North Star Orchard

If you were wondering how the North Star crew spent their Labor Day, they were, well, laboring. Farmers don’t get to commemorate all the legal holidays. The peaches and the pears don’t stop; neither do we.

Although, in the interest of full disclosure here, I was not laboring on Labor Day. One of my closest friends decided to get married smack dab in the middle of Hosui harvest, so I snuck away for a few days. It felt strange to leave – farmers don’t get “summer vacation.” Farming (at least full-time on a small-scale diversified farm) is more than a job – it’s a lifestyle. Instead of finding happiness in a week on the beach, you had better be content with your daily routine. Farm jobs are unique in other ways as well. In today’s world, what other job opportunity would you find that advertises to hire a couple or that provides you with your housing and most of your food? Where your work week might fluctuate from 70 hours one month to zero in another?

What is Labor Day after all? I know it’s supposed to mark the end of summer, but the true start to fall isn’t for another two and a half weeks. In any case, the historic Labor Day seems like much more of a morale booster, created by politicians and management, than a holiday of and by the workers, like May Day. Along those lines, I certainly don’t mean to begrudge anyone their eight hour work day or any other hard-won benefits, but I would like to point out that farm work is a special case and has never really enjoyed the conditions won by the other professions. (For example, from the U.S. Department of Labor: “Certain small farms are exempt from the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the FLSA. Workers engaged in agricultural employment (as defined by the FLSA) are exempt from the overtime requirements.”) And if you own and operate a small farm, any hourly wage or time requirements are out the window. Making a living without supplemental income is not easy. According to FarmAid: “In 2008, the average household income for farmers generated by their farming businesses alone is projected at $5,900, which is down more than 30 percent from 2007 estimates and accounts for less than 10 percent of total income projections for family farmers.”

I realize that I’m lucky in the agricultural world – I feel well-compensated for my work and “even though” I have a college degree, most of the people that I know think that it’s cool that I work on a farm. They’re fascinated by learning about what sort of work I actually do (What do you do all winter? Do you drive a tractor? What time do you get up in the morning?). I benefit from the last few decades in which certain farmers have worked hard to rebuild relationships with their customers and to raise awareness about agricultural issues.

But I know that for the vast majority of people laboring on farms in this country, there is not quite the same cachet attached to their work. Farmers have long struggled with negative stereotypes and farm workers with mistreatment. As a nation, we’re out of touch with the reality of farm work, because so few of us do it. According to the EPA, less than 1% of the population claims farming as an occupation. We’ve forgotten things that our grandparents likely understood: what it’s like to work on a farm and how much skill and determination it takes. Perhaps more of us are at least familiar with a farm or two than was the case a decade ago. CSA memberships and farm tours are much more common now, so that consumers have more opportunity to step foot on a farm. Books like Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma have taught us a lot about our food system. But this still doesn’t mean that we’re in touch with the reality of farm labor for the majority of farm workers in this country. And how can we appreciate or value something that we know nothing about?

I was privileged a few years ago to spend one morning working alongside (well, mostly lagging along behind) a crew of strawberry pickers in central California. My group (a bunch of mostly college graduates studying organic farming) was warned that we were not to talk to the guys – our presence alone would already be slowing them down. A humbling thing to hear when you’re aspiring to be a “real” farmer worth your salt. Well, it certainly didn’t seem like we slowed them down, because they lapped us in no time, all the while teasing us in Spanish. Meanwhile, we did the best we could, at least while preoccupied with commiserating about how much our backs hurt us only a half hour in. Faster than you could imagine, the entire field was picked, and everyone was piling into their cars to drive to the next field, about twenty miles away. The whole experience was humbling; these guys (and yes, they were all guys) had skills.

Other than this one morning, my knowledge of the reality for most farm laborers in this country is next to nil. A reality that might include being paid piecework, lacking health insurance while performing one of the more dangerous jobs, and never having any contact with the people who eat the food you grow. Issues of farm labor are something that doesn’t get talked about as much as environmental sustainability or the organic vs. local debate. So, start by thinking of us working away at North Star (and, for the most part, enjoying ourselves) while you’re having your barbecue – you’ve seen our smiling faces on the website, so that shouldn’t be too hard. But then, just maybe, try to envision all those farm workers out there whose faces you’re not seeing.

You might think by the title of this essay that you know what I’m going to talk about. Here we are, after all, a small farm being directly (and positively) impacted by the ‘Local Foods Movement’. But our journey into the Local Foods Movement (LFM) might be a little bit surprising.

My journey into the LFM didn’t begin with a childhood background filled with sandals and hippy-trippy flower power (although there was a little bit of that, surely). Nor, surprisingly enough, did it begin with the start of our farm back in 1992, nearly 20 years ago now.

