The Quarter-Acre Farm

by Spring Warren

  Fava bean leaves are also edible (and delicious sautéed in olive oil with garlic a la spinach, or served raw in salad) and the young beans can be eaten pod and all. Pea leaves, by the way, are delicious, and when they’re served with blossom and tendrils intact they make a loooovely presentation.

  So-called weeds are also underutilized. Dandelions were purposely brought across the Atlantic by immigrants (a fact that would make some of my lawn-proud friends gnash their teeth in fury). The new Americans used the leaves and flowers as both food and a medicinal source. Dandelion greens have five times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids as spinach. Dandelion flowers are used in wine, and they make a delicate, honey-like jelly.

  Purslane is another ubiquitous weed. It is a “succulent” (a family of hardy, thick-leaved, water-retaining plants that include the cactus) with red stems and fleshy green leaves. It was a terrible embarrassment when I was given seeds to grow a supposed weed and I couldn’t manage to foster them. Luckily, they eventually self sowed. If you get them to grow, as most humans (and birds for that matter) can, the tart vitamin C-rich plant adds crunch to salads and sandwiches and is rich in omega-3s, minerals, vitamins, and fiber.

  When I was a kid, I thought Euell Gibbons was an actor hired by Post Cereal to act like a naturalist who appreciated their cereal, Grape Nuts. But then again, I thought Grape Nuts were actually grape seeds, too. As it happens, Mr. Gibbons really was a naturalist, and you can read his fine books (including his “Stalking” series: . . . the Wild Asparagus, . . . the Blue Eyed Scallop, . . . the Healthful Herb) to learn a wealth about foods that we overlook every day. He points out that not only do we throw out the tastier and more nutritious crop when we weed purslane from among the spinach plants, but also that we take a wrong-headed approach in seeing these foods merely as possible alternatives to starvation (my fantasy of the artichoke plant). He counsels that we should instead look at the overlooked foods as delicious, meaningful plants that will give you a sense of independence from supermarkets and a deeper relationship with nature.

  Emerson wrote, “A weed is a plant whose virtues we have not yet discovered.” These days I believe that we can safely enlarge that sentiment to “Plants are foods whose virtues we have not yet discovered.”

  We are, in great numbers, eating foods in which not only virtues have been discovered (a kick-ass secret sauce), but also whose deleterious effects (clogged arteries, heart failure, metabolic disorders, excess fat, cancer) are also well documented.

  The next time I want a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder, I’m going for the purslane salad tossed with preserved lemon, followed by an artichoke tea chaser, instead.

  Recipe

  Sam’s Preserved Lemons

  Remember that song, “Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat . . . ” Well, so much for truth in song lyrics, for not only can you eat the fruit, but you can eat the rind of the lemon as well. Perhaps not straight off the tree, but preserved lemon rind is good. Really, really good. Who would have thought?

  We have an old Meyer lemon tree in our yard that with some babying and pruning began bearing beautiful yellow-orange lemons plump with sweetly tart juice and corseted with thin, tender peels. These lemons make wonderful lemonade and are my number one choice for gin and tonics. However, I don’t like to use them for preserved lemons.

  My preserved lemon of choice is the Eureka lemon. Eureka lemons are huge bruisers. Their juice hits you with a jaw-clenching pucker and their fruit is mattressed within a thick yellow rind. It is a lemon’s rind that counts with preserved lemons, for though the lemons are preserved in their entirety, it is only the rind that is used in recipes: the lemon “guts” are discarded. The thick preserved Eureka rinds have substance: they are chewy, wildly lemony, somewhat salty, and taste good in practically everything.

  It was Sam who first preserved lemons, a result of trying to perfect his chicken piccatta recipe. (He started making the piccata when he was too short to fry the cutlets.) Sam got the instructions from his cooking pal, Sally, who was plenty tall to fry cutlets.

  While Sam uses preserved lemons in his piccata, I serve them chopped in salads, in rice, julienned on top of chicken, and as a seasoning in soups and stews. I have even been known to eat them out of the jar, though I’ve also been caught sipping pickle juice a time or two.

  Best of all, not much could be easier than preserving lemons. I do add an extra step, however. While most people feel fine about not heat bathing their jars of preserved lemons, I admit to a dread of killing someone with home canning. So after my lemons are sealed into their jars, I put the jars into a vat of boiling water for ten minutes. After they are drained and cooled I make sure the jar lids have all sealed and then I store them in the dark pantry.

  As an additional perk to not killing someone, the hot-water bathing cuts the time until the lemons are ready to eat.

  Ingredients: • several ½ pint to full-pint canning jars (depending on how many you’d like to make)

  • 2 or more Eureka lemons (same as with above)

  • salt

  Use canning jars with a large mouth to facilitate getting the lemons in and out. You’ll want enough lemons so that the lemons are packed tightly in the jar(s). Boil the jars and scrub the lemons (some dip their lemons into boiling water to encourage the juice and to make sure they are really clean).

