Plantin' and Pullin'

Last Saturday morning I worked my first shift at a local, organic community farm near Belmont. The payment for this work is a reduction on the price of my family's box of vegetables we receive every other week. The first one comes Friday. Yum!

Six other people were there to work, five from Madison and one from Platteville. We dressed as told: old clothes and shoes, hats, sunscreen and bug spray. My husband and I used to farm, so I had been looking forward to this activity. I am no horticulturalist, but there's nothing I like better than fooling around in the garden.

Our first task of the day was to plant seeds, onion and fennel, into tiny cubes of soil with holes in the middle. We sat on chairs with trays of dirt on out laps, poured some seeds onto an index card, and used a nail file to push them into their respective holes. The fennel was easy, one per hole, but, the onion, ten little black seeds per hole. Tedious!

Next we went out to the field to weed. Chris, the owner, and our taskmaster for the morning, held up an implement and said, "This is what you'll use to weed the eggplants," and he showed us how to scratch along side of the plants without damaging them. I thought he was being a bit patronizing, until---

"What is that called," one of the women from Madison asked, pointing to the implement.

Big pause. We looked at her. I thought she was kidding. I laughed out loud. Turns out she wasn't kidding.

"This? This is called a ho," Chris said, holding it up again.

I never should have laughed and I'm sorry for it. Here she was, brave enough to come out and dig in the dirt and find out where her food comes from, and I laughed. Like I said, I'm sorry.

Later, we were on our hands and knees weeding the broccoli, and the same woman says, "Hey,what's this weird looking plant? It's fuzzy and prickley and looks kind of like a cactus.

Because I was in the row next to her, I answered: "It's a thistle."

I want you to know I didn't laugh this time. The teacher in me surfaced, and I was patient and understanding. Later, I pointed out a pea plant to her, and a tomato plant, too.

Like I said, I am no horticulturalist or master gardener, but that day I felt like one. If only my back hadn't hurt so much the next day.