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[Hoca]

[Basement-born seedlings chilling in a cold frame, in the high tunnel. (left to right clockwise – chamomile, nigella, malva, poppy, calendula, larkspur, snapdragon, celery, blanket flower, bee balm).]

Late winter and early spring have been so much richer since I started growing seedlings a decade ago. Indoor seed starting gives me months more pleasure watching things germinate and tending to plant babies in the nursery. This year was no different. I started right around New Year’s and now the basement seeding station and high tunnel are packed with product for our 5th Annual Pollinator Lovers’ Plant Sale with Bernadett’s Farmacy and starts for our CSA.

I feel at once like the soundtrack for my life in this moment could be Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle Again” and The Beatles “Here Comes the Sun’.” This time of year is really busy on the farm and it’s also a time of rising up from winter’s slumber. We’re savoring the last days of “soup season” and enjoying the bright fresh herbs and greens. I’m working on this idea of holding conflicting ideas in my head at once. It’s a theme that seems to keep popping up for me.

All that to say that I’m happy it’s spring. Very happy. And I’m finding it harder than usual to dust off the tools and get to work.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve been out back every day since mid-February tinkering, seeding, propagating, turning, pruning, spraying, moving. I am so grateful, once again, to have the privilege to work the patch of land we are currently stewarding. And, I’m really starting to feel my age – physically and mentally. I move a little slower and with more creaks than when we got this started and I’m more hesitant to put my ideas out in the world. Not quite sure whom I want to commit to being at the moment.

We are all coming out of our Covid-chrysalides and figuring out who we will be now. It’s an incredible opportunity, and incredibly terrifying.

One thing that’s helping me build inspiration for the growing season is visiting friends’ farms. Last year was really isolating. Farming is already pretty isolating but I really missed farm visits. I didn’t realize how much.

Last week I got to visit Rachel Tayse at Harmonious Homestead and Bernadett Szabo at the new location of Bernadett’s Farmacy. It was so energizing. If you have the chance, go visit a local farm or gardening friend in the next few weeks. Share your plans, ask questions, just look. Here are a few of my highlights.

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Rachel is just across the highway, but it feels like another world. I’m envious of her mix of wild and cultivated spaces. She’s been on her farm for a decade (give or take) and you can see the history of her work on the land. The garlic beds immersed in the orchard surrounded by willow, the bee hives parked beside the blooming cherry tree, the shitake logs – and their fruits (!), and the solar-power protected chicken habitat. And this is just the backyard. If she opens her place for an open house this summer, don’t miss the chance to check out her urban oasis.

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Visiting Bernadett was – I realize now as I process images and ideas- an opposite sort of experience. Not only is she about 30 minutes outside the city surrounded by farmland, she is just starting a new homestead after many years at her old place. She and her family got settled there last fall and got to work immediately building a new home for their chickens (including a rooster so gigantic you can’t help but giggle when you see him strutting around wagging his waddle) and erecting a great new high tunnel. She is learning about all the bounty that was already there including a collection of mature fruit trees in the front yard and a colony of ramps in the ravine out back. I aspire to collect as much rain water as she does and envy the big sloping hill she plans to use to move it to her beds from its collection spot an acre away. So when she caught me taking a photo of her empty barrels awaiting installation and asked, “Why are you taking pictures of my garbage,” I had to laugh.

Where are you finding inspiration? I can always use more.