  While most people preserve their lemons whole, I like to slice the lemons into ¼ inch thick half-moon slices. I find that not only can I get more into the jar that way, but I can also use any size jar (a couple of whole lemons are difficult to fit into a half-pint jar, and they don’t fill a pint jar, but if the two lemons are sliced I can do a quick half-pint of preserved lemons if I need to). Further, the lemon rinds absorb the salt and juice more quickly, and they are easier to use once they are ready.

  1. Cut the clean lemons in half from stem to stern then into ¼ inch slices. For each half pint, I figure two medium lemons, then go up from there.

  2. Whichever size jar you use, start by sifting a tablespoon of salt in the bottom.

  3. Next, layer the bottom with lemons, and sift a thin layer of salt over them. Continue with layering lemon slices and salt until the jar is filled (mushing down the lemons as you go) to a ½-inch below the rim.

  4. If there is not enough juice to fill the jar, squeeze some extra juice from a few standby lemons.

  5. Seal the jars and place in boiling water. Make sure the water is deep enough to cover the jar by an inch. Let boil for ten minutes before removing the jar and letting it cool.

  6. After the jar cools, check for a good seal. If the seal is good, you can push on the top and there will be no click or give. If the seal didn’t work, you can discard the lid, put another on, and try again, or merely stick the jar in the refrigerator to use within the next month.

  7. I usually wait two weeks before cracking open a jar. When it is time, pull out the lemon, rip out and discard the fruit inside, and rinse the rinds of salt.

  The rinds are wonderful minced and scattered atop a slab of warm-fromthe-garden tomato, some fresh basil, and a few soft pillows of mozzarella. Add them to sautéed baby artichokes with butter or orzo with asparagus, and chop them with green olives for a preserved lemon and olive relish. You’ll never sing the lemon tree song without scoffing again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  A FARMER CRITIQUES THE QUARTER ACRE FARM

  “Last night there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden… It is said that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart.”

  —NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, THE AMERICAN NOTEBOOKS

  Every farmer like me needs to know a farmer like Lloyd Johnson. There is a wealth of information about plants and earth that someone who has brought hundreds of thousands of pounds of produce to fruition can pour into my relatively (sadly) empty vessel o
f a head. In fact, no matter if someone gardens or farms or not, it would enrich anyone’s life to befriend a farmer.

  Now, I’ve long said that pediatricians are, overall, fine human beings in a world of sometimes disappointing examples. I think back on all the pediatricians that my children have coughed on, barfed on, screamed and kicked at (Sidney, Jesse is sorry about that incident when he was six), and there are amazingly few that I wouldn’t be absolutely thrilled to sit down and talk to over dinner. I’d even buy. And let me be clear—I can’t so easily say that about members of any other profession I’ve come across. Except for farmers.

  This parallel kind of makes sense. Farmers and pediatricians are drawn to helping things grow, to keeping an eye on the health of vulnerable entities. They are on call through all hours of day and night in case of freeze or fevers, disease, drought, hunger, weeds, grasshoppers, or head lice. They do this in spite of the other end of things—in spite of parents who freak over low-grade fevers (again, apologies) or feed their kids Big Gulps, or fear, or unhealthy attitudes; they do this in spite of a population that values the cosmetically perfect over healthful growing practices, and in spite of Mother Nature, who can be cruel to beans and babies alike.

  Farmers and pediatricians do the work they do because they get satisfaction out of a flavorful tomato, a crisp carrot, a grinning toddler, and a kid whose pink eye cleared up nicely.

  Pediatricians, farmers, I thank you.

  Unfortunately, not many of us do know farmers. Even if we go to farmers’ markets and buy their produce, we generally don’t really get to know them. I didn’t. I smiled and thanked them for my purchases. These people are busy, and what do you say, anyway? I always had the uncomfortable feeling that if I were to start talking vegetables, they might think I was either a complete idiot or trying to ferret out information like those people who go to craft fairs and ask the artists, “How did you make this?” then announce, “Well, I’m not paying fifteen dollars when I can do that myself.”

  So when I got the idea to have a real farmer come to the Quarter Acre Farm, I was nervous about the imposition at the very least. Luckily my future daughter-in-law Nicole worked both as a vintner and at the farmers’ market, so she knew farmers who hearkened from one side of the county to the other. When I asked her if she knew of anyone who would be willing to visit my farm, she came up with Lloyd’s name right away and said that not only did Lloyd grow the most beautiful organic tomatoes she had ever seen, but that he was also a great guy.

  Backing up her claims, Farmer Lloyd readily agreed to make a February visit to the Quarter-Acre Farm.

  I was sorry the visit was in winter since the farm wasn’t showing as well as it had in summer when the yard burgeoned with fruit and vegetables. In February, it was at its least productive, least attractive. Still, I reasoned that the worse off the Quarter Acre, the more Lloyd Johnson could likely help me, and help was what I wanted after all.

  Unfortunately, after Lloyd and I had set the date for the visit, things immediately started to go wrong on the farm, making a poor showing into a disastrous one. We had a freeze, followed the next night by another freeze, and then another. Each freeze weakens a plant’s abilities to withstand another frost, so by the time the successive nights of freezes eased, Central Valley farmers had deployed their bag of tricks against the cold, turning fans on in the low areas to blow away the frigid air that pooled like killing gas, or watering into the night to try to ameliorate the cold temps by even a degree or two in hopes it might make a difference. Luckily the frosts did not do terrible damage, only spotty damage. And partially because I found the Quarter Acre Farm too small to merit fans and too large to be covered by tarps, and myself too ignorant to know anything else to do, one of the damaged spots was my yard.