I am actually loathe to tell you about some of my very non-local-foods past. I do this as a means of encouragement….if I could do it, so can you! Back when I was in college (and remember, I was a cash-poor college student, after all), my lunch of choice for about – dare I admit it? – two years was a can of Coke, a package of those Lance brand wheat and cheese crackers, and a Tastycake brand chocolate chip cookie bar (or, better yet, the fudge bar!). I kid you not; that’s what I ate for almost every weekday lunch. Eeuuwww!

Not that my breakfasts or dinners were much better, really. I remember eating ‘Life’ cereal daily for years, and dinner could be spaghetti (not too bad, perhaps) or – wait for it – Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli (yep – that delectable stuff from a can). But hey, if I can not only survive, but make so much progress, so can anyone, right? Happily, now I eat greens nearly daily, plus lots of other veggies, fruit all the time, my meat has to be sustainably- and humanely-raised, and I do my darndest to avoid high fructose corn syrup in anything. So, I do think I’ve made some major progress on the food front!

Back in those processed food-eating days, Ike and I were newly married and starting our senior year of college. Perhaps my routine diet was crap, but I did like vegetables and fruits when I had them. The only ‘good stuff’ Ike would eat, on the other hand, were carrots, sweet corn, potatoes, lettuce, and beer (beer counts as a grain, does it not? Ok, forget it). And although the ‘adults’ in our world always stressed the importance of eating wisely, we were still in the 20 year-old “We’re free and out on our own, and we’re going to eat whatever WE feel like eating!” phase of quasi-adulthood.

So, there we went getting into growing fruits and vegetables both during and right after college. An oxymoron, perhaps? Nonsensical maybe? Easily explained, really. Ike had always grown produce while he was growing up, loved doing it, and wanted to do it for a living. Nevermind that he didn’t like actually EATING much of anything he grew. The fruit, yes – but veggies? Icky-poo.

For my part, I hated helping with the family garden growing up, although I loved eating the results (remember, they say opposites attract) – so I could never see myself wanting to work in a garden for a living. But, by my junior year of college, I was starting to develop a mortal fear of going into the workforce. Training in chemistry and secondary education, as I was, the notion of graduating and being ‘stuck’ in a building day in and day out for the REST OF MY LIFE was terrifying. Working on the student farm for two summers opened my eyes to a different opportunity, and I went for it.

One thing and another led us to starting our own farm. But it wasn’t because we were into local or sustainably-grown or organic or anything. It was because HE liked growing, and I liked being outdoors to work (except in winter, that is, when I was and still am a complete weather-weenie). I am happy to say that we had, at least, shed some of our evil ways in regards to poor food choices by that point. Now there were (hardly ever) any cans of Chef Boyardee in the house, and when there were, they were HIS – honestly!

Fast-forward a couple years and I stopped eating all meat, because the notion of unnecessary hormones and antibiotics in my meat grossed me out. Over time, more of the processed foods went, too. I’ll happily note here that our son has never eaten ANY Chef Boyardee (or Twinkies). And veggies for Ike? It was still a long, slow struggle over this period.

And then, soon enough, the LFM was upon us. Of course, we were wrapped up within it from the start, as we sell all of our fruits and veggies to folks at farmers’ markets and through the CSA. But we saw mighty changes, both in the minds of customers and in ours, as things continued to change.

GMOs, CAFOs, water and fuel shortages, food-borne illnesses, etc. All of those have had impacts, as have many outspoken people who have reached the public consciusness, such as Michael Pollan (‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’), Barbara Kingsolver (‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’), and even Michelle Obama (backyard gardening). The web brought us localharvest.org, consumer demand brought new farms into existence, demand for CSAs and producer-only markets increased almost exponentially. There were amazing things to think about, talk about, do about.

I’m now eating meat again, but only from people I know, and only pork and chicken, as I feel they are more in keeping with a sustainable future (they eat scraps to give us food, whereas cattle eat food (or potential food) to give us food). And my veggie quotient is through the roof. Ike, who took up cooking several years ago and is mighty good at it, is eating all kinds of veggies (even greens like Swiss Chard and arugula!) – pretty much everything we grow, really. He may never be able to choke down a plain raw tomato or a serving of peas, but that’s ok, as I’m likely to never enjoy radishes. But, who’s counting?

The point is, we’ve managed to go from just about as bad of a diet as one can have to the opposite – and it wasn’t that hard! The trick is to keep trying things…even those you’re not familiar with. Growing up, my family NEVER made greens or beets. Since I discovered how yummy they are some years ago, I’ve been making up for lost time. It’s all a matter of trying things in different ways – and thank goodness for the internet for offering a seemingly never-ending supply of recipes!

You’ve gotten into the Local Foods Movement too, one way or another. And for most of you, it has likely made for a fantastic change in your own food habits, hasn’t it? Admit it…there’s probably crap food in your background that you are glad is now gone.

We can hope that more and more people hop on board. Great food and good health await!

