I don’t know how many times this fall I’ve said the words “tonight  is it for everything. Supposed to get down to 16″. But its been heard alot and I believe Joey has just stopped listening to me altogether and just goes about doing what he knows needs to be done – a good hand. Two days ago I was sure of it. Only things growing out there were some leaf lettuce, mixed salad greens, spinach, and kale. The Kale is being enjoyed each night by some unknown visitor. I suspect its the same one that has an established burrow into our kitchen scrap compost pile.The greens, spinach and lettuce were doing great  and tasting better every day. So two days ago I look at the forecast – really I was looking to see if we could expect any snow in the mountains so I could go skiing soon – and saw a forecasted low of 8 degrees . I knew this was it and I better get my ass out there and harvest.

It was a rainy, sleety, snowy, windy kind of day. The greens, reds, browns of the greens were stunning in the dull grey light of the day. I hauled in 10 lbs of wonderful greens and almost as much spinach. The Kale  – like I said  – had been enjoyed by another.  It was muddy and wet and beautiful. I was grateful for all the garden gave to us and thankful this would be the last time I would be getting muddy, wet, and cold harvesting anything for a while. Plus the mountains were getting whiter by the minute.  Needless to day the single digits low never came and the greens are growing still. I think the spinach has had it though. Its been snowing the past three days and the greens seem to be loving it.  Think I’ll be harvesting them again in a couple of days. Hopefully on a crisp clear sunfilled day.

I’ve also was able to get one last compost pile built and innoculated with the Biodynamics Preps a couple of days ago. Went out today while the snow was falling and the cold cut through  my light fleece and stuck my hand into the pile. Just 6″ in it was hot and cooking. Can’t wait till the snow melts off of it in March and the sun starts to warm it and dry it and we get to dig into its blessings and spread them on the beds prior to seeding. That will be a good day.

The Chantung purple garlic I planted a few weeks ago poked up through the ground and was sticking bravely up above the mulch 3-4″.  All the other varieties kept their heads low and covered.

We have only a few beds to fork, amend, and cover. The hoses are rolled up and stashed for the winter in the old chicken coop. The irrigation system is drained. The lawn is covered with leaves – perhaps I could get in one more compost pile….. The Great horn Owls arrived back a few days ago. They nest in a Blue Spruce next to the Farmhouse.

So Winter is here and the greens still grow. The compost is cooking under  its blanket of hay. The garlic cloves break their dormancy and begin to swell and grow. The chickens scratch the still warm ground for bugs. The green tomatoes in the basement ripen into beautiful fruit of all colors. The light fades early. Tonight snow is falling in the moutains and I am digging out my ski equipment dreaming of floating through powder. Its a beautiful abundant life we have on this small farm. We are blessed indeed. Thank all of you for helping us do what we are doing. Thank you.

“A change in the weather is known to be extreme.”  A line from Dylan that rings in my head every time we get a major weather change. Really has no relation to anything. I think it got burned into my brain during a particularly agonizing breakup in high school. I listened to that Dylan album nonstop for a year. “But what’s the sense of changing horses in mid stream”

I really wanted to talk about garlic  “I’m going out of my mind”  today. Since I rushed to get the garlic planted before the weather changed  “with a pain that stops and starts”. We’ve had a beautiful indian summer here. Which has allowed all those tomatoes, slowed by the July rains, to ripen. The greens have been loving the mild days and cool nights. But today it all ended “like a corkscrew in my heart”.

Its early evening and the rain has started falling in earnest. Our neighbor Chuck was chainsawing firewood all day today. Even Don was out splitting wood this afternoon. The change was in the air. I had planted about half the garlic yesterday but still needed to round up seed cloves for two other varieties I wanted to plant. A trip to our garlic farmer, Cobblestone Farms, took care of one variety. An early asiatic hardneck but the Spanish Roja was not to be found. So I stopped in at our local farm store to see what they had. I found a large purple softneck that look wonderful and had great taste. So I bought some headed back to the farm. I spent the next couple hours setting the final cloves in the soil.  I covered the beds with mulch late this afternoon as the sky was darkening and, as usual, stood back and felt good about life – “ever since we’ve been apart”.