  I had hoped my peas would be covering the trellises by the time Farmer Lloyd came to visit, but now that was not to be. Many of my plants had either succumbed entirely to the frost or had left only weasely little stems that were certainly nothing to be proud of. Further, my beets were slow, my cauliflower stunted, and most of my flowers done for, leaves blackening and curling like they had been torched rather than touched by ice.

  The general rattiness of the garden horrified me, and because of that horror I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t just looking for help. I wanted Farmer Lloyd to pat me on the back, perhaps even accept me as a fellow farmer, even though I only had a relative postage stamp of land to work with. I wanted him to teach me the special farmer’s handshake, and then introduce me to the club’s farming secrets.

  That wasn’t going to happen; I could see that well enough from my front porch, where I further noticed that my cabbages looked embarrassingly scrawny. I’d developed company eyes.

  Our family coined the phrase “company eyes” to describe the phenomena of how the closer it came time for friends to arrive at our home, the more we noticed . . . things. Cobwebs glowed in the corners, the crack above the door became a chasm, dust bunnies ran out from under the couch, and the living room looked more like a flea market than a room in which civilized folks resided.

  Now having made the appointment with Lloyd, I looked around the garden and saw the truth. I was no more a farmer than I was a brain surgeon. Casting a jaded eye from bed to bed I thought it likely I was closer to being a brain surgeon, for that matter.

  Why had I gotten myself into this situation? The trees were illpruned, the beets were planted too closely together, the chicken house looked silly, and all those patios! I should have never listened to Louis; we should have ripped them all out. A serious farmer would have. At least my broccoli looked good, big heads forming on strong stalks, and the keyhole garden in the back was green with a carpet of mâche and spinach. The rainbow chard was growing vigorously. I tried to take solace in that. What else could I do to prove myself anywhere close to a serious grower?

  Potatoes! I could plant my potatoes. That would show him I knew about potatoes (unlike Spring of the failed potatoes from last year). I turned the soil in one of the raised beds and dug a trench down the middle. I placed some of my sprouted potatoes in the trench, and then on the raised bed I arranged a tray containing the rest of the sprouts, along with a trowel, as a sort of “still life of a farmer.”

  I cleaned up—I raked the mulch smooth, uprooted frost-killed plants, and pulled weeds. And even though every self-respecting farm and ranch I had ever been on had its own junk pile that furnished parts in a pinch to repair the tractor, hold back erosion, or cobble together a table on which to feed a work crew, I swore I would tackle Farmer Lloyd before letting him take a look at my side yard. And it was a true junk yard: a pile of fence posts and tarps, a rick of firewood, sections of fence, the defunct snail terrarium, three compost piles, excess sand, two ladders, and an old chair I meant to refinish but was now more suited for kindling. If you ignored the side yard, the place looked tidy—and that was all I had.

  Then the wind came up.

  In the night the wind rose from a sigh to a bluster. By dawn it was out and out gusting, and by full light it had screamed into a gale. I stood in the early morning with my hair whipping around me, morose over the huge amount of storm flotsam littering the yard, with more ripping from the trees. Shivering in my ratty robe, I went to check the fishpond. The neighbor’s towering redwood that creaked and waved in the wind had loosed what seemed like half its dead branches and needles into the once tranquil pool. Now it was a mucky mess that I would have to dredge out if and when the wind stopped.

  Disheartened, I traipsed over to the goose yard where Goosteau was honking frantically at the wild weather. Just as I was running my hand over the agitated gander’s back, there was a terrific crack and a louder whomp! Goosteau and Jeannette lifted from the ground and flew a panicked several yards, the chickens squawked, and I shrieked and spun around. The fishpond was no longer visible. Twelve feet of the top of the neighbor’s towering redwood was now covering it and the northeast quarter of the backyard.

  I should ha
ve been giddy—after all, not only had I sidestepped death by a mere seven feet, but I had sidestepped being found dead in my stained, tattered, twenty-some-year-old robe. I wasn’t giddy however. Instead, all I could think of was the upcoming farmer’s visit and the ton of dead tree in the yard. This was not going to help matters at all.

  Our neighbors rushed over right away and I rushed inside to get dressed. Then our two families began cutting up the tree and carrying the logs and branches out in a de-limbing production line. In two hours, most of the large stuff was cleared out. Unfortunately, my jujube tree had been split in two, the fish pond was now not only filled with redwood flotsam but also sawdust, and the raised bed that had been so prettily green with mâche and spinach was now fully disturbed, plants uprooted, as the limbs of the tree had driven into the soft dirt.

  We cleaned up most of the mess before Farmer Lloyd came to visit the next day. I bound the split tree with enough white tape that it looked like it was recuperating from a skiing accident and reset the stones around the raised bed. The uprooted spinach and mache were almost all goners, however, but nothing could be done about that. I was going to have to accept that the visit would be an embarrassment.