What kind of ‘stuff’ do you have? I’m not talking ‘just any old stuff’, nor the ‘stuff’ that’s overflowing from you closet or attic. I’m talking about the ‘stuff’ you have which may have started out as an interest or small personal collection, but quickly grew as others helped enlarge your collection by giving you more similar ‘stuff’.

For example, I know a couple of different people who decided to get some ‘pet’ chickens. Before they could say ‘cluck’, their friends and extended family members started giving them chicken bath towels, chicken pot holders, and chicken soap dispensers, just to name a few.

Likewise, I know other people who have a similar collection of ‘stuff’ related to cows, cats, and golf. For all of these folks, the ‘stuff’ came along with some interest or fascination with a particular item or hobby. My father has a large collection of Beatles memorabilia (which recently happily become mine as he was downsizing), which he largely accumulated on his own, but was certainly added to by others. Sometimes, getting more of this ‘stuff’ is just wonderful, and the people who want to give you a gift are relieved to be able to give you something that they know you will like.

There are other people (doctors, teachers, farmers, etc.) who often get ‘stuff’ related to their occupation. Generally speaking, this ‘stuff’ may be cute, but not necessarily wanted. Just because you work with something all day doesn’t mean you want to look at it all evening and weekend. Some folks definitely do not want job-related ‘stuff’, such as your friend the proctologist or the friendly neighborhood coroner. And, come to think of it, I’m sure Paul McCartney wouldn’t be too keen on filling his house with Beatles ‘stuff’, either.

I remember back over twenty years ago now, putting a moratorium on ‘apple stuff’. As soon as Ike and I were married, out of college, and working for an orchard, we started getting ‘apple stuff’ from everybody. We quickly realized that we’d get appled-out if we didn’t say something. It’s one thing to grow and eat apples…it’s another thing to see them everywhere in your house and on your clothes! So, we put the word out: “no more apple stuff”, and generally people listened.

Several years later, as we started our own orchard business, some ‘apple stuff’ started showing up again. Not too much, but a bit. Have you ever noticed that the ‘apple stuff’ tends to have the traditional red (ie “Red Delicious”) style apple motif? Yuck! We don’t even grow those darned things, so I definitely didn’t want them all over inside the house. Evidently, there’s not a big market for ‘apple stuff’ with apples of other colors (there also does not seem to be any ‘Asian pear stuff’ available) So, we politely put the word out again, and the ‘stuff’ stopped coming. Of course, that put folks in a bit of a bind as to what to get us for gifts. Thankfully, it didn’t transmute into us receiving ‘tractor stuff’ or ‘bee stuff’, which it easily could have.

We could feel a sense of relief from those well-meaning folks however, when we suddenly started getting ‘grape stuff’, as the wine grape operation we managed got up and running. We squashed (so to speak) that trend fairly quickly too.

So then our friends and family were really stumped. What to get Ike and Lisa for Christmas/Birthday? Sometimes, I’d put the call out for cash – like the year of the tractor seat. We had absolutely no money at the time, what with a new baby using it all up. So I asked folks to contribute money towards a new tractor seat for Ike, so his butt wouldn’t get numbed with pain sitting for long periods of time on the old one. Other years, it was a headboard for our bed, or a keyboard to play. Lately, I haven’t put the call out for specific items, yet the ‘apple stuff’ has not returned – hurray!

My mom took a big leap of faith several years ago when she chose, as a 20thanniversary gift for Ike and me, a European-style pear sculpture. Now that, I must say, I do actually like, and I’m happy to display it in our home. It’s different, it’s lovely, and it’s not a Red Delicious apple. It’s also really appropriate. For 20 years, Ike and I had been a couple growing fruit in one way or another…so it’s a nice way to commemorate that. It’s also the last European-style pear sculpture (or hand towel or bar soap or sweatshirt or carpet) that we need in our house, just in case you were wondering.

As to ‘Beatles stuff’, however, bring it on! ‘Star Trek stuff’ would be cool too. Or ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Monty Python’ or – oh, maybe never mind that all anyway, or I may regret it.

(Submitted by CSA Member Beth M.)

They have captured the sun of high summer,
All reds and golds and sticky warmth.
And their fragrance stirs a blood memory
Of things I’ve never learned but always knew.
The knowledge of my mother, and her mother,
And generations before,
Who had to save the sun of summer for winter’s stingy light.

As the sweet aroma fills the room, they come to me–
These woman who share my blood
And my need to hold back the dark.
I feel their presence — their hands guide mine,
I see my eyes in their eyes, feel their hearts in my chest.
Their hands know these tasks and their touch is true and sure.
I abandon myself to the memory of this work that I was born knowing.
I am cradled in the arms of this unending line of women
As we work together to preserve the sun.

When the days shorten they will come again,
Because I have preserved their memory,
Along with these peaches,
To nourish myself in winter.

This week, a bit of a tutorial. Have you ever contemplated canning as a way to save some of your seasonal harvest for the forty weeks of the year when there’s not a fruit share?