Some days, not many, I have enough left at the end of the day to go for a bike ride. Riding is one of the few things that will truly clear my head of all the noise. Each ride is different in how long it takes for the mind to quiet and to allow for the ride to be experienced. Some days the mind never stops spinning. Some days you get thrown to the ground or into a tree by unseen forces trying to help you – their technique is crude but effective. Pain focuses the mind on the moment. I notice my mind has become quiet by how my riding changes.  fear leaves my body, my muscles relax, my hands and toes stop gripping, the bike floats under me or I over it, and I start to see and smell and hear the evening. I begin to ride.

You may be wondering what any of this has to do with growing vegetables. I am as well. As was I last evening as I was riding down through the juniper and sage covered hills. Funny place for a quiet mind to go. To wondering about all this stuff – really? Quiet? – somehow yes. Then a biology course I took long ago – or actually only one class from that course- came to mind. That class had a huge impact on me and I don’t even remember what the course was – behavioral evolutionary type stuff perhaps or it could have been a biochemistry class I’m not at all sure. I do remember the hour the teacher talked about motives. He had us read a wonderful article called Potter’s Progress. In the article a woman talks about the process of centering a pot on the wheel prior to forming a pot. It was all about motives. About finding the core motive for any given action or thought. The one in the center of it all. The one which kick starts the mind and gets all the other motives spinning, which kick off other reactions and whirling. By the time you get to the action its pretty darn impossible to know what started the whole thing rolling. You’re just left wondering why you just acted like a dumbass.

You are probably still wondering how this relates to growing vegetables but I think I’ve figured it out. Since that class I’ve spent alot of my time trying to find those core motivations. Cause, when you are able is when you get centered. And if you aren’t centered the pot never will be – the point of the article as I remember it. I’ve come to find that one of my core motives is “do no harm”. I like most of the rest of us was harmed as a child. I came away from it all with this as a mantra – do no harm. Of course in my clumsy attempts to achieve this goal I have done plenty of harm. It has almost caused more harm than good.

But let me back up a bit.   When I graduated from college I became a carpenter. I can see now that that class, that article, was most likely responsible for me seeking, finding and loving the physical work of carpentry. It was the direct and immediate feedback I got from the work -just like the direct and immediate feedback that woman got from the lump of clay spinning between her hands on the wheel. If the work was not going well I needed to look inside myself and fix whatever I found before any external change was going to happen. I could struggle for days on end before I would remember this tidbit of information and then actually do something. But when I did things shifted. A centering occurred. Even if nothing got fixed or solved – that rarely happens. But the awareness allows…….

So again how does this relate to growing vegetables you ask? Well I’ve been reading Woody Tasch’s book Slow Money the last few days The night prior to this bike ride I read a definition of sustainable organic agriculture as agriculture which “does no harm”. So somewhere in the middle of coming down the Ridge of Doom but before I got to the Plunge my mind stopped spinning and I started riding and all this seemingly disparate thought connected.  My bike and I floated through the juniper, cedars, and sage. I was smiling. The evening was smiling back.

Do No Harm.

Hardpan. Its that thing that stops your digging fork cold 6″ below the top of the bed. Its that thing that makes you set the fork down and go change from Tevas to work boots so you can stomp on the fork. Its that thing that breaks the cheap ass foreign made fork you just bought. Its that thing down there that keeps water from flowing downward and turns it to flow out the side of the bed into the path. Its that thing down there!

A month ago I got tired of breaking forks in that thing and was too scared to pull out my trusted 40 plus year old fork I found in the field where I planted my first garden – though I should of had faith in my old friend to handle it – so I planted Daikons. A 12″ long radish from asia known to grow through anything.  They sprang up quick and grew fast and strong.  As they began to get fat they also began to grow up and not down. Each week I watched as they grew farther and farther out of the ground. They had hit that thing down there.  Worried the above ground part – now at least 4 ” – would get woody we pulled them a week earlier than we wanted. When the hit the hardpan they made a 90 degree turn and headed west.

So after washing them and setting them in the cooler I shed my Tevas, laced up my workboots, grabed my trusted old friend and went to work poking holes in that thing down there.  Next spring I’m planting favas followed by summer alfalfa and then another fall planting of Daikons. Stay tuned!

