Sylvia's Farm by Sylvia Jorrin

Author:Sylvia Jorrin [Jorrín, Sylvia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-57826-470-4
Publisher: Hatherleigh Press
Published: 2013-11-25T16:00:00+00:00

MANGEL-WÜRZELS, ROUGE VIF D’ETAMPES PUMPKINS, AND LEEKS

THE SEARCH for information on planting the root crop mangels, sometimes called mangel-würzels, and subdivided into classifications called Mammoth Red and Golden Tankard, has led me across an ocean as well as caused me to write numerous letters and badger countless extension agents. It was to my great joy that I found, at last, two shepherds at the Royal Agricultural Show in England who fed mangel-würzels to their sheep. They gave me planting information and argued between themselves, to my edification and education, about the relative merits of each type.

This morning’s mail brought me a fall catalog from Smith and Hawkin. I’d bought a pair of barn shoes from them once but nothing else; they are a bit too precious for this farm. The covers are too pretty, however, for me to tell them to stop sending the catalog. As I looked through it, hopefully, finding nothing to covet, suddenly there it was. The barn thermometer of my wildest dreams! With a picture from a French seed packet of a smiling Gallic farmer, red cheeked, stout, holding a formidable mangel under each arm. The Mammoth Red under the right and a Golden Tankard under the left. I want that thermometer. And I want those seeds. Having tracked them down across this continent and the adjacent ocean, the mangels have come to me. It has taken too long. I’ve wanted and needed to extend my ability to feed my stock for a very long time now. I’ve deliberated about planting Jerusalem artichokes and mangels and kale for a number of years. My whole-farm planner, Dan Flaherty, has tried to shy me away from annuals, and while I understand that, it is tempting to try anyway.

For what seems like eons, I’ve wanted a farm stand as well. This year, my tomato investment died because I had to earn some mortgage money away from home and couldn’t keep up with the watering. The leeks survived, however, and are beginning to look good. I don’t want to sell them all, though, as they are almost all that I have from the garden. But hope reigns high at the moment, and I am thinking once more of what to plant next year.

It is barn-shoveling time now, and I’m going to have to put it all somewhere. Why not move it a little farther in the pasture and pile it on an ideal section of field to begin to decompose? I’ve also wanted to do the big fluted dark orange pumpkins for a very long time. They keep exceptionally well, don’t turn to mush when they freeze and thaw, and can be left frozen in the barn and then sliced and fed to the sheep. But where to put them?

I love to walk around this piece of land and think. Unfortunately, it is a slow process. Not the walking. Just the thinking. It seems to take so long to come up with the right solution here. Everywhere I’ve thought to put the farm stand and the pumpkins has never seemed right.

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