If so, you’re not alone, as going homesteader is hip these days – or so I gather by a recent article gracing the front page of the weekend Philadelphia Inquirer on “21st Century Homesteading.”

Among other pastoral pursuits, the article highlights home canning: “Chris Scherzinger, general manager of Jarden Home Brands, maker of Ball and Kerr home-canning supplies, reports a 60 percent increase in sales from 2007 to 2009, the biggest hike since the 1970s. ‘The economy is certainly a factor,’ he says, ‘but so is the growing interest in gardening and fresh food.’” A poke around the internet turns up enthusiastic blogs such as (Philadelphia’s own) Food in Jars and Tigress in a Jam These are not your grandmother’s canning resources, with recent recipes such as Nectarine Preserves with Summer Savory and White Pepper and White Peach Sauce with Vanilla.

Well, if you’ve never tried canning and you’re interested in giving it a try, canning peaches (straight up, nothing fancy) is a great place to start. Forget Labor Day, or Back to School, the real harbinger of the end of summer is the peach finale. Just a few more weeks, folks, so get ‘em while they last. This realization set me in a bit of a panic this week, dropping everything for an afternoon or two so I could “put up” my personal stash of peaches for the winter.

Peaches are “easy” because they’re a high-acid food that you can raw pack. Translation: you can process them in a hot water bath (you don’t need a pressure canner), and you can pack them into jars without cooking them first, which saves you a step and some extra dirty dishes. Basic canning is not difficult; it just takes time and the ability to follow directions. The big concern in canning is preventing botulism. We can see, smell, or taste many problems caused by microorganisms in our food (moldy bread, spoiled milk), but this is not the case with botulism, and it’s no joke. The tiniest amount of botulism is deadly. But good news: it simply can’t survive in a high-acid environment, and this includes peaches. If this is your first time canning, please review the basics and make sure you’re being safe at the USDA’s Complete Guide to Home Canning or the Ball canning jar site, which has a useful FAQs section.

The best peaches to use are ones that are firmly ripe, probably about two days after you bring the fruit share home. Yellow or white or a mixture, it’s up to you. I found that about 6 medium peaches or nectarines fills one quart jar. You’ll want to prepare a syrup, which will help the peaches keep their shape, color, and flavor. You can use sugar or honey; I used a honey syrup that consisted of 1 cup honey to 3 cups hot water, and this amount was enough for six quart jars. The proportions for your syrup are flexible – even using water would be safe. For a light sugar syrup, combine ½ cup sugar with 2 cups water. For a heavy sugar syrup, combine 2 cups sugar with 2 cups water. Or you can choose any quantity in between.

Things you’ll need:
canning jars with (new) lids and screw bands*
a large pot big enough to hold your jars plus a few inches of water above them
a small pot large enough to contain your lids
a medium pot for boiling your syrup
a ready supply of clean dish towels
a skinny rubber spatula
peaches
sugar or honey

* You can reuse proper canning jars and the screw bands, but you should always use new lids. I prefer the wide mouth jars because they’re easier to fill and to clean. Either pints or quarts will work.

Things that are nice to have:
a canning rack (holds your jars in place during processing)
a canning funnel
canning tongs
a kitchen thermometer
several mixing bowls
lemon juice
whole spices, such as cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, or cloves

Step by Step:

1. Fill your large pot with your clean, empty jars and add enough water to cover them with about two inches of water. (Note: when the jars are filled, the contents will displace some of this water.) You can use a canning rack to hold your jars in place, or, if not, a trick I learned from the Italian grandma of a friend of a friend: cushion your jars with towels. You don’t want the jars to hit each other or the sides of the pot. Start heating the water. It’ll take awhile. You want to bring the water to about 140°, or when tiny bubbles just start to appear on the sides of the jars. Do not let it come to a boil at this point.
2. Place your new lids and screw bands in the small pot. Cover with water and bring to a simmer. Then just leave them in the hot water until you’re ready for them.
3. Make your syrup, and start heating it. You’ll need it to be at a boil when it’s time to fill your jars.
4. Prepare your peaches. You’ll want to slice and peel them. You can blanch the peaches in boiling water to help remove the skins, but I find that when they’re nice and ripe, it’s just as easy and less mess to simply peel them with a knife. I’ve found that a small, serrated knife works best. I like to cut the peaches into eighths or even smaller, so that they’re easier to pack into the jars. As you cut them, you can drop them into a bowl of water to which you’ve added a teaspoon of lemon juice to prevent them from darkening.
5. Pack your hot jars with the peach slices. If you’d like, you can add whole spices, such as cinnamon, cardamom, or cloves. Pack the fruit in as tightly as you can, then top it off with your boiling syrup, leaving a ½ inch of headspace between the liquid and the rim of the jar. To remove any air pockets, run your spatula around the inside edges of the jar, and correct the amount of liquid if needed to maintain that ½ of empty space.
6. Carefully wipe the jars with a clean, damp cloth; you especially don’t want any food to be left on the rims of the jars (where the lid meets the jar), or it will prevent a good seal. Place the lids on the jars and gently screw on the bands.
7. Place the jars back into the water bath. Be careful that the water hasn’t reached a boil while you’ve been filling the jars – a drastic temperature difference could make the jars crack. Make sure that there is two inches of water over the tops of the jars. Cover the pot, and bring the water to a boil (this can take awhile).
8. As soon as your water boils, set a timer: 30 minutes for quart jars, 25 minutes for pint jars. Make sure that the pot stays covered and the water stays at a full boil and completely covers the jars for the entire processing time.
9. When the time is up, turn off the heat. I like to let the jars sit in the water bath for a good ten minutes; if you take them out immediately, the contents can leak out of the lid, ruining your seal. Remove the jars to a wooden rack or onto a counter covered with a few dry towels, to prevent cracking. Let them cool, untouched. Check them to see if the center of the lid is down and stays down when you press on it. If so, your jar has sealed. If not, you should reprocess your jar, keep it in the fridge, or throw it in the freezer.
10. Enjoy your peaches sometime in midwinter, when the last apples have been eaten and the fruit CSA seems like a distant memory. It might be a far cry from feeding your family all winter from a cellar-full of jarred goods, but it’s one small, satisfying step towards being a bit more involved in your personal food system.