Several nights ago the the flanks of Mt Lamborn turned from a summer green to the yellows, oranges and reds of  Autumn.  Even  that aspen patch on the west flank of Coal Mt turned yellow.  All in one night. Or perhaps I just hadn’t looked in a couple days. But I always look at those mountains during my days in the garden. The mountains, the sky, the cottonwoods,  my neighbors horses, and even those damn prairie dogs are all centering for me so I stop and look around quite often. So it must have been just overnight. Yet one can look and not see. We do it all the time. Who knows? I only know my favorite time of year has arrived. I love Autumn.

In the garden your effort goes from reaping – sometimes rather greedily – to a softer caring effort. Its time to tend to the soil. It has been fed upon, dug up and down, weeded and whacked, cajoled and cursed all summer long. Now we pull the spent plants, loosen the soil with a fork and rake in wonderful stuff like greensand, kelp meal, and compost.  There is still plenty of new growth.  Our spinach, kale, chard, are all beautiful and healthy. The bed of newly sprouted leaf lettuce is a beautiful fall display of greens, reds, and browns. Yet it all has a softer feel to it. And soon even these beds will be put to rest for the winter. I’m grateful for the seasons .  I need all four of them to feel right in my skin. I’ll love them all but Autumn is the only one I don’t ever curse even when it doesn’t hang in there long enough to suit me.  I curse winter for coming to early.  On a cold and rainy autumn day I’m hoping for a long beautiful fall. It can snow on Halloween – and almost always does!

A few days back we were digging into our not quite finished compost pile to top off some newly formed beds. Joey brought two wheelbarrow loads back to the beds and I was pulling it out, crumbling it up, and spreading it on top. On one of my grabs for a double handful of compost I spotted something very foreign and alive just to the left of my left hand. It scare the shit out me even though I had just caught a glimpse of it. Whatever it was it was primitive and out of place – that much I could feel. Looking again I saw it was a fairly large salamander. I used to see them quite often in the mountain lakes we would spend our summer days with as a kid. But its not a creature I see very often these days. Perhaps once a decade. But there it was  a very dark green salamander. Only a bit lighter than the compost. But what the hell was it doing in a wheelbarrow of compost and how did it get there?

When I was 20 years old and just starting my first organic gardens I was reading everything I could about organics and alternative ways to grow food including Biodynamics. However, I was also attending a University enmeshed in Western intellectual tradition and studying Biology. The biodynamics stuff I read made alot of sense on many levels especially the parts about building a farm into a healthy sustaining micro ecosystem. But, then there was the voodoo stuff. The preps and the stirring and the burying cow shit in a horn on certain special days to overwinter and planting and tending according to more voodoo. My small closed mind just couldn’t go there. Organics, double dug beds, open pollinated varieties all  fit in with how I saw the world. Biodynamics did not. But as Dylan says “Times have changed”.

The barrages of life have opened my up and humbled me and made me a bit wiser – I think. At least now I know I don’t know shit about nothing. And the spiritual voodoo aspect of biodynamics actually fits right in to my world view these days. So this spring I began to use the preps on the fields and on the plants and in the compost piles I have been building. As  well as planting and tending according the calendar as much as possible. Keeping notes on everything all along.

So what does any of this have to do with salamanders? Well, when I asked Joey how the salamander got in the wheelbarrow he had no idea. He had just dug up some compost from the back side of the pile. So what was a salamander doing in my compost pile???? Not a likely place for one in my mind. So I showed the salamander around introducing her to Dava and Lynn and Michelle and then gently place her back at the back edge of the pile and pulled a big clump of bind weed over her to shade her and keep her moist while she got her bearings back. Then I stepped back and looked at the compost pile wondering about it all.

