching net on the end of a stick and he is leaning over the black water, trying to snag one of those misbegotten fish.  The net falls off the end of the stick and he begins to slowly fall to one side -- I lean over the edge of the porch and grab the ladder so it will stay upright while Jon gets his balance back.  Of course I am laughing hard by now, despite the dead fish. Finally I look over my shoulder and see the chimney cleaning brush and that is what he uses to gently lift these smelly corpses out of the water.  This task rose to the top of the list because it was possible that one of our guests might look over the edge of the porch and see four belly-up koi (that were supposedly worth hundreds of dollars when they were alive but they did not thrive in these rugged living conditions in the winter).

We had a lovely seder, in spite of the distractions preceding it.  We often ask Paul to be the leader because he is a good teacher and a thoughtful facilitator.  After we finished recreating the story from memory, complete with side trips. and before we got to eat the festival meal, he asked each of us to answer two questions:  talk about one thing that you were grateful for in the last week and what do you like most about Passover.  This is always such a meaningful and worthwhile tactic at the dinner table.  Lots of good answers, plenty of depth.

What was different about this night?  There were plenty of children who had all grown up together -- now all in their mid 20s. We were outside on a balmy evening, with a large crabapple tree blooming over us.  Everyone at the table was Jewish. That has never happened before -- but we did invite my sister and her husband to join us for dinner so they could see Alissa but avoid the long preamble.  The rabbi always says it doesn't matter how long you are there, it just matters that you show up for some piece of it (he is talking about services, but I extend this to everything). Our porch was revitalized.  We talked politics for a very long time, as this cannot be avoided this year.  The entire group was left of center, some more left than others.

When it was my turn to answer the questions, I took note of Passover seders  that have been interrupted by unexpected health crises, and I expressed my gratitude for this evening when we are all healthy.

Tonight was a night for a heartfelt Shechechyanu.