If this piques your interest, and you’d like to learn more, a few good places to start are Preserving Summer’s Bounty by the Rodale Food Center (where I got most all of this information) and The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Delicious Recipes by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard, which is geared toward someone canning in rather small batches in the home kitchen.

Comments or questions? You can contact me at northstarerin@gmail.com.
Past, present, and future writings posted on my blog (link to: http://fruitsunheardof.wordpress.com/)

Most CSAs in this area offer vegetables, but there are also a few which offer meat, eggs, cheese, and fruit. I’ve even heard of a grain CSA, although that’s nowhere near us.

In the midst of CSA signups this spring, I received an email from a member stating that he’d like the “I Can Control Mother Nature” Share. Well, that statement gave me the chuckle I’m sure it was intended to give.

But what a concept, eh? The “I Can Control Mother Nature” Share would see us all getting exactly what we wanted when we wanted it. No worries about spring frosts, hail, or droughts. No concerns at all about biennial bearing issues. Taken to the extreme, it could mean getting Asian pears or heirloom tomatoes all year long….wow!

In many ways, that sounds like a mighty good idea. I can conceive of gorging myself on gage-type plums, nectarines, and Gold Rush apples day after day, year-in and year-out. For veggies, it would mean Swiss chard daily. I’m as addicted to each of those as I am to coffee.

My coffee addiction I can feed every day, usually with the same brand, although I do try new ones from time to time; they’re always Fair Trade certified and/or locally roasted. I’m currently SO into One Village Coffee, which I purchase at the Upper Merion Farmers’ Market, that I’m trying to figure the best way to source it over winter when market is done. I look forward to those two (or three) cups a day (morning and mid-afternoon) not only to feed my caffeine addiction, but as a comfort-food type of thing.

It’s kind of the same feeling I get when I eat some of those favorite fruits of mine, or eating my ‘green of the day’ (either kale, Swiss chard, arugula, mustard greens, or spinach). To me, they not only taste good, but they act as comfort foods to my soul. (Hey, better having mustard greens than Twinkies as a comfort food!)

But while the “I Can Control Mother Nature” Share sounds mighty appealing, I think I would tire of it. Part of the delight of eating locally-grown foods is the variety and the somewhat limited supply. It’s the surprise you get when the nectarine you just bit into is so gosh-darned sweet, juicy, and flavorful it hurts your brain….only to find out that the next one you bite into is even (impossibly!) better. It’s the first bite of a Hosui Asian pear of the year, when you realize that you absolutely forgot just how freakin’ good they are, because it’s been 10 months since you last had one. It’s digging into a plate of Swiss Chard that is so flavorful and addictive you’d swear the plant had been injected with MSG.

Sure, it would be great to be able to eat all of your favorites all of the time. But the ‘wow’ moments would wane. You wouldn’t experience that anticipation of waiting for the start of November because you know that’s when the Gold Rush apples would be coming on. Summer might not seem quite so fantastic if you could eat heirloom tomatoes and local sweet corn all year long. While I look forward to my routine two (or three!) cups of coffee a day, they don’t give me that sense of anticipation and sheer joy that eating seasonal food does.

As a farmer, I would certainly enjoy the “I Can Control Mother Nature” concept in many ways (the ability to turn off hail or hot weather would be a blessing). But as an eater, I’d like to keep things just the way they are!