Later in the day I pulled a book off the shelf and looked up the significance of salamanders as animal totems. Now I don’t put a lot of stock in the idea that when you see an animal its there to tell you something or help out in some way. But neither do I discount it. These days I just try to pay attention to things without drawing conclusions. However, I also can not believe that the salamander just happened to be walking by and decided to stay awhile. Amphibians are all about metamorphosis and transformation and salamanders about much more. The symbolism associated with salamanders includes vision, growth, renewal, transition, adaptability, opportunity, resourcefulness, and balance. Quite a list.  Dava’s vision for Fresh & Wyld fits right in with the symbolism of the salamander.  Metamorphosis of  our food culture, transformation of the land here at the B&B, renewal of small agricultural communities, a culture with vision, adaptability and balance, and personal growth for all who choose to participate. So, for me and for now, it fits to view the salamander as a sign, as a gift, as an active agent helping all of us here at the farmhouse. Blessing to us all.

When I went out to piss at 2:00 the stars were brilliant and it was cold. I knew the oldtimers had been right. It was going to frost in about 2 hours. One farmer I had talked to about the prospect of a coming frost just asked me “Anything you can do about it?”

I started in about covering the tomatoes etc and he just laughed. I realized then what he meant so I told him “nope, not a damn thing.”

“Then don’t worry about it.”

Wisdom learned by alot of years trying to do something about it. I’m pretty sure I’ll go through many episodes of futile anguished efforts to change things I can not. But I hope in the midst of those futile efforts I can remember his words.

I did cover the tomatoes as best I could and Dava harvested 25lbs of not quite ripe ones just in case (we had already harvested over 75lbs of beautiful ripe tomatoes earlier that day) So we did what we could and went in to fix a late dinner. When I went to bed the forecast was still for a low of 39. When I went out to the field at 6:30 my thermometer said it had gone down to 31. You can’t tell if plants have be damage until the sun hits them and so I went to get some coffee.

About 9:00 I went back to look at the pumpkins and winter squash and uncovered the tomatoes.  Sure enough there was some damage but very slight. In the main garden the beans came through untouched but the cucs got hit pretty hard. Just mild damage to our tomatoes. Not bad. I had learned a thing or two and nothing was dead, yet. So I decided to let the garden rest for the day and went fishing.

Its September 6th today. A sun filled crystal day. Beautiful. The morning was cool but warmer than the last few. A nice cool breeze is preventing the garden from feeling hot as we harvest beans, tomatoes, parsley, sage, summer squash, slicing cucumbers, onions, leeks, corn, watermelon, carrots, spinach, chard, kale, arugula, potatoes, and flowers as well as prep a couple of beds for a late sowing of Asian greens. A busy morning full of wonderful reaping  of all we have sowed this past spring and summer.

I was feeling pretty good. I was feeling joyous in fact. It would be hard not to. A wondrous fall day with a nice breeze to keep it from becoming a very hot fall afternoon like yesterday. Surrounded by good folks I now consider to be good friends pulling beans and forking soil and digging into our own first batch of biodynamic compost. Yep, it was a very good day. Until my neighbor Don leans out the window of his truck on his home and says ” Folks say we’re going get a hard freeze tonight.”

“Where’d you hear that?” I asked.

“At the Diner. Just coming back from breakfast”

“Shit!”

Don sympathizes with a shrug and drives on.

If it came from the old timers at the Diner it was most likely true.

I looked at the sun filled sky. Turned my face into the breeze and sniffed it like a dog. I looked at the sky again – all around. Then I looked at all the unripe tomatoes, the beans still going strong, the beautiful Larkspur, Snapdragons, and Cosmos. Shit half the garden was going to need to be protected somehow. Once again I looked at the blue sky, turned my face into the sun and then again felt the breeze – it was a bit cool. Everyone had stopped working and were looking at all the vulnerable vegetables as well. I tell them to hold tight. Get back to what they are doing. “I’ll go check the weather sites.”

After checking out everything I can find on the web I conclude we are in the clear. Some surrounding areas are going to get hit but not us, not here, not tonight. I relax just a bit. But am I wrong? I’m just an over educated dumb kid from the city.  What do those old farts at the Diner know that NOAA doesn’t? Who do I trust? Great technology or a very old but very good nose that smelled something in the breeze this morning that I could not. I wish my dog could talk. I’m sure he knows exactly what is gong to happen. But I know neither does he care -its not relevant to the present situation in which I am ignoring his blatant request to throw the ball.

So I’ll be looking at the sky, feeling the breeze, checking the weather sites, and second guessing everything all day long. How do I find the joy, the calm center, the ease in all that. Perhaps that is today’s lesson presented to me by the garden. Seems like not a day goes by without it offering me up some chance to learn something about it and myself.

