Greenjeans Farm

I have had an epiphany.  We don’t have to grow food to feed other people! I have a great job. We do the farm because we use it, and we like to share. There is great joy in that!  My next year is dedicated to sharing with who I want to.  No currency involved.  

We do not have to offer ourselves up to the eyes of others.  My feelings are hurt from a bad review of our farm.  I could go on and on defending Greenjeans, but what would that accomplish?  We are who we are.  Killer garlic and basil and tomatoes and peas and melons and potatoes and herbs and just about everything you could ever think of eating.  

What I do know is the hours Jeff and I spend in the garden.  I know the hours Jeff and I spend at harvest.  I know the sweet peach and the fragrant melon and the basil from hell the tomato that is so sweet you just have to go OOOOOOOO.   The greenbeans and peas and dried beans that populate our soups in the winter and the sweet, sweet corn that works really well with cream and bacon and butter and sour cream. 

I’m thinking when you go to real food you go to real life.  I don’t have to share with people who are in cyberspace.  They will be there forever while I am working in my greenhouse.   

September is almost gone, I am staring at a bushel basket of basil, a bushel basket of tomatoes, a bushel basket of beans, a bushel basket of crooked neck squash and thinking I would rather write tonight.  The wee hours of the morning are better spent on putting things up when it’s 100 degrees at 2pm.  It’s cool and quiet then, with nobody running in and out of the kitchen.  I have a reverence for food, and if I can’t give it my whole attention I would just as soon give it away or leave it out in the garden. 

My mother’s family was a German/ Irish bunch.  And my fathers family French / Norwegian!  At the Hellwig’s and Weller’s there was always cabbage, root vegetables, potatoes and roasts, good substantial meals.  At the Sorensen’s and DeSelle’s, you could bet on fresh fruit and cream and wonderful roasted things with delicate herbs.   I loved it all.  From the Raspberries and cream my Pa DeSelle used to feed me for breakfast, to the wilted cabbage and wonderful spice cookies Aunt Memo used to make us.  All my relatives were either directly from or one generation away from Europe.  AND I had an Italian Uncle Frank who was my best uncle!   They all came to the United States to make a life and they all ended up on the west coast! 

There was always someone cooking up a mess of beans.  There was always someone putting up a batch of jam or jelly.  There was ALWAYS someone trying to make me try yams in a way that would not make me throw up!

Then there were the neighbors, Hispanic, Eastern European, Texans!  As kids we used to run around to each others houses eating our way through the day, until the street lights came on and our mothers started calling us home.   Summer was always the best time for food.  In my book it beat out Thanksgiving!  Everybody had the same stuff on Thanksgiving! 

We just want to GROW.  At Greenjeans Farm we grow organically, we are not certified because the paper work is ridiculous and would take up valuable moon and family time, but organic is all I would feed my family. Or any one else that grazed our farm.     It is ridiculous  to think that we have to sell the concept of healthy earth to people.  As opposed to what?  It has to be fast.  Fast food for people who care about what they eat! 

What about the concept of well thought out local food?  You start it in August, November,  January, February, March and its ready to go April through November?  We plant year round here and there is always something ready.  Even though Jeff hates turnips!  I love them.   The winter crops are my faves!  And I’m telling ya, turnip jam is good!         

Jeff has the habit of inventorying our food which drives me CRAZY.  Nobody owns food!  He knows I would give it all away in a hot minute.   But as usual with Jeff, there is a method to his madness.    We put a lot of food by in the late summer and fall and always complain about not having enough room to stuff another thing in the freezer or the pantries.  How great is that?  Even after the CSA season is over, there is always excess.  There are also things I would never give to a subscriber, unless I knew them very well and explained it to them first.  (Corn with worms (don’t use that part), over ripe peas that we didn’t get to in time. (good soup stuff)) We throw nothing away. And we totally use it.  I’d rather eat an organic worm or a starchy pea.    Truth be told we will let a huge zuchinni fly from time to time.  If we throw it, it goes to our neighbors cows who enjoy a delicious treat! And treat us with some thankful moo’s.   We take over the top vegetables to Plowshares, and there still always seems to be an abundance!   

By the end of winter after Christmas and the first property tax payment, when we are feeling very small and poor, Jeff always knows exactly how many bags of corn or peas or cauliflower or broccoli, onions, marinara sauce we have in the freezer.  He does all this in his head!   On the days we have to pay PG&E for our winter “Got to put up Christmas lights” sins.  I come home to a hearty healthy meal from our farm!   These are the days that make me feel grateful for our life! I am perfectly happy to be the day job partner in this farm if I can have a corn soup made with a little broth and rice or barley that warms my body and my soul in front of a good ol’ fire.  If we have some meat to add in it is a plus, and we have herbs to flavor it. But a good loaf of bread is great with it.   We both reville in the taste and the fact that we grew this food!  I can pull out a bag of black berries from early august and make a pie in January and it tastes like August! 

Life is great, and made to share!