You didn’t hear this from me, but the farmers’ market scene is a bit of a performance. I don’t say this to question quality or integrity, but rather to point out that there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. What you see on a Saturday morning, or in your CSA bag, is only the cream of the crop. That produce had to go through a lengthy audition process to make it out on stage. Only the highest quality produce makes the cut.

Behind the scenes is the not so glamorous side of agriculture: dirt, rot, bugs, and the tedious work of sorting through all that. In the packing room, we speak a language of “ones” and “twos,” “firsts” and “seconds.” The firsts are what you see, the seconds (as in “second quality”) find some other home – it might be apple cider, Asian pear butter, or the employee fridge. (Come to think of it – as a farmer, I don’t know that I’ve eaten “first quality” produce in nearly a decade, and I’m no worse the wear for it…) If there were such a category, I suppose the number threes would be the produce that doesn’t even make it to the sorting table. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say, fruits and vegetables will eventually go the way of all the earth, and they’re not all going at the same rate.

As a result, there’s more time than you might imagine spent in sorting, grading, and schlepping fruit around. Some things are “field-sorted” or graded as they’re picked. Others, like apples, are brought into the barn, and then sorted in a separate process. We spend hours at the grading table, giving every piece of fruit a once-over before it goes into the cooler. One or two of us feed apples into one end of the grader where rotating brushes give the apples a bit of a polish. They roll out the other end where one or two of us are inspecting each and every apple before it goes into a wooden crate. If we’re really cranking, there will be a fifth person to expedite the whole process and just move crates around as needed. If we were growing for the wholesale market, the station would also be outfitted with a sizing mechanism to sort the apples in increments down to the 1/8 of an inch. (And if we were really fancy – electronic sensors, computer software and digital imaging would take the place of human touch.) “Too small” apples would be rejected and the rest would be priced according to size. At North Star, there is still such a thing as “too small,” but since we’re selling directly to our customers, we can include more of those apples that are the perfect size for a quick snack or for a child. Sorting criteria fluctuate with the variety. “Too small,” “too green,” and “too ripe” can look entirely different depending on the apple variety.

While other points on the agricultural continuum, from planting to eating, have been glamorized or merely familiarized, this whole intermediate step that can include sorting, grading, washing, bunching, packing, stacking, loading, and unloading is nearly invisible. These are less captivating tasks, I know, but the only image of this sort of work that I can conjure up from the common imagination is that one “I Love Lucy” episode. You know, the one where Lucy and Ethel try out a job in a chocolate factory? . They’re at the conveyor belt, and the chocolates keep coming faster and faster… Well, I have those moments, too, when apples are spilling out of the sorter, faster than my brain can make the decision “one or two?” But, unlike Lucy, I can flip a switch and make them stop. (And, unlike Lucy, I don’t get to eat chocolate!)

In a world where the vast majority of our agriculture is out of sight and out of mind, there are, unfortunately, a number of invisible sectors in our food system. Joining a CSA is a great way to bring your food source a few steps closer. But you’re still not there on the farm with us day in and day out to see how we spend our time. Just like with any job, whether you’re creating spreadsheets, preparing annual reports, or sorting apples, there’s the mundane and nitty-gritty work that keeps everything rolling. And, behind the scenes are glimpses of some truths that used to be common sense to folks. Farming, like life, isn’t all number ones and sweet-smelling peaches. That whole “one bad apple spoils the bunch” business didn’t come from nowhere! And, hopefully, we’ll find it before it gets to you.

If I’ve learned one thing picking fruit so far this season, it’s that if you complain to your co-workers who are working in the vegetable garden about having to eat too many peaches (to test for ripeness) they will not be sympathetic.

Aside from tasks like hitching the tractor (which is hard in a completely different way) picking peaches is probably the hardest thing I’ve done yet at North Star. Now, some of you may think that it’s just softness that determines if a peach is ripe. I’ve watched you squeezing all the peaches at the farmers’ market, trying to find the ripest. (You know who you are… I bet you’ve probably learned not to bother squeezing the peaches at the supermarket. You might try bouncing them off the floor, though!) For a few reasons, firmness alone is not how we determine ripeness in the orchard. For one, all your peaches would be dented – with dents that matched my fingerprints exactly.

OK, so color, then? Ripe peaches have a lovely red blush, right? Wrong again. Like firmness, color can be an indicator, but it can also fool you. The other day one of my coworkers happened up the peach row to bring me my water jug (which had apparently thrown itself off the trailer as I drove away on the tractor). It was her first time in between the rows of peaches this season, and she stopped a moment to look around. “Are these like 90% ripe?” she asked, studying the red-violet peaches hanging all around her. I told her that, no, I had actually completely finished picking that section. The trick with color is that it’s the undercolor you’re looking for – the color that develops behind that red blush. In other words, the background color that can range from cream to pale yellow to deep orange, depending on the variety. And the clincher is the color beneath that little stripe across the stem-end of the peach that is shaded by the branch – which of course you can’t see until after you’ve picked the peach.