When I first moved to this rural agricultural valley it was mid winter. I had rented an off grid strawbale house on a lonely mesa above town. It was just me and my dog Gabe along with the deer, elk, and cougars. I had a 10 minute drive down step narrow snow covered dirt roads on north facing slopes to get to town. It was a familiar and comforting situation for me. I knew the landscape and the lifestyle.

Five months later as spring was giving way to summer I purchased a 4 acre parcel just out side of town. It had a small house, a shop the house could fit inside of, and a 3 acre hay field. And it sat in the middle of hay fields. I had plopped myself down in in the middle of agriculture. It was a landscape I did not know at all. I didn’t know a thing about taking care of a hay field and mine was in rough shape. I had no idea what a headgate, a splitter box, gated pipe, or a catch ditch were though I was told that I now had all these things as well as a leaky pond.

So I wandered down to my new neighbor’s place to ask for some help. My neighbor had lived at the end of this short gravel lane for many years and had a yard full of old cars and tractors neatly lined up and well cared for. He also had two beautiful fields of grass, alfalfa, and crimson clover. So I suspected he knew a thing or three that I didn’t. Perry not only was kind enough to walk my field with me and tell more than I could possibly ever remember about my grass and irrigation system and what needed to be done but he also started in on a complete history of the land and house I had purchased from1930 to the present day. I soon learned you should not have too many plans for the rest of the day when you engage Perry in a conversation.

It wasn’t too much longer till all the fields everywhere were ready for their first cutting. By this time I was riding my bike most evenings exploring all the country roads. And in those evenings I saw men on tractors working those fields till well after dark. I knew they had started well before first light as well. By evening they were hot, dirty and bone tired. Their wives would bring them dinner at dusk. Then they would get back at it. And tomorrow do it all over again. All summer long.

I started to see how hard the ranchers and farmers worked to care for their land. I started to learn how much they love what they do. I started to appreciate how these folks were deeply connected to the land through their hard work. Through their caretaking of the land. As deeply connected as I felt to certain landscapes I have sweated and bled in.  In my years in the cities and the universities I had learned how many of their methods and practices were wasteful and harmful. I rarely ate meat before I moved here out of “principle” I had learned in my intellectual settings. I didn’t see eye to eye with them on alot of things. But I started to see them as honest, caring, generous folks. I started to see that they were most often caretaking  their lands in the best ways they knew and with hard work, sweat and blood. Who was I to tell them anything. So I started to eat their beef and loved every bite.

For me life always feels good as the first hints of fall touch the crisp morning air. And hints of fall are in the air. So after waiting and waiting for our tomatoes to begin to ripen I am now starting to plan how to protect them from the first fall frost. We dug a bed of potatoes last week and I was trying to figure out what to put in next when I realized it was almost September and I would not be putting anything in except a cover crop to overwinter. I think that is when it really hit me. No more sowing of food crops this year except the garlic in late October.

As we harvest the crops this next month (and hopefully October as well) we will begin to prep the garden beds for the early sowings of peas, carrots, spinach, onions, chard, kale, radish, turnips, and on and on. While the beds destined for tomatoes and beans and the like will get sowed with a hairy vetch for overwintering. So in my mind its mid August tomato harvest season, mid September, late October and mid March all at once.  Not to mention the thoughts of what might be hatching this evening at my favorite fishing hole. No wonder I get so much mixed up.

Its both wondrous, joy filled, and sad to pull the crops that have been growing all season. They have been my life the past few months and I will miss them – at least until tonights dinner or until that cold December evening when Dava and I pull out a jar of tomatoes, a few potatoes, and a winter squash for dinner. This summer in the garden will come back to us again and again this winter.

Soon I will be rising in the dark, cold morning to go hike up to some ridge to ski fresh powder. Soon I will be staring tomatoes in flats. Soon I will be planting peas. Soon I will be wishing I hadn’t planted soooo many squash plants. Soon I will be sensing those first hints of  fall in the air. Somehow, someway, I no longer fear this passing of the seasons. This has been one of the many gifts the garden has given to me this year.