I love farming. Today I dug out Burdock Root from around my apple trees. I love the physical exersion. After a week of constant weeding, usually one of my most favorite farming activities, it felt good to sweat. What I love about farming, is that we grow things, vegetables for people to eat...I get to nurture seeds into plants which become food...and really how could that not be a glorious process. But at times those seeds grow, become plants and then are killed. This week I am seeing why fungicides seem like God’s gift to man.
Tomatoes are the biggest crop here. As with everywhere, people love tomatoes. But here they also love to can them. So we have 8 200ft rows of plum tomatoes, 3 rows of cherry, 3 slicing tomatoes and then hoop house tomatoes.
Late blight is the story of the potato famine in Ireland. It wiped out the potatoes quickly. Potatoes are a night shade, as are tomatoes...and today, with warnings all around us about late blight striking this area for the first time ever, we saw it. The black stem, the powdery mildew like spores. Here on our plum tomatoes. Looking absolutely fabulous, and in weeks they will be decimated.
What is it to look at a crop and know it will die. Tomatoes take hours and hours of our time. They are pampered, they are nursed, they are treated with the respect they deserve, and yet soon all that work will be for naught, the tomatoes will go back to the earth...and the shareholders who depend on this crop will go with out this year.
Late Blight struck this year because of our industrial food system. Home Depot, Loews and Wall-mart sold seedlings from Alabama infected with Late Blight. They with our incredibly wet and cold summer the fungus has spread. The extension services say that the spores are everywhere. They are in the air. It does not matter what we do, the plants will die.
So now we wait. We will harvest green tomatoes almost ready. We will dig up our potatoes, though alittle on the small size, at least they are there. We will the hope the fungus does not go deep into the tubers, rotting this wonderful storage crop.
What worries me is that everyone loves tomatoes. They are the top crop for veggie farmers. I worry that when people can not get them locally they will begin to loose faith in the local food system.
I do love farming. But tonight I feel sad. And though I believe desperately in growing food with out chemicals this is a moment when one realizes why those chemicals we look on with disdane felt like salvation to so many farmers.
So my friends, where ever you are...if you have local, chemical free tomatoes eat them with joy. And know that all of our food is a gift.
4 comments:
Kate,
I am indeed sorry for you loss of the tomato crop...I, too, am worried about my few tomato plants, the taste of juicy, tasty tomatoes I have been longing for since the first seeds were planted into the soil. We now have Lowes only a few blocks away, and I am fearful that their spores have already landed. A summer without tomatoes means a full year without tomatoes, and tomato sauce and salsa and ketchup and.... Oh my, this could be a rough year. What do we do with those big box stores? I hope you guys can salvage some of your crop.
You are so thoughtful & wise. Sorry to hear the news of your tomatoes demise. If I can figure out how to can some, I'll save some of mine for you.
Thumbs down on Lowes, HD & Walmart!
this is so heartbreaking. i do hope that the blight was not as destructive as might have been expected.
rachel and i are sitting in a coffee shop in missoula catching up on all things internet. so good to have her here. we wish you were here too. there's still time! :)
Boo to the big ass box stores who think they can sell cheap seedlings.
Despite our abscence this summer and the crop of weeds our neglect produced (the flowers were brave, though!) we had a sweet little volunteer tomato plant spring up that fed Elspeth (who hogged them all) little red treats. Like candy they are.
Our friends have been depositing ziplocks full of gorgeous colored tomatoes in our shared freezer. Pathetic I have been buying the organic canned kind for soups this year.
So, so sorry about your crop. I know the feeling of loss and betrayal on a much smaller scale. Some farmers around here lost a couple apple crops but they were like, Well, that's farming. You count on losing things every year. Does that kind of acceptance come with many years of farming, or is it always sad?
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