But to complicate things even further, breeders have been working toward a peach with more and more blush and less and less undercolor. As Lisa explained a few weeks back in a North Star blog post, “In heirloom or old traditional varieties of peaches, the little bit of red blush they developed was a sign of ripeness. So, as people grew to equate ‘red’ with ‘ripe’ on a peach, fruit breeders did their darnedest to breed peaches that were as red as possible before ripening. To this end, we now have countless varieties of peaches that are practically all red, with little yellow (or white, in the case of white peaches) showing way before when they are truly ripe and ready to be picked.” Try staring at those for a few hours, trying to distinguish ripeness by color alone, and you’ll go a little cross-eyed.

Really, though, I’m working with a whole set of clues as to ripeness when picking peaches – firmness, color, size, degree of fuzziness, shape, and placement on the tree, all of which vary with variety. But the definitive factor is taste. Which means that I may be forced to take a bite (or two) out of a whole lot of peaches on a given picking day. Which, even if they’re still a little crunchy, is an occupational hazard that I’ve decided I can live with.

But you might still be wondering, along with many of our uninitiated farmers’ market customers: If your peaches are picked at the right time, then why are they still so hard? I like to think about it like M&Ms – “melts in your mouth, not in your hand,” right? (yeah, right!) Well, our peaches soften on your counter, not on the tree. When picking, we put so much effort into identifying those indicators of ripeness in order to make sure that the peaches have fully ripened (i.e. the sugars and flavor have fully developed) but they have not yet fully softened. This way, you get the peaches home in one piece (no fingerprints to speak of, mine or yours), and they’ll actually have a better texture when allowed to soften off the tree.

There’s a lot of science behind this ripening process – enzymes, metabolism, respiration, climacteric, non-climacteric, ethylene, starches converting to sugars… to be honest, it still befuddles me a bit, and I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it all. But the important thing is that, science aside, I still know what a good, ripe peach tastes like.

So, moving on to something special to do with those peaches once they’ve softened up for you…

If you want to go the traditional route, here’s what I’m convinced (with all due respect to the grandmas of the world out there) is the best peach cobbler recipe on the planet (Sweet Georgia Peach Cobbler), discovered in the Philadelphia Inquirer a few years back.

Or, for the less traditional route, grill them! I know this suggestion might raise a few eyebrows, but I have tried it, and it is fabulous. And, as one of the other market vendors gleefully announced the other week as she headed off with her white peaches, “I’m going to grill them. Because then you don’t have to make a pie!” It can be as easy as halving the peaches and throwing them on the grill until you see grill marks and smell caramelizing sugar, or you can go one step further and top them with vanilla ice cream or your favorite dessert sauce.

Or for something even easier, add peaches to something bubbly. White peaches and Prosecco are the key ingredients to the classy Bellini cocktail. Or, use whatever red or white you have on hand.

(Josh is a full-time seasonal helper this year)

Background: I grew up gardening with my mom.  We had a small veggie garden that consisted of 4 raised beds.  Just recently, my wife and I started a much larger garden with over 40 varieties of vegetables, herbs and fruits- this keeps us busy all summer long.  When we have eaten our fill, we can most of our extra harvest.  This way, we are fed almost all year!

Why are you working at North Star Orchard?: I love working at North Star Orchard, not just because Ike and Lisa are the best bosses, ever.  A supporter of CSAs and sustainability, this farm allows me to work someplace that I not only enjoy but share similar values.

What do you want to do when you grow up?: As I look towards my future, I see myself continuing to work in this field.  It may be hard work, but it is something that is important to me and my family.  Plus, who doesn’t like to literally enjoy the ‘fruits’ of their labor?!

Favorite farm job (so far!): My favorite job here on the farm is hoeing because it is so much fun.

Least favorite farm job: My least favorite farm job is gathering the kale. 

Favorite vegetable/fruit: I love Brussels sprouts, especially when they are sautéed with some garlic and olive oil (and cooked by my wife!)
Favorite ice cream: Mint chocolate chip- please note that I will accept ice cream donations willingly.

Poor Luther Burbank. The plant-breeding wizard created 113 new varieties of plums, 16 blackberries, 13 raspberries, 10 apples, and 35 fruiting cacti (just to name a few), and what he’s most widely recognized for is McDonald’s french fry potato, the Russet Burbank. This most ubiquitous potato didn’t even come along until after Burbank had sold the rights to his ‘Burbank’ potato (its parent, so to speak), but it proudly carries his name into more than 32,000 McDonald’s restaurants and a few other fast food joints as well, I’m sure.

It’s hard to talk about plums in this country without mentioning Luther Burbank. Around the turn of the last century, he was working with plums newly introduced from Asia, helping to popularize them and using them in his breeding program. The result was a significant shift in plum cultivation; his most famous variety, the ‘Santa Rosa’ plum, named after his adopted hometown, was a great fit for the evolving California plum industry. That said, the modern California plum industry may not have done a lot to warm our hearts toward the “new” Asian and hybrid varieties, which usually reach us in supermarkets back east as something resembling a mealy purple baseball. But I’ll vouch for a Santa Rosa plum, eaten dead-ripe off a tree in the California sunshine. That’s what Luther Burbank was working with, so I suppose we shouldn’t hold him responsible.

So, Poor Luther Burbank, with his unwitting legacy of french fries and mealy baseballs. And poor plums! Of all the fruits, they seem to be the most underappreciated in this country, and not without good reason. They really have suffered at the hand of industrial agriculture. Supermarket plums are just miserable. To boot, the sum total of our cultural knowledge of plums in this country seems to amount to the fabled Christmas plum pudding, dancing sugar plums fairies, and our grandmother’s prune juice.

I’ll leave the latter two alone, but what exactly is plum pudding, anyway? A peek into Escoffier’s seminal tome on “modern cookery” (published in 1921) reveals that plum pudding is a pretty involved affair, one in which you tie up your pudding, boil it for 5-6 hours and then light it on fire. The ingredients? The list includes beef kidney suet, breadcrumbs, apples, raisins, sultanas, currants, stout and brandy. No plums. Turns out, the word “plum” historically covered all dried fruits.

I’ve heard rumors that the Europeans, enlightened in so many ways culinarily (dare I mention the cheese course, a tradition of afternoon cake and coffee, or olive oil?), have a much greater appreciation for the plum. We should take note, because plums can be absolutely amazing. They come in a a staggering variety of flavors – sweet to tart – and colors – red, purple, yellow, green, blue, and every shade in between. There really is a variety out there for everybody, and if you’ve felt wishy-washy about plums up to this point, it’s time to try again. Because we grow so many different varieties of plums at North Star, there often are only one or a few trees of each kind. Since the harvest window of each is brief, most varieties make an appearance for only a week or two. Some have come and gone already for the season, so time is of the essence!

A bit of a plum primer for those looking to make up for lost time…

There are many, often confusing, categories of plums. Here are some highlights with examples of North Star varieties in parentheses. (Some of which have passed already for this year; some you can still keep an eye out for.) For our purposes, there are two main, overarching groups of plums: Asian or “Japanese” plums and European plums. Japanese plums originated in China, but western botanists first caught wind of them in Japan, hence the name.

Asian (or Japanese) plums (Vanier, Purple Heart, Redheart) – The type of plum you’re used to seeing in the supermarket. Often larger and tarter than European plums with a clingstone.

Burbank plums (Burbank, Elephant Heart) – These were bred by Luther Burbank from Asian plums and are usually large, round, and red or purple.

Damson (sometimes used to refer to Italian plums) – Named for Damascus and originating in Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Especially tart and astringent, and so generally cooked with plenty of sugar.

Gage (Greengage, Golden Transparent Gage, Rosy Gage, Oullins) – Gages are round, very sweet European plums.

Italian plums – Refers to egg-shaped plums with a dark purple skin and yellow flesh. One of the most popular plums for baking.

Mirabelle plums (Geneva Mirabelle) – Tiny and very flavorful plums (think small cherries) originating in France, usually cooked.

Prune plums – Any dried plum can be called a prune in English, but “prune plum” usually refers to oval, black-skinned, freestone plums with an especially high sugar content, which allows them to dry well.

Plums don’t technically ripen off the tree, so it’s important that we pick them at the right time, once their sugars have developed. Once you get them home, however, they will continue to soften and sweeten up a bit. If you keep them in the refrigerator, you can delay this process, bringing them out at will and they’ll be perfect in a day or two or three (depending on how soft you like your plums!). You might enjoy trying your plums at different stages of ripeness to see how the flavor and texture evolves. As my favorite plum, Purple Heart, ripens, it develops a rich, spicy flavor that tastes like cloves. And I ate a gushy-ripe Oullins plum the other day that reminded me of coconut. Then there are the ripe (some might argue over-ripe) Santa Rosa-type plums that taste just like banana!

One more note: You might notice a white film on your plums that appears to go away when you rub your finger across the skin. This “bloom” is just the naturally-occurring wax on the skin.

If you can’t keep up with your supply of fresh plums and you have a dehydrator, plums are also excellent dried. Relinquish those bad prune associations, I dare you! I dried quite a few last year and enjoyed adding them to hot cereal and muffins all winter long for a dose of tartness, which can be hard to come by in winter. And if you’re into that sort of thing, plums can also be preserved in alcohol. I’m guessing, though, that once you discover or are reacquainted with what real plums taste like, the only plum supply problem will be not enough.

Sources:
The Penguin Companion to Food, Alan Davidson
In the Sweet Kitchen, Regan Daley
“Luther Burbank, Plums, and CA Horticulture” Cynthia Houng